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Historic Beer Birthday: Patrick Perkins

October 10, 2022 By Jay Brooks

castlemaine-perkins
Today is the birthday of Patrick Perkins (October 10, 1838—May 17, 1901). He was born in Ireland, but emigrated as a child to Queensland, Australia, with his parents in 1854, when he was sixteen. “With his brother Thomas, he started breweries in Victoria and Queensland. In 1866, Patrick Perkins started the Perkins Brewery in Toowoomba. In 1872, he later extended his operations to Brisbane with the purchase of the City Brewery in 1872. In 1876, Patrick Perkins moved to Queensland in order to manage the Brisbane and Toowoomba breweries.” He was also heavily involved in local politics. After his death, “in 1928, the Perkins brewing company was bought by their rivals Castlemaine Brewery with new company being known as Castlemaine Perkins.”

Patrick_Perkins

This is his biography from his Wikipedia page:

Patrick Perkins, nicknamed Paddy Perkins, was a brewer and politician in colonial Queensland. He was a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly and, later, a Member of the Queensland Legislative Council.

Patrick Perkins was born in a humble cottage on a small farm in the village of Clonoulty near Cashel, County Tipperary, Ireland. He was the second son of Thomas Perkins, a farmer, and his wife Ellen (née Gooley). He attended the local National School.

Thomas and Ellen Perkins and their eight children (including Patrick) immigrated on the Persian, departing Southampton and arrived in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 9 April 1854.

Toowoomba
Toowoomba circa 1865.

In 1861, he married Mary Ellen Hickey in Victoria. They had three children born in Victoria: Thomas Hector (born 1864), Edgar Colin Francis (born 1868) and Lilly Eleanor Perkins (born 1875). They had two children born in Queensland: Patrick Harold (born 1878) and Helene Cicilia (born 1880).

Patrick Perkins was a miner and storekeeper on the diggings in Victoria in districts including Ballarat, Bendigo, Woods Point and Jamieson.

With his brother Thomas, he started breweries in Victoria and Queensland. In 1866, Patrick Perkins started the Perkins Brewery in Toowoomba. In 1872, he later extended his operations to Brisbane with the purchase of the City Brewery in 1872.

Perkins_Brewery

In 1876, Patrick Perkins moved to Queensland in order to manage the Brisbane and Toowoomba breweries.

Perkins also had interests in property and mining, including the Mount Morgan Mine and coal mining in the West Moreton area. He was considered a shrewd and successful businessman.

On 9 April 1877, Edward Wilmot Pechey, the member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly in the seat of Aubigny, resigned. On 1 May 1877, in a by-election, Perkins was elected in Aubigny, defeating Angus Mackay (the then editor of The Queenslander) by a large majority. He was elected again in Aubigny in the 1878 election and was appointed as Minister of Lands in the First McIlwraith Ministry from 21 January 1879 to 13 November 1883.

Perkins was elected again in Aubigny in the 1883 election, However, allegations about electoral fraud (including intimidation, bribery, and ballot stuffing) in the Aubigny election started to surface, resulting in a petition to the Governor of Queensland detailing numerous kind of electoral fraud and asking to declare that the Aubigny election was void and that Patrick Perkins was guilty of bribery and corruption. On 21 February 1884, the Committee of Elections and Qualifications ruled the Aubigny election was null and void and called for a by-election. Perkins had denied any involvement in the alleged electoral fraud and the Committee of Elections and Qualifications did not disqualify him from re-contesting the seat, which provoked outrage in some quarters. However, Patrick Perkins announced he would not re-contest the seat as he would be taking a trip to England. James Campbell was elected unopposed at the resulting by-election on 4 March 1884.

At the 1888 election, Perkins was elected in the seat of Cambooya on 10 May 1888, which he held until 6 May 1893.

On 23 May 1893, Perkins was appointed to Queensland Legislative Council from 23 May 1893. Being a lifetime appointment, he served until his death on 17 May 1901.

city-brewery-australia

Late in life, Perkins was in poor health and moved to Hawthorn, Melbourne. He attended the opening of the first Federal Parliament at the Royal Exhibition Building on 9 May 1901 and caught a chill which developed into bronchial pneumonia, from which he died on Friday 17 May 1901 at “Ingleborough”, Berkeley Street, Hawthorn. On Saturday 18 May 1901, his funeral was conducted at the Roman Catholic church at Glenferrie, after which he was buried in the Boroondara General Cemetery in Kew, Melbourne.

In 1928, the Perkins brewing company was bought by their rivals Castlemaine Brewery with new company being known as Castlemaine Perkins Limited.

castlemaine-perkins

The Castlemaine Perkins brewery in Brisbane (pictured above early last century) has strong links to the history of Toowoomba. Don Talbot and John Larkin outlined the story In their book Strange and Unusual Tales. Queensland’s first brewery was built in Toowoomba in 1867. By 1869, it was one of the largest breweries in the southern hemisphere. The brewery’s original and official name was the Downs Brewery, but came to be known as Perkins Brewery. Paddy Perkins was born in Tipperary, Ireland, in 1838 migrating to Australia in 1855 with his father Thomas, and brothers James and Thomas. Paddy and his family travelled the Ballarat and Bendigo goldfields. Paddy and his brother Thomas set up a merchandising store in Castlemaine, Victoria, and later held an interest in the Castlemaine Brewery in Victoria. After testing water quality in Brisbane and Ipswich, the Perkins brothers located a reliable spring in West Swamp, Toowoomba. In 1867, the brothers purchased land in Margaret St (where Grand Central is today). In December, 1869, Perkins Brewery brewed its first commercial hogshead of light ale in Queensland. At this time, the brewery was one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere with the capacity to produce 400 hogshead (113,650 litres) of XXX (Extra Exhilarating Extract) beer per week. Paddy Perkins later purchased the City Brewery, Mary Street, Brisbane in 1872. In August, 1876, tragedy stuck the Perkins family when Thomas was killed aged 35 while riding his horse in Grandchester. Paddy continued running the breweries in Toowoomba and Brisbane which prospered and expanded up until the 1920s. Profits began to decline due to competition from the new and extremely popular XXXX Bitter Ale, a stronger beer which was bought out by Perkins’ competitor Castlemaine Brewery Brisbane. The Perkins and Co. Ltd Downs Brewery in Toowoomba and the City Brewery in Brisbane were sold to the Castlemaine Brewery in August, 1928. The company was then restructured as Castlemaine Perkins Ltd. The Downs Brewery ceased brewing in 1958 after it had operated continuously for 89 years.

