Part 7

Capsicum 1 lb Liquorice Root Powder 2 Coriander Seed 2 Copperas 1 Orange Powder 8 Spanish Liquorice 1/2 Beer Colouring 24 galls

Not tried. (7th May, 1818.)

Aug. 6. John Gray, at West Ham.

Multum 4 lbs. Spanish Liquorice 21 Liquorice Root Powder 113 Ginger 116 Honey 11

Penalty, 300_l._, and costs; including mixing strong beer with table, and paying table-beer duty for strong beer, &c.

* * * * *

Numerous other seizures of illegal substances, made at breweries, might be advanced, were it necessary to enlarge this subject to a greater extent.

Mr. James West, from the excise office, being asked in the Committee of the House of Commons, appointed, 1819, to examine and report on the petition of several inhabitants of London, complaining of the high price and inferior quality of beer, produced the following seized articles:--"One bladder of honey, one bladder of extract of cocculus indicus, ground guinea pepper or capsicum, vitriol or copperas, orange powder, quassia, ground beer-heading, hard multum, another kind of multum or beer preparation, liquorice powder, and ground grains of paradise."

Witness being asked "Where did you seize these things?" Answer, "Some of them were seized from brewers, and some of them from brewers' druggists, within these two years past." (May 8, 1818.)

Another fraud frequently committed, both by brewers and publicans, (as is evident from the Excise Report,) is the practice of adulterating strong beer with small beer--This fraud is prohibited by law, since both the revenue and the public suffer by it.[63] "The duty upon strong beer is ten shillings a barrel; and upon table beer it is two shillings. The revenue suffers, because a larger quantity of beer is sold as strong beer; that is, at a price exceeding the price of table beer, without the strong beer duty being paid. In the next place, the brewer suffers, because the retailer gets table or mild beer, and retails it as strong beer." The following are the words of the Act, prohibiting the brewers mixing table beer with strong beer.

"If any common brewer shall mix or suffer to be mixed any strong beer, or strong worts with table beer or table worts, or with water in any guile or fermenting tun after the declaration of the quantity of such guile shall have been made; or if he shall at any time mix or suffer to be mixed strong beer or strong worts with table beer worts or with water, in any vat, cask, tub, measures or utensil, not being an entered guile or fermenting tun, he shall forfeit 200 pounds."[64]

With respect to the persons who commit this offence, Mr. Carr,[65] the Solicitor of the Excise, observes, that "they are generally brewers who carry on the double trade of brewing both strong and table beer. It is almost impossible to prevent them from mixing one with the other; and frauds of very great extent have been detected, and the parties punished for that offence. One brewer at Plymouth evaded duties to the amount of 32,000 pounds; and other brewers, who brew party guiles of beer, carrying on the two trades of ale and table beer brewers, where the trade is a victualling brewer, which is different from the common brewer, he being a person who sells only wholesale; the victualling brewer being a brewer and also a seller by retail."

"In the neighbourhood of London," Mr. Carr continues, "more particularly, I speak from having had great experience, from the informations and evidence which I have received, that the retailers carry on a most extensive fraud upon the public, in purchasing stale table beer, or the bottoms of casks. There are a class of men who go about and sell such beer at table-beer price to public victuallers, who mix it in their cellars. If they receive beer from their brewers which is mild, they purchase stale beer; and if they receive stale beer, they purchase common table beer for that purpose; and many of the prosecutions are against retailers for that offence." The following may serve in proof of this statement.

_List of Brewers prosecuted and convicted from 1813 to 1819, for adulterating Strong Beer with Table Beer._[66]

Thomas Manton and another, brewers, for mixing strong and table beer, verdict 300_l._

Mark Morrell and another, brewers, for mixing strong and table beer, 20_l._ and costs.

Robert Jones and another, brewers, for mixing strong and table beer, verdict 125_l._

Robert Stroad, brewer, for mixing strong and table beer, 200_l._ and costs.

William Cobbett, brewer, mixing strong and table beer, 100_l._ and costs.

Thomas Richard Withers, brewer, for mixing strong and table beer, 75_l._ and costs.

John Cowel, brewer, for mixing table beer with strong, 50_l._ and costs.

John Mitchell, brewer, for mixing table beer with strong, absconded.

George Lloyd and another, brewers, for mixing table beer with strong, 25_l._ and costs.

