HOME-BREWED PORTER. 335 



believe, do better than take as a text book, a small 

 and useful tract on the subject, written upwards of 

 thirty years since, by Mr. Samuel Child, a brewer. 

 He assures us, on his own experience, that as good 

 porter may be brewed from a single peck of malt, as 

 from a brewing on the large scale ; and that which 

 appears to me yet more strange, another writer avers 

 as much with respect to proportional equality of 

 quantity, as of quality. For its singularity, I give 

 the quotation " I have observed, that malt brewed 

 in these small quantities, makes a much stronger 

 liquor in proportion ; that is, eight peqks of malt, 

 brewed separately, will produce forty gallons of ex- 

 cellent beer, much better than eight pecks brewed 

 together. What the cause of this advantage is, I 

 have not exactly ascertained, but am fully satisfied 

 of the fact." 



Among the peculiar porter ingredients, however, 

 enumerated by Mr. Child, I am sorry to find that 

 baneful drug, coculus Indicus, which he has also 

 given in his recipe for ale. It is well he omitted 

 opium, which has often poisoned both porter and ale. 

 The following is Mr. Child's bill of fare for the pro- 

 duction of genuine porter, exclusive of the Indian 

 berry ; and the private brewer may assure himself 

 that, should the following ingredients fail to make 

 him fat, at any rate they will not poison him. The 

 expenses are calculated on the market rate of a 

 former day, Easter Monday, 1824. 