Perkins_and_Company_Brewery_Toowoomba_1871
The Perkins Brewery in Toowoomba around 1871.

And this history of the Perkins Brewery is from a site focusing on the Toowoomba Region:

Queensland’s first brewery was built in Toowoomba in 1867. By 1869, it was one of the largest breweries in the southern hemisphere. The brewery’s original and official name was the Downs Brewery but came to be known as Perkins Brewery. Read about its history and how it eventually became part of Castlemaine Perkins.

Perkins BreweryPaddy Perkins was born in Tipperary, Ireland in 1838 migrating to Australia in 1855 with his father Thomas, and brothers James and Thomas. Arriving in Victoria Paddy and his family traveled the Ballarat and Bendigo goldfields.

Paddy and his brother Thomas set up a merchandising store in Castlemaine, Victoria and later held an interest in the Castlemaine Brewery in Victoria.

After testing water quality in Brisbane and Ipswich, the Perkins brothers located a reliable spring providing the quality they required in West Swamp Toowoomba. In 1867 the brothers purchased land in Margaret Street (where Grand Central is today) and contracted Mr. John Garget to construct Queensland’s first brewery.

In December 1869 Perkins Brewery brewed its first commercial hogshead of light ale in Queensland. At this time, the brewery was one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere with the capacity to produce 400 hogshead (113,650 litres) of XXX (Extra Exhilarating Extract) beer per week.

Another product from the Perkins Brewery was Carbine Invalid Stout that was promoted for fortifying the blood and as a tonic for nursing mothers.

The Perkins brothers also founded the malting industry in Toowoomba, building a malt house in addition to their Dent Street brewery. In 1871 maltster J. G. Sims processed 14,000 bushels of barley on the floor of the Perkins’ malt house (1 bushel = 0.363 litres).

The opening of the brewery in Toowoomba saw an increase of barley growing on the Downs which led to experiments in the cultivation of hops, all of which were unsuccessful. The malting process was discontinued in the 1880s and 1890s until a duty was imposed on imported malt and processing of local barley was again encouraged.

Perkins and Co described their beer as “A good, light, drinkable and nutritious ale, having been a long-felt want in Queensland, the proprietors beg to announce that they are now prepared to supply unlimited demand with a sound and nutritious ale, such as they trust will command general favour and support.”

Paddy Perkins later purchased the City Brewery, Mary Street Brisbane in 1872.

In August 1876 tragedy stuck the Perkins family when Thomas was killed aged 35, whilst riding his horse in Grandchester. Thomas Perkins is buried at the Toowoomba & Drayton Cemetery.

Paddy continued running the breweries in Toowoomba and Brisbane which prospered and expanded up until the 1920s. Profits began to decline due to competition from the new and extremely popular XXXX Bitter Ale, a stronger beer which was bought out by Perkins’ competitor Castlemaine Brewery Brisbane. The Perkins and Co. Ltd Downs Brewery in Toowoomba and the City Brewery in Brisbane were sold to the Castlemaine Brewery in August 1928. The company was then restructured as Castlemaine Perkins Ltd.

Catlemaine_Perkins_128860

Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: Australia, History, Ireland

Historic Beer Birthday: William W. Sloan

July 6, 2022 By Jay Brooks

hydraulic
Today is the birthday of William Wilson Sloan (July 6, 1831-May 7, 1901). He was born in Ireland, and moved to Buffalo, New York. Originally a malster, he bought into Buffalo’s fifth brewery, the McCulloch Brewery around 1857. There’s very little I could find about Sloan, and even less in the way of images or photographs.

hydraulic-letterhead

Here’s some information about Sloan’s brewery, from John & Dave’s Buffalo Brewing History:

Buffalo’s Fifth Brewers: 1830? 1832 McCulloch Brewery

Alexander McCulloch and his son John were listed as brewers, Seneca Street in the 1832 Buffalo Directory. Charles C. Relay of Buffalo’s second brewery is also listed as a brewer, Seneca Street. Could Relay and McCulloch have brewed together for a short time?

The “Hydraulics” was an area near present day Seneca and Hydraulic Streets where a canal was dug in 1828 from Buffalo Creek to produce hydraulic power for an industrial zone. The 1832 Buffalo Directory lists this area as having a grist mill, hat body shop, pail factory, last factory, woolen factory and one brewery believed to be McCulloch’s. Around 1836 the Hydraulics name was changed to “Clintonville” with a population of 500. It was later incorporated into the city of Buffalo.

Alexander had three sons with his wife Elizabeth: Alexander Jr. the eldest, John H. and James. Alexander Sr., who turned the brewery over to his eldest son around 1836, continued to live in Clintonville with his wife until his death around 1846. The McCulloch’s became an important family in what was then called the “Hydraulics” or “Clintonville”. Alexander Jr. and his brothers operated their brewery located on Mill Street near the Hydraulic canal (later Hydraulic St.) until 1843 when they relocated to Steuben Street (later becoming part of Carroll Street) also near the Hydraulic canal. The Attica Railroad laid tracks into Buffalo down Mill Street in the early 1840’s. This is probably what caused McCulloch to relocate his brewery to Steuben Street.

In 1847 the McCulloch’s sold their brewery to James H. Barton and Matthew J. Gilman. The Barton and Gilman Brewery operated until 1857 when it was sold to William W. Sloan. Sloan named his brewery the Hydraulic Brewery. The location remained the same but the address changed to 686 – 702 Carroll Street. Sloan continued brewing and malting at the Hydraulic Brewery until 1876.

