290 BREWING INTRODUCTION. 



SECTION XIX. 



The Brewery. 



MALT LIQUOR, or BEER, is styled the natural bever- 

 age of Englishmen : which being rendered into plain 

 English, will stand thus our country produces the 

 materials, and custom, almost immemorial, has es- 

 tablished the manufacture, and sanctioned its uni- 

 versal use. There is, moreover, another sanction 

 of superior rationality to mere custom. The quality 

 of genuine malt liquor, when of sufficient age, but 

 not old, is peculiarly nutritious, adapted to the moist 

 and variable climate, and to the constitutions of the 

 people of this country. To speak first of the 



PUBLIC BREWERY. It is to be lamented that, 

 commercial and fiscal interests have interfered, most 

 mischievously, in this great article of human sub- 

 sistence. The BREWERY represents one of our 

 mpst considerable and profitable manufacturing con- 

 cerns ; from its universality, the most convenient and 

 ready instrument of taxation. The consequence has 

 been, that the health and interest of the people have, 

 on this, as on every other occasion, been sacrificed to 

 fiscal and trading profit. The exigencies of the state 

 have demanded an enormous impost on malt. This 

 the brewers cannot afford to pay, preserving at the 



