THE BREU'IfOL'SE. 



of the Colleges went to the common brewer, and still remained 

 his customers till the Legislature at the end of the seven- 

 teenth century put a malt tax on the public brewer, but 

 no charge on the private brewer, probably through a fear 

 that such an impost might too nearly resemble the Par- 

 liamentary excise. When the Oxford Colleges began private 

 brewing, they continued it. At Winchester and Eton the 

 practice of brewing has continued to recent times, and in both 

 those great schools enormous quantities of beer were brewed 

 periodically. At first of course beer was the only alternative 

 to water, except at the end of the seventeenth century among 

 people of fashion in London and a few other towns. In these 

 later times, and before reforms were induced on those great 

 scholastic corporations, the brewhouse, and the claims of 

 officials on the brewhouse, were a considerable charge on the 

 revenues. 



The appointments of a seventeenth-century brewhouse 

 were costly. As time went on, and the habit of drinking ale 

 fresh from fermentation was abandoned for beer flavoured 

 with hops, the taste of the consumers, probably stimulated by 

 the shrewdness of the common brewer, was satisfied with only 

 such beer as was brewed in spring and autumn, when the 

 product is, in the absence of modern and artificial appliances, 

 most satisfactorily manufactured. But when, as in the six- 

 teenth century, beer was brewed one day and consumed the 

 next, simple arrangements were sufficient. My reader will 

 see, if he turns to vol. iv. p. 429, what was the ordinary 

 furniture of a fifteenth or even sixteenth century brew- 

 house. 



The most important and costly articles in the brewhouse 

 were the guile-tun, the mash-fat, and the copper boiler. Now 

 in 1588 Lord North buys a mash-fat for the comparatively 

 modest sum of $. At this time, I believe, the practice 

 of brewing large quantities at a time was far from universal. 

 In 1609 Eton College gives 9 for a new mash-tun, and in 

 1610 10 fora new brewhouse-tun. In 1613 King's College 



VOL. V. z z 