And Buffalo Beer: The History of Brewing in the Nickel City, by Michael F. Rizzo and Ethan Cox has some more:

Sloan-bio-1

Sloan-bio-2

And the web page History of Buffalo has a little more about the Hydraulic Brewery.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun Tagged With: History, Ireland, New York

Historic Beer Birthday: William S. Gossett

June 13, 2022 By Jay Brooks

guinness-new
Today is the birthday of William Sealy Gosset (June 13, 1876–October 16, 1937). He “was an English statistician. He published under the pen name Student, and developed the Student’s t-distribution.” He also worked his entire career for Guinness Brewing, and was trained as a chemist, but it was his pioneering work in statstics, in which he was self-taught, that he is remembered today.

William_Sealy_Gosset

Here’s his biography, from Wikipedia:

Born in Canterbury, England to Agnes Sealy Vidal and Colonel Frederic Gosset, Gosset attended Winchester College before studying chemistry and mathematics at New College, Oxford. Upon graduating in 1899, he joined the brewery of Arthur Guinness & Son in Dublin, Ireland.

As an employee of Guinness, a progressive agro-chemical business, Gosset applied his statistical knowledge – both in the brewery and on the farm – to the selection of the best yielding varieties of barley. Gosset acquired that knowledge by study, by trial and error, and by spending two terms in 1906–1907 in the biometrical laboratory of Karl Pearson. Gosset and Pearson had a good relationship. Pearson helped Gosset with the mathematics of his papers, including the 1908 papers, but had little appreciation of their importance. The papers addressed the brewer’s concern with small samples; biometricians like Pearson, on the other hand, typically had hundreds of observations and saw no urgency in developing small-sample methods.

Another researcher at Guinness had previously published a paper containing trade secrets of the Guinness brewery. To prevent further disclosure of confidential information, Guinness prohibited its employees from publishing any papers regardless of the contained information. However, after pleading with the brewery and explaining that his mathematical and philosophical conclusions were of no possible practical use to competing brewers, he was allowed to publish them, but under a pseudonym (“Student”), to avoid difficulties with the rest of the staff. Thus his most noteworthy achievement is now called Student’s, rather than Gosset’s, t-distribution.

Gosset had almost all his papers including The probable error of a mean published in Pearson’s journal Biometrika under the pseudonym Student. It was, however, not Pearson but Ronald A. Fisher who appreciated the importance of Gosset’s small-sample work, after Gosset had written to him to say I am sending you a copy of Student’s Tables as you are the only man that’s ever likely to use them!. Fisher believed that Gosset had effected a “logical revolution”. Fisher introduced a new form of Student’s statistic, denoted t, in terms of which Gosset’s statistic was {\displaystyle z={\frac {t}{\sqrt {n-1}}}} z=\frac{t}{\sqrt{n-1}}. The t-form was adopted because it fit in with Fisher’s theory of degrees of freedom. Fisher was also responsible for applications of the t-distribution to regression analysis.

Although introduced by others, Studentized residuals are named in Student’s honour because, like the problem that led to Student’s t-distribution, the idea of adjusting for estimated standard deviations is central to that concept.

Gosset’s interest in the cultivation of barley led him to speculate that the design of experiments should aim not only at improving the average yield but also at breeding varieties whose yield was insensitive to variation in soil and climate, i.e. robust. This principle only appeared in the later thought of Ronald Fisher, and then in the work of Genichi Taguchi during the 1950s.

In 1935, Gosset left Dublin to take up the position of Head Brewer, in charge of the scientific side of production, at a new Guinness brewery at Park Royal in northwestern London. He died two years later in Beaconsfield, England, of a heart attack.

Gosset was a friend of both Pearson and Fisher, a noteworthy achievement, for each had a massive ego and a loathing for the other. He was a modest man who once cut short an admirer with the comment that “Fisher would have discovered it all anyway.”

t-test-slide

And this biography is from the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive:

William Sealey Gosset was born on June 13, 1876 in Canterbury, England where he was the oldest of five children. He died at the age of 61 in Beaconsfield, England on October 16, 1937. He attended the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich to b ecome an engineer before he was rejected because of poor eyesight. William Gosset was never employed as a statistician. In a world of quarrelsome statistics, but he got along with everyone. He was a very helpful, quiet, patient and loyal person.

He went to school at Winchester and was well educated before entering the New College in Oxford. Here he won a first degree in chemistry in 1899. After getting his degree as a chemist, he got a job at Guinness brewery in Dublin in 1899, where he did important work on statistics, but her was never hired at a statistician. It was his environment at Guinness’ that made him a statistician. The brewery was interested in how they could make the best beer.

In 1900, the Guinness Research Laboratory was opened, which was head by the most distinguished brewing chemist, Horace Brown. Horace Brown along with the other brews were wondering how to get the raw materials for brewing beer at the cheapest but getting the best. There were many factors that they had to take into account such as varieties of barley and hops, what conditions of dying, cultivation and maturing factors.

After a few years of research, given that they were given a free hand to explore the conditions of brewing. This gave Gosset a chance to work as a statistician. He was able to take the data from the different examples of brewing to help find out which way was the best. As the young brewers work together, it seemed natural for them to take the data to Gosset to solve the numerical problems.

Gosset, in 1903, could calculate standard errors. In 1904 he wrote on the brewing of beer. This report lead to Karl Pearson consulting Gosset. Gosset met Pearson in July of 1905 when they had long talk together. Pearson, in an hour and a half, m ade Gosset understand the theory of standard errors. Gosset went back to the brewery and practiced those method for the next year. The meeting was also successful in which Pearson got Gosset to take up the study of the law of error.

Gosset wrote paper in his spare time under the name “Student.” His paper were on the probability of error of the mean and of the correlation coefficient for publication. Gosset even managed to run cooperative experiments with Hunter a nd Bennett at Ballinacurra, Buffin at Cambridge, and Beaven at Warminster in the testing of seeds against other seeds. Gosset also work with R.A. Fisher. The funny part is that Fisher did not get along Pearson, but Gosset studied under Pearson and also got along with Fisher.

