A HISTORY OF DORSET 



supplied by all alehouse-keepers brewing in their own 

 houses, the master of the House of Correction being 

 authorised to take not above id. for a bushel ground 

 in the said House." 



In 1630 'there were great fears ot a scarcity' 

 in the malt supply ; it was therefore ordered 

 that no person in the county of Dorset should 

 presume to convert any grain into malt, except 

 farmers on their own land, until the licence 

 should be renewed.** 



Strong beer was to be sold at this date at 1 2s. 

 the hogshead, the small beer being priced at gs. 

 the hogshead.'' 



At the General Sessions at Blandfordin 1639, 

 every innkeeper selling one quart of best beer and 

 two of ordinary beer for more than id. was 

 fined j^l, a similar fine being inflicted on 

 unlicensed innkeepers."^ 



In 1650 complaints were lodged by the 

 brewers of Weymouth against the importation 

 of ' foreign beer,' that is, beer brewed out of 

 the borough, the said beer being bought by the 

 innkeepers to the prejudice of the brewers. A 

 tax of i2d. was levied on every hogshead, * to 

 go to the poor.' *' 



Welsh coal was being largely employed in 

 drying the malt made in Dorset in 1793, when 

 the demand for that commodity in the county 

 reached a total of from 10,000 to 12,000 bushels, 

 10 to 14 bushels going to a hogshead of 63 

 gallons of strong beer.-* 



Cerne Abbas had a good trade in malting 

 and brewing in 1823.^' 



Dorchester ale has been enthusiastically praised 

 for two centuries^'* by county historian, novelist, 

 and poet. It is still well-known in the south 

 and west of England, though its export to London 

 is no longer so important as formerly. The 

 industry has suffered various vicissitudes, but is 

 at present in a flourishing condition and is 

 rapidly increasing. 



References in the Minute Books of the 

 corporation of Dorchester show that the brewers 

 were very busy in the seventeenth century. 

 The traffic of their wagons was so great and 

 the pavement of the town so damaged by the 

 ' brewers' cart-wheels by reason of their iron 

 bonds' that on 13 June, 1631, they were for- 

 bidden to ' carry any beer abroad in the town 

 with iron bonds.' But it was not until early in 



" Somen, and Dors. N. and Q. i, 212. 



" Roberts, Soc. Hist. Southern Counties, 456. 



" Ibid. 457. " Ibid. 178. 



" Ibid. 458. 



*' Claridge, Jgric. of Dors. 19, 20. 



" Pigot, Dir. 1823, p. 266. 



"^ It is of interest to note that as early as 1 3 40 

 the 'consuetudo cervisie ' at Fordington was esti- 

 mated at 20/., so that even then a considerable quantity 

 of ale was brewed in the neighbourhood of Dor- 

 chester. Inq. Non. 49^. 



the eighteenth century '" that their beer became 

 famous, then as Mr. Cox explained, 



since by the French wars [The war of the Spanish 

 Succession] the coming of French wine is prohibited, 

 the people here [i.e. Dorchester] have learned to brew 

 the finest malt liquors in the kingdom, so delicately 

 clean and well tasted that the best judges not only 

 prefer it to the ales most in vogue as Hull, Derby 

 Burton &c., because 'tis not so heady, but look upon 

 it to be little inferior to common wine, and better 

 than the sophisticated which is usually sold." 



Here the ale is praised because it was not heady, 

 but this quality became one of its especial char- 

 acteristics less than a hundred years later. In 

 1754 Pococke found Cerne Abbas was 'more 

 famous for beer than in any other place in this 

 county.' '' This town, together with Shaftesbury, 

 Blandford, and Dorchester, traded in malt ; and 

 the ' incomparable ' '' beer of Dorchester, great 

 ' quantities of which are sold in London,' ^ is 

 mentioned again and again by the eighteenth- 

 century writers. 



Hutchins agrees with Cox in giving the French 

 War as the reason for the extension of malting 

 and brewing, and further states that the towns- 

 people sent ' great quantities of excellent beer to 

 London and to foreign parts, but since 1725 

 this trade is decayed.' '' However, beer still 

 continued one of the best-known products of 

 Dorchester ; in 1788 it was described as having 

 ' ever been esteemed excellent and sent to various 

 parts of the world.' " 



In the early nineteenth century the beer and 

 ale were as highly praised as in the eighteenth, 

 but their characteristics seem to have somewhat 

 altered. In 1802 the strong beer of Dorset was 

 ' famous,' the ale was ' also particularly celebrated 

 and in some respects unequalled.' '^ 



Some blight seems to fall later upon the 

 industry, and less is heard about the Dorset ale. 

 The only explanation suggested is the excessive 

 cost of transit ; the ale and beer being usually 

 conveyed in wagons, as there were no navigable 

 rivers and no canals near Dorchester. 



The largest brewery now existing was estab- 

 lished early in the nineteenth century and is 

 famous for the excellence of its water for brewing 



*' William Gawler praises the beer of Dorchester in 

 the following terms in 1743 : — 



' What town such British nectar can produce ? 



'Boston and Nottingham in vain compare, 



* Whilst foreign kings delight in Dorset Beer ! ' 



Somers. and Dors. N. and Q. x, 87. 

 " Cox, Magna Brit. 1 720, p. 67. 

 " Pococke, Travels (1754). 

 " Engl. Displayed (1769), 67. 

 " Description of Engl, and Wales (1769), 229. 

 ^' Hutchins, Hist of Dors, ii, 338. 

 '« Shaw, ^our to the West of Engl. (1788), 469. 

 " Britton, Beauties of Engl, and Wales (1802), 



324. 



368 