James Edmunds and another, brewers, for mixing table beer with strong, for a long period, verdict 600_l._

John Hoffman, brewer, for mixing strong and table beer, and using molasses, 130_l._ and costs.

Samuel Langworth, brewer, for mixing strong with stale table beer, 10_l._ and costs.

Hannah Spencer, brewer, for mixing strong with stale table beer, verdict 150_l._

Joseph Smith and others, brewers, for mixing strong and table beer.

Philip George, brewer, for mixing strong and table beer, verdict 200_l._

Joshua Row, brewer, for mixing strong and table beer, verdict 400_l._

John Drew, jun. and another, for mixing strong beer with table, 50_l._ and costs.

John Cape, brewer, for mixing strong and table beer, 250_l._ and costs.

John Williams and another, brewers, for mixing strong and table beer, verdict 200_l._

OLD, OR ENTIRE; AND NEW, OR MILD BEER.

It is necessary to state, that every publican has two sorts of beer sent to him from the brewer; the one is called _mild_, which is beer sent out fresh as it is brewed; the other is called _old_; that is, such as is brewed on purpose for keeping, and which has been kept in store a twelve-month or eighteen months. The origin of the beer called _entire_, is thus related by the editor of the Picture of London: "Before the year 1730, the malt liquors in general used in London were ale, beer, and two-penny; and it was customary to call for a pint, or tankard, of half-and-half, _i.e._ half of ale and half of beer, half of ale and half of two-penny. In course of time it also became the practice to call for a pint or tankard of _three-threads_, meaning a third of ale, beer, and two-penny; and thus the publican had the trouble to go to three casks, and turn three cocks, for a pint of liquor. To avoid this inconvenience and waste, a brewer of the name of Harwood conceived the idea of making a liquor, which should partake of the same united flavours of ale, beer, and two-penny; he did so, and succeeded, calling it _entire_, or entire butt, meaning that it was drawn entirely from one cask or butt; and as it was a very hearty and nourishing liquor, and supposed to be very suitable for porters and other working people, it obtained the name of _porter_." The system is now altered, and porter is very generally compounded of two kinds, or rather the same liquor in two different states, the due admixture of which is palatable, though neither is good alone. One is _mild_ porter, and the other _stale_ porter; the former is that which has a slightly bitter flavour; the latter has been kept longer. This mixture the publican adapts to the palates of his several customers, and effects the mixture very readily, by means of a machine, containing small pumps worked by handles. In these are four pumps, but only three spouts, because two of the pumps throw out at the same spout: one of these two pumps draws the mild, and the other the stale porter, from the casks down in the cellar; and the publican, by dexterously changing his hold works either pump, and draws both kinds of beer at the same spout. An indifferent observer supposes, that since it all comes from one spout, it is entire butt beer, as the publican professes over his door, and which has been decided by vulgar prejudice to be only good porter, though the difference is not easily distinguished. I have been informed by several eminent brewers, that of late, a far greater quantity is consumed of mild than of stale beer.

The entire beer of the modern brewer, according to the statement of C. Barclay,[67] Esq. "consists of some beer brewed expressly for the purpose of keeping: it likewise contains a portion of returns from publicans; a portion of beer from the bottoms of vats; the beer that is drawn off from the pipes, which convey the beer from one vat to another, and from one part of the premises to another. This beer is collected and put into vats. Mr. Barclay also states that it contains a certain portion of brown stout, which is twenty shillings a barrel dearer than common beer; and some bottling beer, which is ten shillings a barrel dearer;[68] and that all these beers, united, are put into vats, and that it depends upon various circumstances, how long they may remain in those vats before they become perfectly bright. When bright, this beer is sent out to the publicans, for their _entire_ beer, and there is sometimes a small quantity of mild beer mixed with it."

The present entire beer, therefore, is a very heterogeneous mixture, composed of all the waste and spoiled beer of the publicans--the bottoms of butts--the leavings of the pots--the drippings of the machines for drawing the beer--the remnants of beer that lay in the leaden pipes of the brewery, with a portion of brown stout, bottling beer, and mild beer.

