England Archives - Brookston Beer Bulletin

Historic Beer Birthday: Louis de Luze Simonds

May 20, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Louis de Luze Simonds (May 20, 1852-1916). Though he was born in New York, at 19 his father, Frederick William Simonds, and his uncle, Henry Adolphus Simonds (who was a partner in the family brewery H & G Simonds) decided he would be groomed to take over the UK brewery since Uncle Louis had no heirs. He moved to England and began working for the brewery in 1872, and later became chairman, a post he held until his death from the flu epidemic in 1916.

The Simonds family maintains a website chronicling their brewery and members of the family through history, which includes a biography of Louis de Luze Simonds.

“The Simonds brewery was founded in Broad Street in Reading by William Blackall Simonds in 1785 (although his father had a brewing arm of his malting business as early as 1760). The company moved to Bridge Street, where it remained until 1978. The site is now occupied by The Oracle shopping centre. Simonds became a very early limited company in 1885, taking the name of H & G Simonds from William’s two sons, Henry and George. The latter was the father of a later director, George Blackall Simonds, a sculptor.”

“The company amalgamated with Courage & Barclay in 1960 and dropped the Simonds name after ten years. Eventually the firm became part of Scottish & Newcastle who sold the brands to Wells & Young’s Brewery in 2007 and closed the Reading brewery three years later.”

Historic Beer Birthday: John Hinchliffe

May 19, 2022 By Jay Brooks 1 Comment

Today is the birthday of John Hinchliffe (May 19, 1850-March 18, 1915). His father, also named John Hinchliffe, was born in Yorkshire, England but moved to New Jersey and founded the Hinchliffe Brewing & Malting Company in 1863. The brewery eventually employed his three sons, including John Hinchliffe Jr., who was later president. In 1890, it joined a consolidation of five local breweries in Paterson which became known as the Paterson Brewing & Malting Co. The brewery was closed by prohibition and never reopened.

This obituary comes from the American Brewers Review in 1915:

This brewery history is from the Paterson Historic Preservation Society:

The Hinchliffe Brewing & Malting Company was one of at least a dozen of breweries to operate out of Paterson in the pre-Prohibition Era. Owned and operated by John Hinchliffe & sons, who had previously founded the Eagle Brewery in Paterson in 1861 (on the Eve of the Civil War), Hinchliffe Brewing built the impressive brick structure that still stands on Governor Street in 1899. Designed by Charles Stoll & Son, notable “brewer’s architects” from Brooklyn, New York, building lasted eight months and once completed she was the largest in the city. Advertising broadsides from the era feature products such as their “East India Ale,” Porters, and Brown Stouts. The Brewery had a three-story ice factory located behind it, and at full capacity could produce 75,000 barrels per year. In 1917, the Brewery was converted to cold storage for supplies headed to the battlefields of World War I.

Glassware and advertising from Hinchliffe Brewery are considered collectibles due to their pre-Prohibition origins. Unfortunately, the Brewery would not survive the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act, as the Hinchliffe family closed operations to conform with the law of the land.

And this history is by Peter Blum:

And this is from the City of Paterson, New Jersey’s website:

The Hinchliffe Brewing and Malting Company was formed in 1890 by the well-known Hinchliffe brothers, the three sons of the English founder of the Eagle Brewery in 1861. The Eagle was likely the earliest medium-scale brewery in Paterson. John Hinchliffe began under the name Hinchliffe & Co., and was later changed to Shaw, Hinchliffe & Penrose in 1867 following association with those gentlemen. While business did well, in 1878 Penrose withdrew from the firm to which then the name changed to Shaw & Hinchliffe. Soon afterward in 1881, Shaw went abroad due to illness and died there, leaving the firm under its founder, John Hinchliffe, who again was alone in the endeavor until his death in 1886. His sons John, William and James inherited the property and the business, to which they put their minds and in 1890 set out together. They hired the well-known firm of Charles Stoll & Son of Brooklyn to draw up plans for the city’s largest and most modern brewing facility. The brew house stood five stories tall, built of brick and iron and trimmed with granite, and behind was a modern ice making facility three stories tall. A four-story cold storage facility was also constructed at the time fronting Governor Street.

The 1890s was the high time for the brewing industry in Paterson. The four main breweries in Paterson consolidated as the Paterson Consolidated Brewing Co. and in 1899 the Hinchliffe brothers also joined and became board leaders of the organization. John Hinchliffe died in 1915, the same year that more than 30 of Paterson’s saloons were closed due to the lack business. The brewing industry in Paterson was soon thereafter crippled and dissolved by the Temperance movement and prohibition era of the 1920-30s.

On January 15, 1904, a fire broke out at the Hinchcliffe Brewery Malt House. One firefighter died when he fell from a ladder during efforts to put out the blaze, and at least three others were injured. The website Paterson Fire History has photographs and newspaper clippings from the fire.

Historic Beer Birthday: Gilbert Greenall, 1st Baronet

May 11, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Gilbert Greenall (May 11, 1806-July 10, 1894). He was the grandson of Thomas Greenall, who founded Greenall’s Brewery in 1762. While mostly involved in politics, Gilbert did assume control of the brewery after his father died, and also had numerous other business interests.

This is his biography from his Wikipedia page:

Sir Gilbert Greenall, 1st Baronet DL, was a British businessman and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1847 and 1892.

Greenall was the sixth and youngest son of Edward Greenall of Walton Hall, Cheshire. His grandfather was Thomas Greenall, who had established a brewery in St Helen’s in 1762, on which the family wealth was based. Greenall assumed control of the family brewery business and also had interests in the St Helens Canal and Railway Company and in Parr, Lyons and Greenall Bank, based in Warrington. He was and a J.P. for Lancashire and Cheshire.

