298 QUALITY OLD RECIPE. 



had their day. KEEPING small beer was formerly 

 in phrase and in use at London, where fine ales 

 have immemorially been brewed, and where may be 

 also found the ales of every brewing district of the 

 country. 



Act of Parliament, or TABLE ALE, with intermedi- 

 ate beer, have lately come into vogue, but they all 

 give place, in public estimation and consumption, to 

 porter. This favourite beverage, however, is con- 

 demned by the physicians, as productive of bilious 

 and liver complaints, and injurious to the female 

 complexion. Porter is a compound drink, in which, 

 indeed, brown, or high-dried malt was formerly the 

 principal ingredient, but in aid of which, certain 

 other ingredients, far less costly, but not absolutely 

 noxious, seem, in these days, to be deemed allow- 

 able, or rather essential, in the manufacture of this 

 cerevisia sui generis, or peculiar beer. It is said to 

 have been, for some years, brewed chiefly from pale 

 malt, the colour being imparted by a certain quantity 

 of " patent malt," roasted like coffee, until black. 

 Brewing beer from barley, or other raw unmalted 

 grain, ground to meal, and infused for two or three 

 hours in the liquor, at a heat of about 150 degrees, 

 is said to be in practice. I should apprehend that, 

 good keeping beer cannot be so produced. Other 

 ingredients, which have been too often used, are 

 proscribed by law, under very heavy penalties. 



It is curious to read in the treatise by Ellis of 

 Gaddesden, the recipe for brewing porter. He 

 tells us, the brewers in his time, commonly drew a 

 barrel and a firkin, or a hogshead of porter from a 