To quickly recap William Gosset, he was born in 1876 and died in 1937. He did mathematical research for beer brewing, but had the problem working with only a small sample size. He work on the concept of probable errror of a mean. He also analysi sed an extended and broad range of problems such as the counting with a haemacytometer, probable error of a correlation coefficient, cereals, agronomy and the Lanarkshire milk experiment.

A very personal friend, McMullen, said this about Gosset, “he was a very kindly and tolerant and absolutely devoid malice. He rarely spoke about personal matters but when his opinion was well worth listening to and not in the least superficia l.”

Pricenomics has a good overview of Gossett’s contributions to mathematics and statistics, entitled The Guinness Brewer Who Revolutionized Statistics.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: England, Guinness, History, Ireland, Math, Science, Science of Brewing

Beer Birthday: Eoghan Walsh

June 9, 2022 By Jay Brooks

Today is the 36th birthday of Irish beer writer Eoghan Walsh, whose work brought him to live in Brussels, Belgium, where he writes the blog Brussels Beer City. While I was aware of Eoghan’s work thanks to the interwebs, I finally got to meet and spend some time with him during judging for the Brussels Beer Challenge a couple of years ago, which was great fun. Join me in wishing Eoghan a very happy birthday.

Eoghan’s Facebook profile photo.
During a trip to visit a brewery in 2019.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun Tagged With: Belgium, Ireland, Writing

Historic Beer Birthday: Oliver Hughes

May 20, 2022 By Jay Brooks

porterhouse
Today is the birthday of Oliver Hughes (May 20, 1959-July 30, 2016). Hughes, along with partner Liam LaHart, co-founded Ireland’s first brewpub, the Porterhouse Brewing Company in 1996. It’s now grown in size, part of the Porterhouse Group. Unfortunately, He passed away in the Fall of 2016 at age 57, and the brewery he started continues to grow and expand, with locations in the UK and America.

oliver_hughes

This is an appreciation written about Hughes in Drinks Industry Ireland:

Oliver was the co-founder and director of the Porterhouse Group. An entrepreneur who pushed the boundaries wherever he could, he was not content with helping to start the craft beer revolution in Ireland; he went on to create Ireland’s first purpose-built distillery in over 200 years.

Oliver’s mind never stopped turning, whether it was thinking of how to improve his own ventures or how to help others. His ideas are ingrained in the mind of the Porterhouse and his concepts for growth in the Porterhouse Group have been put in place, mainly due to his boundless energy and dreaming.

Oliver and Liam LaHart’s original “mad” idea was Harty’s brewery in Blessington, Co Wicklow, in the 1980s. This attempt at a micro-brewery in Ireland was followed in 1989 by the setting up of The Porterhouse in Bray which pushed craft beer onto the Bray locality.

Following that in 1996, we saw the Porterhouse Temple Bar begin trading. This was only the beginning of the adventure for cousins Hughes and LaHart. They soon opened up Porterhouse Covent Garden in London, the Porterhouse North (recently converted to The Whitworth), the Porterhouse Central and the Porterhouse at Fraunces’ Tavern in New York while the group also expanded to The Port House chain of tapas restaurants.

Oliver’s most recent treasure was the Dingle Whiskey Distillery. His idea was once again ahead of the curve. Oliver only saw one cask ever released, Cask No 2, on 19th December 2016. He was extremely proud of the Dingle Distillery and he knew the future was bright.

Oliver’s ideas, influence and energy can be seen in everything the Porterhouse group has done and will do going forward.

He will be missed.

oliver-hughes

And this was his obituary in the Guardian, written by Roger Protz:

Oliver Hughes, who has died of a heart attack aged 57, was known as the godfather of the Irish beer revolution. His pioneering Porterhouse pubs and brewery brought much-needed choice to Irish drinkers and, while he was a minnow in an ocean of stout, his mere presence annoyed Guinness.

There are now about 50 small breweries in the republic, challenging the hegemony of the duopoly of Guinness and Murphy’s, the latter owned by Heineken. The existence of that growing independent sector was inspired by Oliver’s determination to create diversity for beer drinkers.

Born in Dublin, he was the only child of Lillian and Brian, a barrister whose work took the family to Fiji, where he served as a magistrate. They later moved to the UK, where Brian practised in Nottingham and Scunthorpe. Oliver studied law at Hatfield Polytechnic (now the University of Hertfordshire) and, while drinking in pubs in Hatfield and neighbouring St Albans, he came into contact with Alan Swannell, one of the early microbrewers of the 1980s, who ran tiny breweries in Kings Langley and Ware.

With his cousin and future business partner Liam LaHart, Oliver went to folk concerts organised by the Irish community in Kilburn, north-west London, and the pair also took part in Troops Out demonstrations and campaigned for the release of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four. In London they came across the groundbreaking chain of Firkin brewpubs run by David Bruce. Oliver and Liam were impressed by beers with quirky names such as Dogbolter and T-shirts with slogans such as: “If you nick my pint I’ll firkin punch you.” Oliver said the Firkins were the model for the future Porterhouse pubs.

Back in Dublin, Oliver practised as a barrister between 1989 and 1999. But he was still enthused by brewing, and with Liam he opened a brewery called Harty’s in County Wicklow. It failed after two years because, Oliver sai,: “We brewed beer for publicans who wouldn’t pay the bills”. Undaunted, the pair opened the first Porterhouse pub in Bray. They hired “a man with a van” who drove to Europe to bring back previously unknown beers from Belgium and Germany. They also sold beer from another early Irish micro, Galway Hooker.

“We discovered years later,” Oliver recalled, “that other publicans had opened a book on how long we would survive in a pub that didn’t serve Guinness. Some said two days, others six months.”

But Oliver and Liam had touched a nerve with Irish drinkers, and in 1996 they opened a Firkin-inspired Porterhouse brewpub in Temple Bar, Dublin. I was an early visitor to the pub on Parliament Street, a three-storey building with a 10-barrel brewery that restored a famous Dublin style called Plain, the local name for porter made famous by Flann O’Brien in his poem A Pint of Plain is Your Only Man.