In 1847 Greenall was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Warrington, a seat he held until 1868, when he was unseated through an error of the Mayor’s poll-clerk. In 1873 he was appointed High Sheriff of Cheshire and in 1874, he was reelected MP for Warrington. In 1876 he was created a Baronet, of Walton Hall in the County of Chester. He lost his seat at Warrington in 1880, but was re-elected in 1885 and remained until he retired at the 1892 general election.

Greenall married, firstly, Mary, daughter of David Claughton, in 1836. After her death in 1861 he married, secondly, Susannah, daughter of John Lovis Rapp. He died in July 1894, aged 88, and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his only son from his first marriage, Gilbert, who was created Baron Daresbury in 1927. Susannah, Lady Greenall, died in 1896.

Here’s a history of the brewery, from Wikipedia:

Greenall’s Brewery was founded by Thomas Greenall in 1762. Initially based in St Helens, the company relocated to Warrington in 1787.

It bought the Groves & Whitnall Brewery in Salford in 1961, Shipstone’s Brewery in Nottingham in 1978 and Davenport’s Brewery in Birmingham in 1986. For much of the 20th century, the company traded as Greenall Whitley & Co Limited. The St Helens brewery was demolished in the 1970s to make way for a new shopping centre. The Warrington brewery on the edge of Stockton Heath was bought by Bruntwood, renamed Wilderspool Business Park and is now let to office occupiers.

The company ceased brewing in 1991 to concentrate on running pubs and hotels.

In 1999, the tenanted wing of the Greenall’s operation was sold to the Japanese bank, Nomura for £370 million and the main Greenall’s operation, involving 770 pubs and 69 budget lodges, was sold to Scottish and Newcastle for £1.1billion. Greenalls started to focus its resources on its De Vere and Village Leisure hotel branding at that time.

In February 2005, Greenalls sold The Belfry to The Quinn Group for £186 million.

The Greenall family connection remained as Lord Daresbury, the descendant of the original founder, remained the non-executive chairman. This tie was severed in 2006 when Daresbury stepped down from the post and much of the family’s interest was sold.

The Greenall, Whitley & Co. Ltd. Brewery, in St. Helens, in 1902.

And this is from Funding Universe:

Patriarch Thomas Greenall learned the brewing trade from his wife’s family in the 1750s and founded his own brewery in northwestern England at St. Helens in 1762. Brewing was a highly competitive business, with rivals ranging from the lone homebrewer to inns and pubs that brewed their own ales to wholesale brew masters like Greenall. Though the founder dabbled in nail making, coal mining, and yarn spinning throughout the late 18th century, brewing remained the family’s core interest. By the turn of the century, Thomas had brought sons Edward, William, and Peter into the business. The Greenalls began to purchase their own pubs and inns as early as 1800, helping to accelerate a gradual elimination of their competition. In Britain, it was customary for bars owned by breweries to carry only the beers brewed by the parent company. For nearly two centuries, these “tied houses” were a profitable segment of Greenall’s business.

In 1788, Greenall formed a separate partnership with William Orrett and Thomas Lyon to purchase the Saracen’s Head Brewery in nearby Wilderspool. Business was so good that within just three years the three partners undertook a £4,400 expansion of the operation.

The family business interests endured a rapid succession of generations in the first two decades of the 19th century. In 1805, both Thomas Greenall and William Orrett died. By 1817, the passing of William and Peter Greenall left only Edward to operate the growing St. Helens brewery. Just a year later, Thomas Lyon died. His nephew and heir, also Thomas, was interested in the Wilderspool brewery only as an investment. In 1818, 60-year-old Edward assigned eldest son Thomas to manage the family’s half interest in Wilderspool and charged younger son Peter with management of the family brewery at St. Helens.

While Peter pursued politics, eventually winning election to Parliament, Thomas proved to be the brewer of his generation. By this time, the family businesses had grown to the point that the Greenalls served as chairmen, guiding the overall direction of the company but leaving daily management concerns to other top executives. Throughout this period, ownership of the pubs and inns through which Greenall’s porters, sparkling ales, and bitters were dispensed was a key to maintaining a strong competitive position.

And this is Greenall Whitley & Co’s., Wilderspool Brewery, in Warrington in 1887.

And continuing Funding Universe’s history, this portion, entitled “Consolidation of Family Holdings in Mid-19th Century” is where Gilbert comes in and runs the company:

When both Peter and Thomas died in the late 1840s, their younger brother, Parliamentarian Gilbert Greenall, inherited the family’s St. Helens and Wilderspool holdings. Gilbert appointed his nephew, John Whitley, to manage the Wilderspool brewery in 1853 and set out himself to rebuild, retool, and enlarge the St. Helens operation mid-decade.

Longtime silent partner Thomas Lyon died in 1859 and his estate sold his stake in the Wilderspool brewery to Gilbert Greenall, making the Greenall family the sole owners of both the St. Helens and the Wilderspool operations. Gilbert marked the occasion by changing the unified firm’s name to Greenall & Company. Not long thereafter, Greenalls eliminated its last major local competitor by acquiring the Dentons Green Brewery in St. Helens. In 1880, Gilbert (who was made a baronet in 1876 by Queen Victoria) merged the St. Helens and Wilderspool breweries as Greenall Whitley & Company Limited and installed himself as the corporation’s first chairman. Though operating under the same corporate umbrella, the two houses retained their separate identities and brands. By 1882, Greenall’s annual sales volume totaled nearly 90,000 barrels of beer and the company owned about 200 pubs.

