452 THE BREWING INDUSTRY IN IRELAND. 



Ill transforming the old sweet barley wine or ale into clear tonic-hopped 

 beer, that it was commonly said — 



" Turkey, carpe, hoppes, picarel and beer, 

 Came into England all in one year." 



It is interesting to note that the words ale and beer were both used in the 

 earliest times, but the latter word almost entirely dropped out of use during 

 the early Middle Ages. Neither Chaucer nor Langland use it, but in the 

 fifteenth century the word beer again crept into use with special reference 

 to a malt liquor containing an infusion of hops. Neither the word, nor, as 

 already noted, the article, was at first approved of. Old Andrew Boorde, 

 in his " Dietary," published in 1542, declares that "Ale for an Englishman 

 was a natural drink . . . Beer is made of malt and hops and water. It is 

 a natural drink for a Dutchman, and now of late days is much used in 

 England to the detriment of many Englishmen." But the word and the 

 article itself alike grew in favour, and the term ale is now little used except 

 in provincial dialects or as a trade name. 



Stow says that in 1585 there were twenty-six breweries in the city of 

 London and Westminster, and that they brewed as 



Thp r ^rpss of i^iuch as 648,960 barrels of beer in the year. The 

 . . „ J extent of the brewing industry in England even at the 



Brewing m England, beginning of the eighteenth century, is shown by the 

 fact that the average amount of malt upon which duty 

 was paid each year exceeded twenty million bushels, which probably repre- 

 sented an output of about ten million barrels of beer. 



In 1760, according to the Annual Register, there were fifty-two breweries 

 in London alone, producing 975,217 barrels a year. The largest of these 

 were Calvert's, Whitbread's, Truman's, and Thrale's — all of which are in 

 existence at the present day. On the death of Henry Thrale, the brewery 

 last mentioned (supposed to be then the largest in the world), was sold by Dr. 

 Johnson and his brother executor to Messrs. Barclay, Perkins & Co., for 

 ^' 1 3 5,000.* While on his tour to the Hebrides in 1783, Johnson mentioned 

 that " Thrale paid ;£"20,ooo a year to the revenue, and nad four vats, 

 each of which held 1,600 barrels." 



In order to follow the vicissitudes of the brewing industry during 

 the last two centuries, reference must be made to the 



The Taxation of taxes imposed, and indeed the development of brew- 

 Beer, ing cannot be traced without constant reference to 

 the beer and malt duties. Beer was first made an 

 excisable article by the Long Parliament in 1643, and on the Restoration 

 in 1660, an excise duty of 2s. 6d. per barrel on strong beer, and 6d. per 

 barrel on small beer was imposed to recoup the Revenue for the loss caused 

 by the abolition of the old feudal duties payable by landowners, and in the 

 following year the tax was extended to Ireland. The duty was increased 

 and varied greatly from time to time ; in Ireland the duty during the greater 

 part of the eighteenth century averaged about ^s. per barrel of strong beer, 

 and gd. per loarrel of small beer. In England the tax was much higher, 



* It is in connection with this brewery that one of Johnson's characteristic sayings was 

 deUvered. Boswell tells us that at the sale, Johnson, who took the office of executor very 

 seriously, appeared bustling about with an ink-horn and pen in his buttonhole, like an excise- 

 man, and on being asked what he really considered to be the value of the property which was 

 to be disposed of, answered : " We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the 

 potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice." 