The old or _entire_ beer we have examined, as obtained from Messrs. Barclay's, and other eminent London brewers, is unquestionably a good compound; but it does no longer appear to be necessary, among fraudulent brewers, to brew beer on purpose for keeping, or to keep it twelve or eighteen months. A more easy, expeditious, and economical method has been discovered to convert any sort of beer into entire beer, merely by the admixture of a portion of sulphuric acid. An imitation of the age of eighteen months is thus produced in an instant. This process is technically called to bring beer _forward_, or to make it _hard_.

The practice is a bad one. The genuine, old, or entire beer, of the honest brewer, is quite a different compound; it has a rich, generous, full-bodied taste, without being acid, and a vinous odour: but it may, perhaps, not be generally known that this kind of beer always affords a less proportion of alcohol than is produced from mild beer. The practice of bringing beer _forward_, it is to be understood, is resorted to only by fraudulent brewers.[69]

If, on the contrary, the brewer has too large a stock of old beer on his hands, recourse is had to an opposite practice of converting stale, half-spoiled, or sour beer, into mild beer, by the simple admixture of an alkali, or an alkaline earth. Oyster-shell powder and subcarbonate of potash, or soda, are usually employed for that purpose. These substances neutralise the excess of acid, and render sour beer somewhat palatable. By this process the beer becomes very liable to spoil.

It is the worst expedient that the brewer can practise: the beer thus rendered _mild_, soon loses its vinous taste; it becomes vapid; and speedily assumes a muddy grey colour, and an exceedingly disagreeable taste.

These sophistications may be considered, at first, as minor crimes practised by fraudulent brewers, when compared with the methods employed by them for rendering beer noxious to health by substances absolutely injurious.

To increase the intoxicating quality of beer, the deleterious vegetable substance, called _cocculus indicus_, and the extract of this poisonous berry, technically called _black extract_, or, by some, _hard multum_, are employed. Opium, tobacco, nux vomica, and extract of poppies, have also been used.

This fraud constitutes by far the most censurable offence committed by unprincipled brewers; and it is a lamentable reflection to behold so great a number of brewers prosecuted and convicted of this crime; nor is it less deplorable to find the names of druggists, eminent in trade, implicated in the fraud, by selling the unlawful ingredients to brewers for fraudulent purposes.

_List of Brewers prosecuted and convicted from 1813 to 1819, for receiving and using illegal Ingredients in their Brewings._[70]

Richard Gardner, brewer, for using adulterating ingredients, 100_l._, judgment by default.

Stephen Webb and another, brewers, for using adulterating ingredients, and mixing strong and table beer, verdict 500_l._

Henry Wyatt, brewer, for using adulterating ingredients, verdict 400_l._

John Harbart, retailer, for receiving adulterating ingredients, verdict 150_l._

Philip Blake and others, brewers, for using adulterating ingredients, and mixing strong and table beer, verdict 250_l._

James Sneed, for receiving adulterating ingredients, 25_l._ and costs.

John Rewell and another, brewers, ditto, verdict 100_l._

John Swain and another, ditto, for using adulterating ingredients, verdict 200_l._

John Ing, brewer, ditto, stayed on defendant's death.

John Hall, ditto, for receiving adulterating ingredients, 5_l._ and costs.

John Webb, retailer, for using adulterating ingredients.

Ralph Fogg and another, brewers, for receiving and using adulterating ingredients.

John Gray, brewer, for using adulterating ingredients, 300_l._ and costs.

Richard Bowman, for using liquid in bladder, supposed to be extract of cocculus, 100_l._

Richard Bowman, brewer, for ditto, 100_l._ and costs.

Septimus Stephens, brewer, for ditto, verdict 50_l._

James Rogers and another, brewer, for ditto, 220_l._ and costs.

George Moore, brewer, for using colouring, 300_l._ and costs.

John Morris, for using adulterating ingredients.

Webb and Ball, for using ginger, Guinea pepper, and brown powder, (name unknown), 1st 100_l._ 2nd 500_l._

Henry Clarke, for using molasses, 150_l._

Kewell and Burrows, for using cocculus india, multum, &c. 100_l._

Allatson and Abraham, for using cocculus india, multum, and porter flavour, 630_l._

Swain and Sewell, for using cocculus india, Guinea-opium, &c. 200_l._

John Ing, for using cocculus india, hard colouring, and honey, _dead_.