Sir Gilbert guided the expansion and modernization of the Wilderspool brewery as well as a flurry of acquisitions in the waning years of the 19th century. His four-year, £6,750 modernization program brought in state-of-the-art brewing and bottling equipment, upgraded the company’s railway access, and expanded the operation’s office space. Acquisitions included the Halewood, Richardson’s, and Spring breweries, bringing with them more than two dozen pubs. A rapid series of untimely deaths accelerated the family’s succession plans when in the space of just two years both Sir Gilbert and his second-in-command, Peter Whitley, died, propelling the chairman’s son, also Gilbert, into the leadership of two growing breweries at the young age of 27.

The new chairman suffered a trial by fire in the first two decades of the 20th century. He began the transition from horse-drawn transportation to gasoline-driven vehicles as early as 1908, adopting some of the first vehicles of their type. World War I brought extreme deprivation to the United Kingdom. Rationing of all foods–including brewing ingredients–and manpower shortages made this period a difficult one for Greenall Whitley, but the company emerged from the conflict unscathed.

The St. Helens brewery in the 1930s.

Greenall Whitley resumed its acquisition strategy in the period between the World Wars, purchasing nine pubs in 1919 alone. Four years later, the brewery diversified into wine and liquors through the acquisition of Gilbert & John Greenall Limited, a distillery owned by another branch of the family. Though the business remained concentrated in the northwest region of Britain, acquisitions gave Greenall Whitley a growing share of the area’s breweries and pubs in the early 1930s. The purchase of three operations in as many years added nearly 90 ale houses and inns to the company roster.

After four decades as chairman, Lord Gilbert Greenall (who had been given the hereditary title First Baron Daresbury of Walton by King George V in 1927) died in 1938, passing leadership of Greenall Whitley to his son Edward. In his nine years of service to the company, Edward made a special effort to restore and preserve the company’s historic pubs, as well as maintain high standards of quality in the breweries.

Historic Beer Birthday: Robert Cain

April 29, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Robert Cain (April 29, 1826-July 19, 1907). He “was the founder of the firm Robert Cain and Sons, a brewer in Liverpool, England,” which today is simply known as Cains.

This is his biography from his Wikipedia page:

He was born on Spike Island, County Cork, Ireland on 29 April 1826, the son of James Cain (1797–1871), a private soldier in the 88th Foot, a regiment of the British Army. There is some dispute over the identity of Cain’s mother. Later family records and stories claim that his mother was Mary Deane, the daughter of Alexander Deane, an architect and mayor of Cork. However, in the entry for his brother William in the Liverpool register of births his mother’s maiden name is listed as Mary Kirk (died 1864).

The story of the life of Robert Cain and Cains Brewery is told in Christopher Routledge’s 2008 history of the brewery, Cains: The Story of Liverpool in a Pint, which unpicks many of the mythologies that have developed around the Cain family. Many of these mythologies seem to date back to the 1920s and 1930s, when Cain’s sons William Cain and Charles Nall-Cain were given titles in the British honours system, and centre on the idea that the brewery’s founder had a background in the Irish gentry. Such a background would have made his sons more acceptable to the British establishment at the time. However, according to Routledge, Robert Cain was born in poverty in 1826, the son of a private soldier who would soon be forced to leave the army and travel to England to find work. Cain arrived in Liverpool with his parents in late 1827 or early 1828 and grew up in the slums of the Islington area of the city with his older sister Hannah and two younger siblings, Mary and William. When he was in his early teens Cain was indentured to a cooper on board a ship carrying palm oil from West Africa.

After working out his indenture Cain returned to Liverpool in 1844 where he set himself up first as a cooper and soon after, as a brewer. According to Routledge he met Ann Newall, the daughter of James Newall, a shoemaker, and they were married on 4 April 1847 in St. Philip’s Church, Hardman Street, Liverpool. He began brewing around 1848 on Limekiln Lane in the Scotland Road area, but soon expanded his operation to a nearby brewery on Wilton Street and finally moved to the existing Mersey Brewery (now known as the Robert Cain Brewery or Cains Brewery) on Stanhope Street, Liverpool in 1858. At the same time as he was developing his brewing business, Cain also made shrewd property deals and ran a hotel near to the brewery on Stanhope Street; as the company grew it expanded by buying out smaller brewers and taking control of their pubs.

Cain became one of Liverpool’s most successful businessmen with a passion for using the most modern techniques and equipment. He expanded the brewery several times, most notably in 1887 and in 1900–1902, when the landmark redbrick part of the brewery was constructed. By the time of his death on 19 July 1907 Cain was one of Britain’s richest men, leaving a personal estate of £400,000 (around £28 million at 2005 prices). He also had political influence, working behind the scenes to help the Conservative Party maintain control of Liverpool throughout the late nineteenth century. In fact he was so influential in the area of Toxteth Park, Liverpool where he lived that he became known as “King of the Toxteths”. Contemporary reports of his funeral and burial at St. James’s Cemetery suggest as many as 3,000 people attended.

The company, Robert Cain and Sons, owned over 200 pubs in Liverpool but is most notable for having built three of the most gloriously extravagant pubs in Britain: The Philharmonic Dining Rooms, The Vines and The Central. These highly ornate and elaborate pubs, built to celebrate Robert Cain’s own success and to demonstrate the skill of Liverpool craftsmen, remain landmark Liverpool buildings in the twenty-first century.

And this partial history is from the brewery’s Wikipedia page:

The Cains brewery was founded by Irishman Robert Cain in 1858 when he bought an established brewery. Cain had begun his brewing career aged 24 when he purchased a pub and brewed his own ales.

