24 BREWING. [NO. 



the beer is flat, even though you use half malt and 

 half barley ; and flat beer lies heavy on the stomach, 

 and of course, besides the bad taste, is unwholesome. 

 To pay 45. Qd. tax upon every bushel of our own bar- 

 ley, turned into malt, when the barley itself is not 

 worth 3s. a bushel, is a horrid thing ; but, as long as 

 the owners of the land shall be so dastardly as to suf- 

 fer themselves to be thus deprived of the use of their 

 estates to favour the slave-drivers and plunderers of 

 the East and West Indies, we must submit to the 

 thin^. incomprclu-n-iMr to f'jrri^ners, and even to our- 



i-s, as the submission may be. 

 39. With regard to hops, tin.- quality is very various. 

 At timrs when some sell fur f>.s\ a pound, others sell 

 for Provided the purchaser understand the 



article, the quality is, of course, in proportion to th 

 price. There are two things to be considered in hops: 

 the jinirrr of preserving beer, and that of giving it a 

 pleasant Hops may be strong, and yet not 



good. 1 hey should be bright, have no leu res or bits 

 of branches amongst them. The hop is the husk, or 

 seed-pod, of the hop-vine, as the cone is that of the 

 fir-tree ; and the mv/x themselves are deposited, like 

 those of the fir, round a little soft stalk, enveloped by 

 the several folds of this pod, or cone. If, in the gath- 

 ering, leaves of the vine or bits of the branches are 

 mixed with the hops, these not only help to make up 

 tlu' irris-ht. hut they give a bad taste to the beer; 

 and indeed, if they abound much, they spoil the beer. 

 Great attention is therefore necessary in this respect. 

 There are, too, numerous sorts of hops, van- ing in 

 size, form, and quality, quite as much as apples. How- 

 ever, when they are in a state to be used in brewing, 

 the marks of goodness are an absence of brown colour, 

 (for that indicates perished hops ;) a colour between 

 grt-i low ; a great quantity of the yellow fa~ 



rina ; seeds -not too large nor too hard ; a clammy 

 feel when rubbed between the fingers ; and a lively, 

 pleasant smell. As to the age of hops, they retain for 

 twenty years, probably, their poicer of preserving 

 beer ; but not of giving it a pleasant flavour* I have 



