OBSTACLES PORTER VARIOUS BEERS. 297 



of beer has advanced, and its quality proportionally 

 receded, always offer some, but a temporary coun- 

 teraction to the custom of purchasing. Citizens 

 then, including those labourers who can possibly 

 eke out the room and the money, begin brewing. 

 The system continues, so long as the funds can be 

 found, or the home-brewed maggot survives or con- 

 tinues to bite. Anon comes the change. The poor 

 in towns, as well as in the country, find solid reasons, 

 already stated, for giving up brewing. Nor are the 

 people of property behind hand; they have no 

 leisure, generally, to pay a personal attention, but 

 must trust to a labouring brewer, who now and then 

 spoils them a stock of beer. The enthusiasm for 

 brewing their own beer now cools, wearisomeness 

 and disgust succeed ; and they find that beer may 

 be purchased, at a much dearer rate, indeed, com- 

 paratively no object to them, more agreeable to their 

 palate, without the trouble and fuss of brewing at 

 home. Away then, go mash-tun and coolers, casks 

 and all, and the poor copper is left in pristine 

 solitude ! 



Among the OBSTACLES to private brewing, the 

 most redoubtable of all, certainly, must not be over- 

 looked. It is the universal predilection, both of the 

 natives and foreigners who visit this country, for 

 London PORTER, which no private family, so far as 

 I have heard, has succeeded in brewing to perfec- 

 tion. It is within my memory, I believe, that drink- 

 ing porter became universal ; but the old " butt 

 beer," has assumed the name of porter, perhaps a 

 century past. TWO-PENNY and ROMAN PURL have 



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