Within 25 years of founding his brewery, Cain had established 200 pubs, including the Philharmonic Dining Rooms, the Vines and the Central Commercial Hotel, which are currently listed as being of architectural merit. His personal mansion had each window arch inscribed with his monogram. In 1887 construction began on a second brewery.

In 1921, 14 years after Cain’s death, the Cains brewery merged with Walkers of Warrington, becoming Walker Cains. Then in 1923 the original Stanhope Street Brewery was sold to Higsons, who continued to brew Cains ales.

In 1985, Higsons was bought by Boddingtons of Manchester. Five years later Boddingtons opted to concentrate on pub ownership and sold all its breweries to Whitbread, at which point the Stanhope Street site was closed.

The company merged with Peter Walker & Son in 1921 to form Walker Cains. Peter Walker & Son had a large brewery in Warrington so sold its Liverpool brewery to Higsons in 1923. Boddingtons of Manchester took over in 1985. In 1990 Whitbread acquired Boddington’s brewing operations and closed the then Higsons Brewery in 1990. It was reopened by GB Breweries, who became part of Bryggerigruppen in 1991, and in 2002 was sold to Gardener-Shaw for £3.4 million.

The brewery closed in June 2013 with debts totalling more than £8m.

This account is from the Brewery’s website:

Liverpool in the first half of the 19th Century was one of the world’s most thriving ports – awash with visitors from all over the globe, money and opportunity.

This was reflected in the stunning rise of Robert Cain, from an entrepreneurial 24-year-old brewing his own ale in one pub, to a rich and influential businessman with the title of Lord Brocket and an estate of 200 pubs.

Purchasing the brewery and establishing Cains in 1858, he commissioned the current premises around 30 years later, determined that the business would endure a lot longer than he could.

And so his legacy is still evident today, not only in the beers which still bear his name, but in the distinctive design of the brewery itself – The ‘Terracotta Palace’ – and the stunning interiors of famous Liverpool pubs such as The Vines, The Central Commercial Hotel and The Philharmonic Dining Rooms, all listed as having special architectural merit.

Born in County Cork, Robert Cain took the path of many poor Irish immigrants and arrived in Liverpool to seek his fortune.

As a wide-eyed teenager arriving in the bustling city he could never have imagined a life which would see him create an enduring Liverpool brand, become wealthy, accept the title of Lord Brocket and marry the daughter of a former Lord Mayor of Liverpool.

When he died in 1907, over 3,000 people are reputed to have attended his funeral.

So how did this man make his fortune, what drove him to continually thrive to make his brewery, pubs and beers the most tasteful and memorable they could be?

Determined to establish the brewery, Robert Cain started with one pub at the age of 24, brewing his beer on the premises and saving towards the brewery he desperately needed to achieve his dream.

As well as this determination, Robert Cain was a perfectionist and a man with a strong belief in himself. If something had his name associated with it, he wanted it to be stylish and impeccable.

Even his self-designed home had his own initials etched into the glass of every single window.

It was this characteristic which led to the detail he insisted on in his pubs. Detail which has seen celebrated venues such as The Philharmonic Dining Rooms as famous for their ornate marble lavatories and incredible ceilings as they are for their beers.

He certainly left everyone involved with the brewery over the next two centuries a lot to live up to.

And this account is by Chris Routledge, from his book Cains: The Story of Liverpool in a Pint, and provided to St. James Cemetery in Liverpool:

Robert Cain was born on April 29, 1826 on Spike Island, which is in the entrance to Cork Harbour on the south coast of Ireland. His father James Cain was a soldier in the 88th Regiment of the British Army, known as the 88th Foot “Connaught Rangers.” After his father left the army because of ill health the family moved to Liverpool and Robert went to sea on the Palm oil ships working the West African coast. Palm oil had replaced slaves as Liverpool’s primary trade with that part of Africa and the conditions were hostile and unpleasant. Many sailors died in minor battles and skirmishes, or from Malaria; it was known as the “white man’s graveyard.”

Robert Cain survived his time at sea and arrived in Liverpool in the late 1840s to set himself up as a brewer. He married Ann Newall, the daughter of a shoemaker in 1847 and in 1850 the couple began brewing on Limekiln Lane in the Scotland Road/Vauxhall area of the city. Within a few years the quality of Cain’s brews was such that he expanded the operation, moving to a small brewery on nearby Wilton Street. By 1858 the brewery needed to expand again and supported by his growing collection of pubs Cain bought Hindley’s brewery on Stanhope Street, Toxteth, where the current Cain’s brewery now stands.

The Stanhope Street brewery, which Cain named the Mersey Brewery, was much larger than Cain’s previous breweries and included a great deal of brewing equipment. Over the following decades Cain updated and developed the site, pulling down nearby court-style slum housing to expand. By the 1880s, when Cain and his large family (he had 11 children) were living in a mansion on Aigburth Road, the brewery was one of the largest in the city. Cain himself was an important figure in the powerful Constitutional Association and had considerable influence on local politics. He recruited brewery workers to campaign on behalf of Conservative candidates for the Council and became known as “King of the Toxteths.” He was generally well-liked and respected by his workers and the Cain family were well known in the area of Aigburth and St. Michaels.

Like other Victorian gentlemen Cain enjoyed having his portrait painted and was a patron of the arts. He sat for the well-known Liverpool artist William Daniels for at least two portraits and was also painted by George Hall Neale, a Manx painter who lived and worked in Liverpool in the late nineteenth century. Cain was also a collector of rare plants and was especially fond of orchids.