Oyster Stout used real oysters, restoring another old Irish tradition. The stand-out beer for me was Wrasslers 4X Stout, based on a recipe from a long-defunct brewery called Deasy’s in west Cork: it was the favourite beer of Michael Collins, founder of the Irish Free State.

Oliver’s ability to get up the noses of big brewers was shown when he was threatened with legal action by Anheuser-Busch and Carlsberg over a wheat beer called Weiserbuddy and a lager dubbed Probably, which was brewed at the Porterhouse. Anheuser-Busch owns Budweiser, the biggest brand in the US, where it is known simply as Bud, while Carlsberg is famous for its long-running promotion that claims the beer is: “Probably the best lager in the world.” Oliver’s legal training told him he would have to change the names before the writs arrived, but he ensured maximum publicity for his beers and pub.

Oliver and Liam expanded. They opened a vast Porterhouse in Covent Garden, London, and two more followed in Dublin, including the equally vast Porterhouse Central on Nassau Street, with their long-standing beers joined by a cask-conditioned real ale, TSB, and Dublin Pale Ale. “We were the first brewery to make pale ale in Ireland,” Oliver said. “Nobody knew what it was and we had to teach people about hops.”

Restless and energetic, Oliver and Liam added restaurants and a nightclub called Lillie’s Bordello in Dublin, built a standalone brewery outside the city to supply their pubs and free trade, and turned Fraunces Tavern in Manhattan into a Porterhouse. The tavern is the oldest inn in New York and famous as the place where George Washington said farewell to his troops at the end of the War of Independence. The site pleased Oliver’s quiet but passionate republicanism. The Porterhouse group now employs 500 people and exports beer to the US, Italy, Spain and Scandinavia.

I once arranged to meet Oliver in Porterhouse Central on Nassau Street in 2012. He was very late, as timekeeping was not his strong point. I’d been travelling all day and urgently needed food. “Let’s go and eat,” he said, and marched me off to a nearby restaurant where we dined on superb Spanish tapas. “Who owns this place?” I asked innocently. “I do,” he replied.

His last enterprise was a whiskey distillery built in 2012 in a redundant sawmill in Dingle on the west coast of Ireland, the first new distillery in the country for 200 years.

Irrepressible and unstoppable, he said his rule of thumb for running successful pubs and breweries was “to watch what the big players do… and avoid it”.

porterhouse

Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: History, Ireland

Historic Beer Birthday: Benjamin, Lord Iveagh

May 20, 2022 By Jay Brooks

guinness-white
Today is the birthday of Lord Benjamin “Benjie” Iveagh (May 20, 1937-June 18, 1992). His full name was The Rt. Hon. (Arthur Francis) Benjamin Guinness, 3rd Earl of Iveagh. “Lord Iveagh (often popularly known as Benjamin Iveagh) was born into the Anglo-Irish Guinness family, being the son of Arthur Onslow Edward Guinness, Viscount Elveden, and Elizabeth Cecilia Hare. He was educated at Eton College, Trinity College, Cambridge, and the University of Grenoble. He inherited the title from his grandfather, The 2nd Earl of Iveagh, in September 1967. He lived at Farmleigh in the Phoenix Park in Dublin and was chairman of Guinness 1961–1992. He was a trustee of two charitable housing associations, the Iveagh Trust in Dublin and the Guinness Trust in London.”

benjamin-guinness

Here’s Guinness’ obituary from The Independent:

Arthur Francis Benjamin Guinness, businessman, born 20 May 1937, styled Viscount Elveden 1945-67, Director Guinness 1958-92, Assistant Managing Director 1960-62, Chairman 1962-86, President Guinness plc 1986-92, succeeded 1967 as 3rd Earl of Iveagh, Member Seanad Eireann 1973-77, married 1936 Miranda Smiley (two sons, two daughters; marriage dissolved 1984), died London 18 June 1992.

As far as the business world is concerned, the Earl of Iveagh will be remembered chiefly as the man who recruited Ernest Saunders to Guinness.

His own business career was at best undistinguished and at times positively disastrous. By the early 1980s, Guinness’s need for a dynamic new chief executive was desperate. With every day that passed, the Guinness family fortune seemed to slip further into the sea as the company’s stock price plummeted new depths. The City was clamouring for management changes.

It was in these circumstances that Saunders, head-hunted from a top marketing job with Nestle in Switzerland, went to Ireland to be interviewed at Iveagh’s house, Farmleigh, in Phoenix Park on the outskirts of Dublin.

Iveagh’s undoing was probably in being appointed chairman of Guinness at too young an age – a mere 25. His reign was marked first by a phase of unbridled diversification away from the core brewing business and then a prolonged period of debilitating decline. By the time Saunders had his first meeting with him, Guinness was engaged in, among other things, snake-farming, orchid-growing, and the manufacture of babies’ plastic potties.

Saunders remembers Farmleigh as a cold, empty, lonely sort of place with ‘an enormous entrance hall lined with dozens and dozens of wellington boots’. In his son’s book Nightmare, Saunders paints a picture of aristocratic decay – lunch at a tiny table in the middle of a huge draughty dining- room punctuated by the sound of a butler padding down forgotten corridors. At one point a cat jumps up on the table and tiptoes through the butter.

Saunders believed that he was seen by Iveagh and the rest of the Guinness family as a kind of gamekeeper. He still tells the story of how at a family wedding he was put below the salt on the servants’ table during the reception. He believes that the Guinnesses, as much as anyone else, made him into a scapegoat for what later occurred.

In truth Iveagh was the perfect chairman for a thrusting, dynamic and unscrupulous chief executive such as Saunders. From the beginning Iveagh abdicated all responsibility and power to Saunders. Often away from London at his home in Dublin, he became like an absentee landlord. At the same time he became a highly useful foil to Saunders, who would use Iveagh to bolster his management decisions. ‘I have spoken to Lord Iveagh and he is entirely in agreement,’ Saunders would say, often falsely.