William Dean, for using molasses, 50_l._

John Cowell, for using Spanish-liquorice, and mixing table beer with strong beer, 50_l._

John Mitchell, for using cocculus india, vitriol, and Guinea pepper, _left the country_.

Lloyd and Man, for using extract of cocculus, 25_l._

John Gray, for using ginger, hartshorn shavings, and molasses, 300_l._

Jon Hoffman, for using molasses, Spanish juice, and mixing table with strong beer, 130_l._

Rogers and Boon, for using extract of cocculus, multum, porter flavour, &c. 220_l._

---- Betteley, for using wormwood, coriander seed, and Spanish juice, 200_l._

William Lane, brewer, for using wormwood instead of hops, 5_l._ and costs.

* * * * *

That a minute portion of an unwholesome ingredient, daily taken in beer, cannot fail to be productive of mischief, admits of no doubt; and there is reasons to believe that a small quantity of a narcotic substance (and cocculus indicus is a powerful narcotic[71]), daily taken into the stomach, together with an intoxicating liquor, is highly more efficacious than it would be without the liquor. The effect may be gradual; and a strong constitution, especially if it be assisted with constant and hard labour, may counteract the destructive consequences perhaps for many years; but it never fails to shew its baneful effects at last. Independent of this, it is a well-established fact, that porter drinkers are very liable to apoplexy and palsy, without taking this narcotic poison.

If we judge from the preceding lists of prosecutions and convictions furnished by the Solicitor of the Excise[72], it will be evident that many wholesale brewers, as well as retail dealers, stand very conspicuous among those offenders. But the reader will likewise notice, that there are no convictions, in any instance, against any of the eleven great London porter brewers[73] for any illegal practice. The great London brewers, it appears, believe that the publicans alone adulterate the beer. That many of the latter have been convicted of this fraud, the Report of the Board of Excise amply shews.--See p. 129.

The following statement relating to this subject, we transcribe from a Parliamentary document:[74]

Mr. Perkins being asked, whether he believed that any of the inferior brewers adulterated beer, answered, "I am satisfied there are some instances of that."

_Question._--"Do you believe publicans do?" _Answer._--"I believe they do." _Q._--"To a great extent?" _A._--"Yes." _Q._--"Do you believe they adulterate the beer you sell them?" _A._--"I am satisfied there are some instances of that."--Mr. J. Martineau[75] being asked the following

_Question._[76]--"In your judgment is any of the beer of the metropolis, as retailed to the publican, mixed with any deleterious ingredients?"

_Answer._--"In retailing beer, in some instances, it has been."

_Question._--"By whom, in your opinion, has that been done?"

_Answer._--"In that case by the publicans who vend it."

On this point, it is but fair, to the minor brewers, to record also the answers of some officers of the revenue, when they were asked whether they considered it more difficult to detect nefarious practices in large breweries than in small ones.

Mr. J. Rogers being thus questioned in the Committee of the House of Commons,[77] "Supposing the large brewers to use deleterious or any illegal ingredients to such an amount as could be of any importance to their concern, do you think it would, or would not, be more easy to detect it in those large breweries, than in small ones?" his answer was, "more difficult to detect it in the large ones:" and witness being asked to state the reason why, answered, "Their premises are so much larger, and there is so much more strength, that a cart load or two is got rid of in a minute or two." Witness "had known, in five minutes, twenty barrels of molasses got rid of as soon as the door was shut."

Another witness, W. Wells, an excise officer,[78] in describing the contrivances used to prevent detection, stated, that at a brewer's, at Westham, the adulterating substances "were not kept on the premises, but in the brewer's house; not the principal, but the working brewers; it not being considered, when there, as liable to seizure: the brewer had a very large jacket made expressly for that purpose, with very large pockets; and, on brewing mornings, he would take his pockets full of the different ingredients. Witness supposed that such a man's jacket, similar to what he had described, would convey quite sufficient for any brewery in England, as to _cocculus indicus_."

That it may be more difficult for the officers of the excise to detect fraudulent practices in large breweries than in small ones, may be true to a certain extent: but what eminent London porter brewer would stake his reputation on the chance of so paltry a gain, in which he would inevitably be at the mercy of his own man? The eleven great porter brewers of this metropolis are persons of so high respectability, that there is no ground for the slightest suspicion that they would attempt any illegal practices, which they were aware could not possibly escape detection in their extensive establishments. And let it be remembered, that none of them have been detected for any unlawful practices,[79] with regard to the processes of their manufacture, or the adulteration of their beer.