By 1896, when the company became Robert Cain and Sons Ltd, Cain was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the city. Cain’s “Superior Ales and Stouts” were available across Liverpool. After the death of his wife he moved to an even larger house near Hoylake and was followed by most of his children, who lived in their own flamboyant mansions nearby. As the twentieth century began Cain began to move control of the business to his sons Charles and William, who later became noted philanthopists, supporting medical charities, including the Women’s Hospital and the Bluecoat Hospital, as well as providing money for aircraft during World War I. William Cain donated his house at Hoylake, known as Wilton Grange, to the nation as a convalescent home for injured officers. Both sons became baronets and Charles Cain became Lord Brocket in 1933.

Robert Cain fell ill in late 1906 and after six months of declining health he died at home on July 19, 1907 during a heatwave. His lavish funeral on July 23 took place on a day of thunderstorms and torrential rain, but despite the bad weather a crowd of three thousand attended and had to be restrained by the police at the gates of St James’s. Official mourners included aldermen, city dignitaries and businessmen, including the brewer Daniel Higson, whose company would later buy Cain’s brewery and operate it for almost 70 years. Also in attendance was Cain’s friend George Hall Neale. Interestingly Cain’s father James, who died in poverty in 1871, and with whom Cain had very little contact after the 1840s, is also buried separately at St. James’s.

Historic Beer Birthday: Matthew Vassar

April 29, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Matthew Vassar (April 29, 1792-June 23, 1868). Vassar was born in England, specifically in East Dereham, Norfolk. While he’s best know for having founded one of the first women’s colleges in America, Vassar College, the money came from operating his brewery, M. Vassar & Co., which when he first built it in Poughkeepsie it was the largest brewery in the Americas.

Here’s a short biography from Find a Grave:

Business Magnate. Self-made man with only a very basic formal education. When his father’s brewery burned in 1811 and he discontinued business, Matthew Vassar started his own brewery independently. As business increased he became involved in many things. Among others, in 1842 he became President of the Hudson River Railroad. In 1861, inspired by a niece, he endowed the first women’s college in the United States, with $408,000 and 200 acres of land east of Poughkeepsie which is where present-day Vassar College still stands. A lasting legacy for him which is also humorously embodied in an old song, “And so you see, to old V.C. Our love shall never fail. Full well we know that all we owe To Matthew Vassar’s ale.”

For much more thorough biographies, there’s Wikipedia, the Vassar Encyclopedia, and the Vassar Quarterly has a long article about the brewery, The Brew that Built Vassar.

There’s also another piece in a blog concentrating on the Hudson Valley, The Rise and Fall of M. Vassar and Co..

This is the larger brick brewery on the waterfront Vassar built in 1836, just above the Main Street Landing. The waterfront facility had a brewing capacity of 60,000 barrels annually.

Portrait of Matthew Vassar, by Charles Loring Elliott.

Beer Birthday: Des De Moor

April 20, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the 61st birthday of Des de Moor, who’s a London-based freelance beer writer. I honestly can’t recall exactly when we met, but we’ve been judging together at beer competitions and attending other beer events around the world for a number of years, and Des is great fun to share a pint with. He’s also the author of the CAMRA Guide to London’s Best Beer Pubs & Bars. Join in wishing Des a very happy birthday.

Des having a Harvey’s Sussex Bitter at The Royal Oak earlier this year for his Flagship February essay.

And this is his Flagship February shot from 2019.

Historic Beer Birthday: Joseph Bramah

April 13, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Joseph Bramah (April 13, 1748-December 9, 1814). Bramah was an English engineer, and inventor, whose most famous invention was the hydraulic press. But he also made improvements and created a practical beer engine, creating his beer pump and engine inventions between 1785 and 1797.

Another summary of his achievements is quite flattering:

English engineer and inventor whose lock manufacturing shop was the cradle of the British machine-tool industry. Central in early Victorian lockmaking and manufacturing, he influenced almost every mechanical trade of the time. Like Henry Ford, his influence was probably greater for the manufacturing processes he developed, than the product itself. He took out his first patent on a safety lock (1784) and in 1795 he patented his hydraulic press, known as the Bramah press, used for heavy forging. He devised a numerical printing machine for bank notes and was one of the first to suggest the practicability of screw propellers and of hydraulic transmission. He invented milling and planing machines and other machine tools, a beer-engine (1797), and a water-closet.

As for the actual patents, there were two of them. The first was in 1785 and was for what he called a “beer pump.” Then, in 1793 he was granted Patent No. 2196 for his improved version, now referred to as a “beer engine.” It was actually a Dutchman, John Lofting, who had first invented the beer pump in 1688, but Bramah’s were more refined and practical, and more importantly, patented. Curiously, Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History lists the patent dates as 1787 and 1797, so it’s unclear which are the correct dates.

In this engraving, entitled Men of Science Living in 1807-8, Bramah is on the left side, the tenth one in the back from the left. He’s the one with the wide sash across his chest and the star-shaped badge on his jacket. Others include Joseph Banks, Henry Cavendish and James Watt.

There’s even a J.D. Wetherspoon’s pub in his home town of Bramley called The Joseph Bramah

Historic Beer Birthday: Ralph Thrale

April 9, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Ralph Thrale (1698-April 9, 1758). Thrale’s exact date of birth is not known, but he died today in 1758, so that’s why I’m celebrating his birthday today. He was born in Offley, Hertfordshire, England, the son of Ralph Thrale, a Cottager originally from Sandridge who moved to Offley. His uncle brought him to London around 1711 after his father died (when he was only 13) to work at his Anchor Brewery, in Southwark, in the central part of the city, and eventually he became the Master of The Brewers Company, having bought the brewery after his uncle’s death. He was also a Member of Parliament from 1741-1747 and also High Sheriff for Surrey from 1733-34.