Indeed, when Saunders was put on trial over the Distillers takeover, there were some famous and bitter recriminations between the two. Time and again, what Saunders said happened was at odds with Iveagh’s account. The sadness of it all was that by the time Iveagh gave evidence, Saunders’s claim that what was being heard was the rambling, confused and muddled account of a befuddled alcoholic suffering from some form of amnesia was all too believable. It was plain to all who witnessed Iveagh on the stand, that by giving Saunders and his henchmen such a free hand, Iveagh had failed in his duties as chairman, and indeed to that extent could be held accountable for the financial scandal that followed.

3rd_earl_of_iveagh

And here is his obituary from the New York Times:

The third Earl of Iveagh, who served as chairman of Guinness P.L.C. during a period of change and turmoil for the British brewing and spirits giant, died here on Thursday. He was 55 years old.

Company officials said he had died of a throat ailment but declined to provide further details.

Lord Iveagh was a descendant of the Arthur Guinness, the brewer who founded the company in Dublin in 1759. Lord Iveagh served as chairman from 1962 until 1986 and as president from 1986 until last month, when he left the company.

By the late 1970’s, the company, whose name is still most widely associated with the stout that bears its name, was stagnating and appeared to be in danger of becoming a takeover target. A program undertaken by Lord Iveagh to diversify out of alcoholic beverages did not do much to improve the company’s performance. Consumption Increased

To breathe new life into Guinness, Lord Iveagh recruited Ernest W. Saunders from Nestle, the Swiss food giant, to be chief executive in 1981. Mr. Saunders began the marketing effort that increased consumption of Guinness stout, whose sales are among the fastest growing of major beers in the world.

Mr. Saunders also began to pursue the acquisition strategy that helped to transform Guinness into a world powerhouse in spirits, especially Scotch and gin. Under Mr. Saunders, Guinness bought Arthur Bell & Son, a Scotch producer, for $574 million in 1985 and the Distillers Company, a leading British spirits company, for $4 billion in 1986.

It later emerged that Mr. Saunders had taken part in an illegal scheme to prop up Guinness’s share price during the takeover fight for Distillers to give Guinness’s stock-and-cash offer a better chance of prevailing.

When the scandal broke, Lord Iveagh at first backed Mr. Saunders but then changed his mind. Guinness’s board, including Lord Iveagh, voted to dismiss him in January 1987. Mr. Saunders later went to jail.

Under Anthony J. Tenant, who succeeded Mr. Saunders as chief executive and is now chairman, Guinness has become one of the world’s most successful and profitable drinks companies. But the scandal tarnished the Guinness name. Over the centuries, the family had earned a reputation as philanthropists and enlightened employers.

The Saunders era also brought about the end of the Guinness family’s dominance over the company. As a result of the issuing of new shares by the company to pay for acquisitions, the family’s stake in Guinness fell from about 25 percent in the late 1970’s to less than 2 percent today. Lord Iveagh’s decision not to seek re-election to the company’s board in May left it without a Guinness director for the first time.

Arthur Francis Benjamin Guinness, who was known as Ben to friends, was born on May 20, 1937, to Viscount Elveden and the former Lady Elizabeth Hare. His father died in action in World War II in 1945, and he became Viscount Elveden and heir to his grandfather, the second Earl of Iveagh.

He was educated at Eton, at Trinity College, Cambridge, and the University of Grenoble.

A shy man and bibliophile who once dreamed of becoming a farmer, he found himself drawn into the family business instead. He was elected to the board of the company in 1958, became assistant managing director in charge of the Park Royal brewery in London in 1959 and succeeded his grandfather as chairman three years later. Married in 1963

He married Miranda Daphne Jane Smiley in 1963 and became the third Earl of Iveagh when his grandfather died in 1967.

Lord Iveagh, who had a home in London and estates in Suffolk, England, and Castleknock in County Dublin in Ireland, loved horses and racing. He also served four years as an appointed member of the Irish Senate in the 1970’s.

Lord Iveagh’s marriage ended in divorce in 1984. A newspaper obituary today in The Daily Mail by his cousin Jonathan Guinness, said the divorce was amicable and Lord Iveagh had been cared for in his former wife’s home in London during the illness that caused his death.

He is survived by their two sons and two daughters. The earldom now goes to his eldest son, Arthur Edward Guinness.

benjie-guinness-miranda_getty_images
Benjamin Guinness and his wife Miranda Smiley, from their wedding in 1963

Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: Guinness, History, Ireland

Historic Beer Birthday: Charles Duff

April 7, 2022 By Jay Brooks

ireland

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.”

charles-duff
Charles Duff.

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.

ireland-and-the-irish

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.

Duff-ireland-1

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.

england-and-the-english

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.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: England, Ireland, Language, Pubs, Writing

Alice Versary: The Guinness Birthday Book

July 5, 2021 By Jay Brooks

July 5, 1862, Lewis Carroll sat down to start writing the work that would make him famous, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” which began with a story he told to his three girl companions the day before during an outing with the Reverend Robinson Duckworth, where they rowed a boat up the River Isis with the three young girls, and which they called the “golden afternoon.” The three girls were the daughters of scholar Henry Liddell: Lorina Charlotte Liddell, Alice Pleasance Liddell, and Edith Mary Liddell, ages 13, 10, and 8 respectively. The journey began at Folly Bridge, Oxford and ended five miles away in the Oxfordshire village of Godstow. During the trip Carroll, whose real name was Charles Dodgson, told the girls a story that featured a bored little girl named Alice who goes looking for an adventure. The girls loved it, and Alice Liddell asked Dodgson to write it down for her. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Beginning in the 1930s, Guinness began using Alice in Wonderland and the cast of characters from Carroll’s books in a lot of their advertising. That continued until 1959, and in addition to numerous ads, they also produced five booklets, beginning with “The Guinness Alice” in 1933, and finishing up with “Alice Versary: The Guinness Birthday Book,” which was published to coincide with their 200th anniversary in 1959. All of the booklets and advertising was done by their advertising agency, S.H. Benson Ltd., with illustrations by John Gilroy and later Ronald Ferns. A few years ago, I got a copy of Alice Versary, so here is the whole 16-page booklet.