METHOD OF DETECTING THE ADULTERATION OF BEER.

The detection of the adulteration of beer with deleterious vegetable substances is beyond the reach of chemical analysis. The presence of sulphate of iron (p. 134) may be detected by evaporating the beer to perfect dryness, and burning away the vegetable matter obtained, by the action of chlorate of pot-ash in a red-hot crucible. The sulphate of iron will be left behind among the residue in the crucible, which when dissolved in water, may be assayed, for the constituent parts of the salt, namely, iron and sulphuric acid: for the former, by tincture of galls, ammonia, and prussiate of potash; and for the latter, by muriate of barytes.[80]

Beer, which has been rendered fraudulently _hard_ (see p. 148) by the admixture of sulphuric acid, affords a white precipitate (sulphate of barytes), by dropping into it a solution of acetate or muriate of barytes; and this precipitate, when collected by filtering the mass, and after having been dried, and heated red-hot for a few minutes in a platina crucible, does not disappear by the addition of nitric, or muriatic acid. Genuine old beer may produce a precipitate; but the precipitate which it affords, after having been made red-hot in a platina crucible, instantly becomes re-dissolved with effervescence by pouring on it some pure nitric or muriatic acid; in that case the precipitate is malate (not sulphate) of barytes, and is owing to a portion of malic acid having been formed in the beer.

But with regard to the vegetable materials deleterious to health, it is extremely difficult, in any instance, to detect them by chemical agencies; and in most cases it is quite impossible, as in that of cocculus indicus in beer.

METHOD OF ASCERTAINING THE QUANTITY OF SPIRIT CONTAINED IN PORTER, ALE, OR OTHER KINDS OF MALT LIQUORS.

Take any quantity of the beer, put it into a glass retort, furnished with a receiver, and distil, with a gentle heat, as long as any spirit passes over into the receiver; which may be known by heating from time to time a small quantity of the obtained fluid in a tea-spoon over a candle, and bringing into contact with the vapour of it the flame of a piece of paper. If the vapour of the distilled fluid catches fire, the distillation must be continued until the vapour ceases to be set on fire by the contact of a flaming body. To the distilled liquid thus obtained, which is the spirit of the beer, combined with water, add, in small quantities at a time, pure subcarbonate of potash (previously freed from water by having been exposed to a red heat,) till the last portion of this salt added, remains undissolved in the fluid. The spirit will thus become separated from the water, because the subcarbonate of potash abstracts from it the whole of the water which it contained; and this combination sinks to the bottom, and the spirit alone floats on the top. If this experiment be made in a glass tube, about half or three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and graduated into 50 or 100 equal parts, the relative per centage of spirit in a given quantity of beer may be seen by mere inspection.

_Quantity of Alcohol contained in Porter, Ale, and other kinds of Malt Liquors._[81]

One hundred parts, by Measure, Parts of Alcohol, contained. by Measure.

Ale, home-brewed 8,30 Ale, Burton, three Samples 6,25 Ale, Burton[82] 8,88 Ale, Edinburgh[82] 6,20 Ale, Dorchester[82] 5,50 Ale, common London-brewed, } six samples } 5,82 Ale, Scotch, three samples 5,75 Porter, London, eight samples 4,00 Ditto, Ditto[83] 4,20 Ditto, Ditto[83] 4,45 Ditto, Ditto, bottled. 4,75 Brown Stout, four samples 5 Ditto, Ditto[83] 6,80 Small Beer, six samples 0,75 Ditto, Ditto[84] 1,28

FOOTNOTES:

[48] See pages 119, &c.

[49] Child, on Brewing Porter, p. 7.

[50] Child, on Brewing Porter, p. 16.

[51] Ibid. p. 16.

[52] "Minutes of the Committee of the House of Commons, to whom the petition of several inhabitants of London and its vicinity, complaining of the high price and inferior quality of beer, was referred, to examine the matter thereof, and to report the same, with their observations thereupon, to the House. Printed by order of the House of Commons, April, 1819."

[53] 56 Geo. III. c. 2.

[54] Copied from the Minutes of the Committee of the House of Commons, appointed for examining the price and quality of Beer.--See pages 18, 29, 30, 31, 36, 43.