Portrait of Ralph Thrale by Thomas Hudson.

This is his short biography from the History of Parliament:

The son of ‘a hardworking man at Offley’, Thrale was brought to London by his uncle, Edmund Halsey, the owner of the Anchor brewery at Southwark, who ‘said he would make a man of him, and did so but … treated him very roughly’, making him work ‘at six shillings a week for twenty years’. He soon ‘made himself so useful … that the weight of the business fell entirely on him’, and he was expected to succeed to the brewery.1 But he fell out with his uncle by marrying ‘a wench that Halsey wanted to have for his own pleasure’, and was cut off.2On Halsey’s death in 1729, the Anchor brewery was put up for sale. According to Mrs. Piozzi, Thrale’s daughter-in-law,

to find a purchaser for so large a property was a difficult matter, and after some time, it was suggested that it would be advisable to treat with Thrale, a sensible, active, honest man, who had been long employed in the house, and to transfer the whole to him for £30,000, security being taken upon the property. This was accordingly settled. In eleven years Thrale paid the purchase money. He acquired a large fortune. But what was most remarkable was the liberality with which he used his riches.

Returned as an opposition Whig for Southwark, the brewers’ constituency, he voted against the Government on the chairman of the elections committee in 1741 and on the Hanoverians in 1744, was absent from other recorded divisions, did not stand again, and died 8 Apr. 1758.

Thrale’s Anchor Brewery around 1785.

This mention of Ralph Thrale’s involvement in the Anchor Brewery is from “A History of Beer and Brewing,” by Ian Spencer Hornsey:

This is the entry for Barclay, Perkins & Co. Ltd, which at one time had been Thrale’s Anchor Brewery, from “The Brewing Industry: A Guide to Historical Records,” edited by Lesley Richmond, Alison Turton, published in 1990:

The Anchor Brewery around 1820.

And finally, the famous English writer Charles Dickens, during the period when he was writing many of his major works, “he was also the publisher, editor, and a major contributor to the journals Household Words (1850–1859) and All the Year Round (1858–1870). In “Volume V, from March 30, 1861 to September 21, 1861,” in a piece entitled “Queen of the Blue Stockings,” from April 20, 1861, Ralph Thrale is mentioned in a history of the Barclay Perkins brewery to give context to his tale:

A marker where Thrale’s brewery once stood in central London.

Historic Beer Birthday: Thomas Dawes

April 8, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Thomas Dawes (April 8, 1785-February 11, 1863). He was born in Ambleside, Cumbria, England, but emigrated to Canada in 1808, eventually settling in Montreal. After working in breweries, he founded the Dawes Brewing around 1811 and it remained in the family until 1952.

This biography of Dawes is from the Musee de Lachine website in Montreal, Quebec’s exhibition on Black Horse Beer entitled “Pour boire il faut vendre” (To get a drink you have to sell):”

Born in Ambleside, England, Thomas Dawes (about 1775-1863) was the eldest of six children. He arrived in Canada in his early thirties, in 1808. In 1811, he settled in the area of Montréal called Côte des Argoulets (today’s Verdun borough), where he found work at a brewery run by Joseph Chapman. The brewing business suited him, it seems, since it became his lifelong career.
Thomas Dawes married Charlotte Weller in 1817, with Joseph Chapman and James Ogilvie as witnesses. The Dawes and Ogilvie families appear to have been friends. The connection was confirmed a few years later when, on April 21, 1826, Thomas Dawes and his associate Archibald Ogilvie bought from Stephen Finchlay a parcel of land southwest of Montréal, near what is now 28th Avenue in Lachine. Banking on his experience, Dawes set out to operate a farm and a brewery on the 4-acre by 30-acre lot.

This account of the brewery and the Dawes family is a Google translation from “Historie du Quebec:”

The name Dawes evokes one of the most famous breweries in Quebec. It was in 1811 that Thomas Dawes founded the Dawes Brewery, which was Lachine’s first industrial enterprise. Dawes is the third brewery on the island of Montreal, after the Molson brewery , founded in 1786, and the Dunn brewery , which appeared in 1809.
The Dawes Brewery is a family business, and no less than four generations of Dawes manage it, before selling the company to Canadian Breweries .
After Thomas Dawes, his sons James P. Dawes and Thomas A. Dawes took over. The third generation is represented by Andrew J. Dawes and James P. Dawes Jr. The fourth, by Norman Dawes, who has run the brewery for decades. But he sold it in 1952.
The Dawes were involved in the development of Lachine. Indeed, Thomas A. Dawes was mayor of Lachine from 1868 to 1869, while Andrew J. Dawes held this position from 1888 to 1893. It was the Dawes who funded the foundation of the Lachine General Hospital and of several churches , the tram network and the installation of the first Lachine telegraph line.
In addition, the Dawes family was among the founders of the Société d’Assurance Automobile du Québec , created in 1904 under the name of the Automobile Club of Canada . Andrew J. Dawes also headed Bell Canada, the Merchant Bank and other large companies. In addition, the Dawes imported and raised black percherons and contributed to the improvement of this horse breed. It will be remembered that it was Percherons who ensured the delivery of the beer and that they thus became the symbol of the Dawes brewery thanks to Black Horse beer .
In 1862, the Dawes built their imposing family home in Lachine (which was not sold until 1940). Around the Dawes area, large fields were devoted to the cultivation of barley and hops.
The decline of the Dawes brewery began in 1909, when sixteen Quebec breweries merged into the National Breweries Ltd. consortium. But the Dawes Brewery survived this ordeal, even if the company felt the effects of American prohibition in the 1920s. In 1939, it became the Dawes Black Horse Brewery, recalling its most famous beer.
In 1944, the Dawes proposed a merger with Molson, but the latter refused for fear of establishing a monopoly. The National Breweries Ltd. consortium was finally sold in 1952. It was bought by Canadian Breweries . The group is renamed Dow Brewery (moreover, the Dow Brewery had already existed for years, it was the designation for the whole consortium). The Dawes Black Horse Brewery disappears, as does the great Dawes dynasty. The Dow has long become one of the most popular brands among Quebecers, but that’s another story.