The inside cover.
William the Contemporary.
Bishop’s Problem.
History and Arithmetic.
The Fish Ball, part 1.
The Fish Ball, part 2.
Speech Day.
Mis-Givings by the White Knight.
Manhappywocky, part 1.
Manhappywocky, part 2.
Curiouser and Curiouser.
Happilogue.
Back cover.

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: Guinness, History, Ireland, Literature

Beer Saints: St. Columbanus of Ghent

February 2, 2021 By Jay Brooks

Today is the feast day of St. Columbanus of Ghent (543 CE–February 15, 959 CE), not to be confused with Columbanus from three centuries earlier. He was a patron saint of Belgium, Ghent, and brewers. He was probably born in Ireland but moved with his followers to Ghent, Belgium, to escape raiding parties. There isn’t a great deal of information about him, and he’s not much remembered outside Belgium. He’s buried in the cathedral of Ghent, which at the time was known as the church of St. Bavo. His name is in the litany to be recited in Belgium during public emergencies.

This account is from Celtic Saints:

Saint Columbanus was probably an Irish abbot who led his community to Belgium following the constant raids of the Norsemen. On February 2, 957, Columbanus became a hermit in the cemetery near the church of Saint-Bavo at Ghent, where he acquired a wide reputation for holiness. He is buried in the cathedral and is one of the patrons of Belgium.

This one is from Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae:

February 2 is the commemoration of a tenth-century Irish recluse at Ghent in Belgium. It seems, to judge from the footnotes to Canon O’Hanlon’s entry for Saint Columban, that he has been confused with his more famous namesake, Saint Columban (Columbanus) of Bobbio. It also seems that the saint is commemorated on the day of his enclosure as a hermit, February 2 in the the year 957, rather than on the day of his death, February 15. Canon O’Hanlon relies on the efforts of the seventeenth-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan, to uncover what was known about the Belgian Saint Columban.

I’m not sure which Columbanus this is.

Filed Under: Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: Belgium, Ireland, Religion & Beer

Beer Saints: St. Brigid

February 1, 2021 By Jay Brooks

Today is the feast day of St. Brigid (c. 451 CE–525 CE). She is a patron saint of brewers. She was also known as Bride, Bride of the Isles, Bridget of Ireland, Bridget, Brigid of Kildare, Brigit, Ffraid, and Mary of the Gael. She is one of Ireland’s patron saints, along with Patrick and Columba. Irish hagiography makes her an early Irish Christian nun, abbess, and foundress of several monasteries of nuns, including that of Kildare in Ireland, which was famous and was revered. Her feast day is February 1, which was originally a pagan festival called Imbolc, marking the beginning of spring. Her feast day is shared by Dar Lugdach, who tradition says was her student, close companion, and the woman who succeeded her. She also a patron saint of brewers. “Brigid, who had a reputation as an expert dairywoman and brewer, was reputed to turn water into beer.”

Here’s account of her life, from Wikipedia:

Probably the earliest biography, Vita Sanctae Brigitae (Life of St. Brigid), was written by Cogitosus, a 7th century monk of Kildare. A second, Vita Prima Sanctae Brigitae (First Life of St. Brigid), by an unknown author, is sometimes attributed to St. Broccán Clóen (d. 650). The book of uncertain authorship is occasionally argued to be the first written biography of St. Brigid, though most scholars reject this claim.

A Vita sometimes attributed to St. Coelan of Inishcaltra in the early 7th century derives further speculation from the fact that a foreword was added, ostensibly in a subsequent edition, by St. Donatus, also an Irish monk, who became Bishop of Fiesole in 824. In his foreword, Donatus refers to earlier biographies by St. Ultan and St. Ailerán. The manuscript of Vita III, as it has come to be known, was preserved in the Italian monastery of Monte Cassino until its destruction during World War II. As the language used is not that of St. Coelan’s time, philologists remain uncertain of both its authorship and century of origin. Discussion on dates for the annals and the accuracy of dates relating to St. Brigid continues.

Early life

According to tradition, Brigid was born in the year 451 AD in Faughart, just north of Dundalk in County Louth, Ireland. Because of the legendary quality of the earliest accounts of her life, there is debate among many secular scholars and Christians as to the authenticity of her biographies. Three biographies agree that her mother was Brocca, a Christian Pict slave who had been baptized by Saint Patrick. They name her father as Dubhthach, a chieftain of Leinster.

The vitae says that Dubthach’s wife forced him to sell Brigid’s mother to a druid when she became pregnant. Brigid herself was born into slavery. Legends of her early holiness include her vomiting when the druid tried to feed her, due to his impurity; a white cow with red ears appeared to sustain her instead.

As she grew older, Brigid was said to have performed miracles, including healing and feeding the poor. According to one tale, as a child, she once gave away her mother’s entire store of butter. The butter was then replenished in answer to Brigid’s prayers. Around the age of ten, she was returned as a household servant to her father, where her habit of charity led her to donate his belongings to anyone who asked.

In both of the earliest biographies, Dubthach is portrayed as having been so annoyed with Brigid that he took her in a chariot to the King of Leinster to sell her. While Dubthach was talking to the king, Brigid gave away his bejeweled sword to a beggar to barter it for food to feed his family. The king recognized her holiness and convinced Dubthach to grant his daughter freedom.

Religious life

Saint Brigid as depicted in Saint Non’s chapel, St Davids, Wales.
It is said that Brigid was “veiled” or received either by St. Mac Caill, Bishop of Cruachu Brig Ele (Croghan, County Offaly), or by St. Mél of Ardagh at Mág Tulach (the present barony of Fartullagh, County Westmeath), who granted her abbatial powers. It is said that in about 468, she and a Bishop MacCaille followed St. Mél into the Kingdom of Tethbae, which was made up of parts of the modern counties Meath, Westmeath and Longford.

According to tradition, around 480 Brigid founded a monastery at Kildare (Cill Dara: “church of the oak”), on the site of a pagan shrine to the Celtic goddess Brigid, served by a group of young women who tended an eternal flame. The site was under a large oak tree on the ridge of Drum Criadh.

Brigid, with an initial group of seven companions, is credited with organizing communal consecrated religious life for women in Ireland. She founded two monastic institutions, one for men, and the other for women, and invited Conleth (Conláed), a hermit from Old Connell near Newbridge, to help her in Kildare as pastor of them. It has often been said that she gave canonical jurisdiction to Conleth, Bishop of Kildare, but Archbishop Healy says that she simply “selected the person to whom the Church gave this jurisdiction”, and her biographer tells us that she chose Saint Conleth “to govern the church along with herself”. For centuries, Kildare was ruled by a double line of abbot-bishops and of abbesses, the Abbess of Kildare being regarded as superior general of the monasteries in Ireland. Her successors have always been accorded episcopal honour. Brigid’s oratory at Kildare became a centre of religion and learning, and developed into a cathedral city.

Brigid is credited with founding a school of art, including metalwork and illumination, which Conleth oversaw. The Kildare scriptorium made the Book of Kildare, which drew high praise from Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis), but disappeared during the Reformation. According to Giraldus, nothing that he ever saw was at all comparable to the book, every page of which was gorgeously illuminated, and the interlaced work and the harmony of the colours left the impression that “all this is the work of angelic, and not human skill”.

According to the Trias Thaumaturga Brigid spent time in Connacht and founded many churches in the Diocese of Elphin. She is said to have visited Longford, Tipperary, Limerick, and South Leinster. Her friendship with Saint Patrick is noted in the following paragraph from the Book of Armagh: “inter sanctum Patricium Brigitanque Hibernesium columpnas amicitia caritatis inerat tanta, ut unum cor consiliumque haberent unum. Christus per illum illamque virtutes multas peregit” (Between St. Patrick and St. Brigid, the pillars of the Irish people, there was so great a friendship of charity that they had but one heart and one mind. Through him and through her Christ performed many great works.)

Stained glass window in St. Mary Basilica of Biloxi, Mississippi, created in 1961.

Her exploits appear to have included beer on more than on occasion, as detailed by journalist Jack Beresford in an article for the Irish Post last year.

One of Ireland’s three patron saints alongside St Colmcille and St Patrick, the feast of St Brigid also happens to fall on the Celtic first day of spring, Imbolc.

There are plenty of stories surrounding St Brigid, but few are as famous, fun or fascinating as the tale about how she supposedly turned some ordinary bathwater into beer.

The story goes that one day, while working in a leper colony, she discovered to her horror that they had run out of beer.

It’s important to understand that in those times, centuries ago, beer was consumed on a daily basis as a source of hydration and nourishment.

As opposed to today, of course, when…oh wait, scratch that.

In any case, back in those times many of the water sources close to villages and towns were often polluted to the point where consumption would likely result in illness or, worse still, death.

Alcohol offered an (almost) germ free alternative and was almost as good as any meal of the era.

So, to be faced with a beer drought was nothing short of disastrous.

Not that it mattered all that much to St Brigid.

Channelling a little divine intervention, she answered the prayers of the thirsty lepers under her charge by turning the water they used to bathe into not just any beer, but a genuinely brilliant beer that was enjoyed by one and all.

Her water-based exploits don’t end there either.

Another part of the legend says St Brigid also succeeded in turning dirty bathwater into beer for the clerics visiting the leper colony where she was based.

There’s even a tale of her supplying some eighteen churches with enough beer to last from Holy Thursday through to the end of Easter despite only having one barrel to her name.

Whether fact or fiction, one thing appears undeniable: St Brigid liked beer.

This painting is called “The Lake of Beer,” by artist Mickey McGrath.

Though perhaps this 10th century poems captures Brigid’s commitment to beer best. It’s entitled “I’d like to give a lake of beer to God.”

I’d like to give a lake of beer to God.
I’d love the heavenly
Host to be tippling there
For all eternity.

I’d love the men of Heaven to live with me,
To dance and sing.
If they wanted, I’d put at their disposal
Vats of suffering.

White cups of love I’d give them
With a heart and a half;
Sweet pitchers of mercy I’d offer
To every man.

I’d make Heaven a cheerful spot
Because the happy heart is true.
I’d make the men contented for their own sake.
I’d like Jesus to love me too.

I’d like the people of heaven to gather
From all the parishes around.
I’d give a special welcome to the women,
The three Marys of great renown.

I’d sit with the men, the women and God
There by the lake of beer.
We’d be drinking good health forever
And every drop would be a prayer.

This contemporary painting of the St. Brigid is by artist Brenda Nippert of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

And this is part of an account of Brigid entitled “Wild Irish Women: Saint Brigid – Mary of the Gaels” by Rosemary Rogers for Irish American.

Despite all her accomplishments, her legend grew because of her many miracles, so resonant with Irish mysticism: she taught a fox to dance, tamed a wild boar, hung her damp cloak (that cloak again!) on a sunbeam to dry, obliging the sunbeam to remain all night. In her later years, her powers took on almost Christ-like proportions – she could multiply food, exorcise demons with a casual sign of the cross, and calm storms. Proving she was someone you’d like to have a beer with, Brigid, fond of the brew herself, could produce bottomless barrels and turn both milk and water into ale. Once, while curing lepers, she learned there was nothing to drink and used her own bathwater to stand the entire colony to a pint.

Another contemporary painting entitled “St. Brigid of Ireland” by St. Louis-based artisy Nelson Perez.

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers, Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: Ireland, Religion & Beer

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The Sessions

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Next Session: Dec. 7, 2018
#142: One More for the Road
Previous Sessions
  • #141: Future of Beer Blogging
  • #140: Pivo
  • #139: Beer & the Good Life
  • #138: The Good in Wood
  • #137: German Wheat
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Typology Tuesday

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Next Typology:
On or Before March 29, 2016
#3: Irish-Style Dry Stout
Previous Typologies
  • #2: Bock Feb. 2016
  • #1: Barley Wine Jan. 2016
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