Historic Beer Birthday: Charles Duff

April 7, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Charles Duff (April 7, 1894–October 15, 1966). He was primarily known as “an Irish author of books on language learning,” although his most famous book was “A Handbook of Hanging,” which also covered “electrocution, decapitations, gassings, innocent men executed and botched executions.” He was an interesting, eclectic person, to say the least, and a couple of years ago Gary Gillman did a nice job summarizing his quirky life in a post entitled “Charles Duff on the Circa-1950s Irish Pub.”

But he also wrote a few travel guides, including one called “Ireland and the Irish,” published in 1952. In it, he starts with Irish history and its folklore, in fact spending nearly 100 pages of the 282-page book, before actually suggesting what the reader should see in Ireland.

Duff also had a lot to say about beer in Ireland at the time, and it’s fascinating to see his views over 75 years later. Gillman also analyzes his writing historically and reprints some of his great writing, and you should read that, too, but I’m also sharing my favorite passages from Duff regarding the beer.

In discussing Dublin, Duff attempts to provide an image of the typical modern Dublin pub, and describes a place I’d certainly like to visit.

The atmosphere is cocktailish, the seats are most comfortable, the carpets soft. I did not find the drinks or service any less efficient, nor, I must say in fairness, any more efficient than in the old days when, before Dublin was really awake in the morning, a kindly and sympathetic barman diagnosed your hangover and might prescribe, as he did for me on one occasion, a seidlitz powder, telling me not to drink anything alcoholic before noon, when he recommended a dozen oysters and a bottle or two of stout “to settle the inside and get back the feelings of a Christian.” Today the atmosphere is convivial and friendly, and you will get a good drink there. But when you go out into the street you will not have the feelings we had after a session there. I think the main difference is that in the old days the drinkers in ‘Davy Byrne’s’ had a higher opinion of one another than they have now. And in the old days you sat on any sort of old chair with a pint in front of you on a very plain table and knew that there was no other pub quite like this. It is almost ill- mannered to make the comparison, and perhaps unfair to the present house which, after all, is not responsible for the age in which we live.

Another interesting insight about Dublin, is that you should read some Joyce before your visit.

It is not a bad preparation for a visit to Dublin to read James Joyce’s Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses—in that order if you have not already read Joyce. On your second visit, or perhaps on some later occasion, you can have a try at Finnegan’s Wake, which a Dublin friend assures me is best read by moonlight as you lean over one of the Liffey bridges, and preferably while in that state of imaginative gestation to which a reasonable consumption of the wine of the country—Guinness’s Stout—is conducive. But you will not need any of this preparation to tell you that Dubliners are not always easy people to understand, and experience of Ireland can lead you to the conclusion that it is more difficult to grasp and analyse the mentality of the Dubliner than of any other kind or class of native. For one thing, Dubliners are a more mixed breed than you will find anywhere in Ireland, because Dublin has been a cosmopoli- tan community longer than any other in Ireland. This ‘town of the ford of the hurdles’ had its original Picts, Celtic Irish, its Norsemen, its Normans and then its English as the principal elements in its ethnic constitution. It has also had a generous sprinkling of the adventurous; and of the adven- turers, military, political and commercial, who invariably find their way to promising territories. In Dublin you will find surnames which come direct or are derived from those of almost every country and race in Europe; one cannot say this of any other Irish city or town.

Duff’s other travel guide was called “England and the English,” in which he followed a similar format as his Irish guidebook. This one was published a few years later, in 1955. Gillman also analyzes Duff’s English writing, too, in a two-part post entitled Charles Duff Eulogises the English Pub – Part I, which primarily provides context and background to the 1950s climate in which Duff was writing. But in Part II he tackles Duff’s take on the Eglish pub.

But I’m more interested in just sharing his stories. Like his previous work, it is filled with interesting anecdotes about like in England, with this one from an experience in World War II involving beer and cider being particularly funny.

By way of final warning, I can tell of an episode I am not likely to forget. There was a shortage of beer in the last years of the Second World War when I was staying at the cottage in Devon. That did not greatly worry local people; they drank their local cider. But very often the American troops stationed in the neighbourhood suffered distress from the lack of alcohol and (I suspect, somewhat to their disgust) were driven back on cider, which they contemptuously regarded as a soft drink 1 Friendly patrons of the pub advised them to ‘take it easy’ until they got used to it. But those hearties just laughed, possibly regarding the civilian adviser as needlessly timid; and they just went ahead. At about the third mug the fun began then the cider started to have effect. Another mug or two and the balloon went up. The usual effects of strong alcohol were felt : in this case of an alcoholic beverage to which those strong, healthy men were quite unaccustomed. We all felt sorry for them, and for their poor heads next day. And as, one by one they rolled off, the locals smiled and called for another mug saying: “Don’t it just show ‘ee !”
My friend would often reminisce and philosophize about cider, telling me that farm-workers used to have little barrels (he later showed me his; it held about a pint and a half) which they took with them to their work, but that the young genera- tion know nothing of this. He thought that modern cider is better and purer than that of his youth. He had known of men who drank themselves to death on cider, but insisted that this is rare; because, he said, cider is one of those rare drinks which carries its own safety-point and, when that point has been reached depending on the drinker’s capacity and head there is no inclination to drink any more. “How very con- venient!” the conservative drinker will say. The illustrious may comment: “How awful! ” There it is.

Duff discusses pubs more generally when covering the “prosperous market-town of Bishop’s Stortford (about thirty miles from London) is on the River Stort, which forms the boundary with Essex.”

It was precisely this easy-going atmosphere which I liked about Bishop’s Stortford. With it goes a great variety of friendly pubs Herts is a good county for beer some of which confront the traveller unexpectedly, and inside are found to be just the sort of typical little country pubs one reads about. You can find a pub almost anywhere in the town. There are the major houses such as the ‘George* and the ‘Chequers’, but I felt attracted by old names such as:

The Feathers
The Falcon
The Anchor
The Swan
The Grapes
The Reindeer
The Boar’s Head
The Half Moon
The Rising Sun
The Castle The Royal Oak
The Bull
The Fox
The Bricklayers’ Arms

most of them with their colourful, interesting signs. The names I have listed do not exhaust the possibilities of Bishop’s Stortford, and merely represent what I recall easily. The little ‘Bricklayers’ Arms’ on the road to Hadham had just received a fresh coat of paint the last time I was there. I thought it looked a very beautiful little pub from outside. Inside I was not disappointed: the beer was delicious, and Mrs. Morgan, the landlady, a great personality whom I am not likely to forget.
I should like to dwell on these pubs, some of which are very old, because of their importance as an institution of considerable import in the social fabric of this country. Hertfordshire, and, indeed, all of this eastern area, can provide examples of more than ordinary interest. At St. Albans there is the ‘Fighting Cocks’, which is said to be the oldest inhabited licensed house in England. Thomas Burke mentions A.D. 795 as the date of its foundation. “The traveller by car who takes the Great North Road the historic highway linking London with Edinburgh will come upon many pub signs which will inevitably attract his attention and often make him stop for a closer scrutiny. A little conversation with landlords and know- ledgeable local people will quickly show that the English public-house (as we usually call it now), with which one may include the terms ‘inn’ and ‘tavern’, embraces a vast social his- tory that can be traced back to Saxon times. For over one thou- sand years the house which provides food and drink for the traveller and wayfarer, and a centre or dub for local people, has been a part of English life. If I have not mentioned the subject until now, it is not because other areas of England are less rich in public-houses than this eastern part, but merely that it falls in more conveniently at this stage. What I say about the pubs here can be paralleled for most parts of England and, as it is, I can deal with it only in the most summary way. Take, for example, the ‘Letchworth Hair at Letchworth, formerly a manor-house and, some may say, too much of an hotel to be considered as a ‘typical’ pub. It is mentioned in Domesday Book. And the ‘Sun’ at Hitchin, which was used by the Parliamentarians during the Civil War (1642-1648), and, in 1745, was the place in which North Hertfordshire men enrolled for the Resistence Movement that was to face the advancing army of the Pretender. Some of these old buildings are architecturally and artistically extremely interesting, externally or internally, and sometimes in both senses. As we move northwards, a slight detour takes us to Buckden and Huntingdon, both in Huntingdonshire. The first town has the ‘Lion’ with a lounge beautifully adorned by some magnificent oak beams; the second town has the ‘George’, with its long frontage and a lovely row of fifteen windows. Stilton, where one of the world’s great cheeses is made, has the ‘Bell’ dating back to the spacious days when men travelled on horseback, more often than not in companies in order to be able to cope with the activities of such gentry as Dick Turpin. Lincolnshire has some noteworthy houses: the ‘George’ at Stamford where, in 1746, William Duke of Cumberland put up after his victory over Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden; and the curiously named ‘Ram Jam Inn’, a haunt of Dick Turpin and his men. At Grantham there is another ‘George’, visited by Charles Dickens in 1838 and about which he wrote to his wife, “. . . the most comfortable inn I ever put up in”. In Grantham there is also the ancient ‘Angel and Royal’ with seven hundred years of history behind it and originally a favourite house of the Knights Templars. Kings held their courts there; the present building dates from about the middle of the i4th century. These few dips will indicate the scope of the subject, but I think I have said sufficient to show the reader that the English pub is a very old, very strong institution and in every way worthy of his attention. I have never yet entered a pub, however humble, from which I did not emerge refreshed in mind and body, and I think that a good argument could be put up in favour of the pub as the most characteristic institution of the people of England: of the men, that is, for it is only in comparatively recent years that women are frequenting licensed premises with the approval of the younger generation of men, of course, but often with the strong disapproval of old regulars. To these it is unbecoming to the spirit and atmosphere of their club that lively and frivolous girls the more attractive they are, the worse it is ! often in slacks or even shorts, should lower the serious tone of the establishment with their disconcerting jazzing, crooning and giggling. This little survival of Puritanism is quickly passing and in many places no longer exists. It will soon be gone. The pub will survive by adapting itself to the social environment: as it always has done in the past.

He also stresses that one should never discuss politics or religion in a pub, good advice now as then.

Again it comes back to the desire for political stability, for if there is one thing that the English have learnt by bitter experience, it is that nothing can cause greater disturbances than religion, especially when used for a political end. A man’s religion is his own affair. Hence, in conversation it is never even discussed! The unwritten law of the English pub is: No religion.

Duff-hanging — Still his most famous work.