English beer
Encyclopedia
English beer has a long history and traditions that are distinct from most other beer brewing countries.
Beer was the first alcoholic drink to be produced in England, and has been brewed continuously since prehistoric times. England is known for its top fermented cask beer (also called real ale) which finishes maturing in the cellar of the pub rather than at the brewery
and is served with only natural carbonation
.
English beer styles include bitter
, mild
, brown ale
and old ale
. Stout
was also originally brewed in London
.
Lager
style beer has increased considerably in popularity since the mid 20th century. Other modern developments include consolidation of large brewers into multinational corporations; growth of beer consumerism; expansion of microbreweries and increased interest in bottle conditioned beer
s.
English brewing is generally though to have been part of a wider Celtic tradition. Since this was well before the introduction of hops
, other flavourings such as honey
, meadowsweet
and mugwort may have been used.
. It was consumed daily by all social classes in the northern and eastern parts of Europe where grape
cultivation was difficult or impossible . Since the purity of water could seldom be guaranteed, alcoholic drinks were a popular choice, having been boiled as part of the brewing process. Beer also provided a considerable amount of the daily calories in the northern regions. In England, the per capita consumption was 275-300 liters (60-66 gallons) a year by the Late Middle Ages
, and beer was drunk with every meal.
In the Middle Ages, ale would have been brewed on the premises from which it was sold. Alewives would put out an ale-wand to show when their beer was ready. The mediaeval authorities were more interested in ensuring adequate quality and strength of the beer than discouraging drinking. Gradually men became involved in brewing
and organized themselves into guild
s such as the Brewers Guild in London of 1342 and the Edinburgh Society of Brewers in 1598. As brewing became more organized and reliable many inns and tavern
s ceased brewing for themselves and bought beer from these early commercial breweries.
An ale-conner
, sometimes "aleconner", was an officer appointed yearly at the court-leet of ancient English
communities to ensure the goodness and wholesomeness of bread
, ale
, and beer
. There were many different names for this position, which varied from place to place: "ale-tasters," gustatores cervisiae, "ale-founders," and "ale-conners". Ale-conners were often trusted to ensure that the beer was sold at a fair price. Historically, four ale-conners were chosen annually by the common-hall of the city.
It is sometimes said that:
However, the accuracy of the colourful legend is doubtful.
Abbot. Flavouring beer with hops was known at least since the 9th century, but was only gradually adopted because of difficulties in establishing the right proportions of ingredients. Before that, gruit
, a mix of various herbs had been used, but did not have the same conserving properties as hops.
In the 15th century, an unhopped beer would have been known as an ale, while the use of hops would make it a beer. Hopped beer was imported to England from the Netherlands as early as 1400 in Winchester, and hops were being planted on the island by 1428. At the time, ale and beer brewing were carried out separately, no brewer being allowed to produce both. The Brewers Company of London stated "no hops, herbs, or other like thing be put into any ale or liquore wherof ale shall be made — but only liquor (water), malt, and yeast." This comment is sometimes misquoted as a prohibition on hopped beer. However, hopped beer was opposed by some, e.g.
The early 1700s saw the development of a popular new style of dark beer in London: Porter. Before 1700, London brewers sent out their beer very young and any aging was either performed by the publican or a dealer. Porter was the first beer to be aged at the brewery and despatched in a condition fit to be drunk immediately. It was the first beer that could be made on any large scale, and the London porter brewers, such as Whitbread
, Truman
, Parsons and Thrale
, achieved great success financially.
The large London porter breweries pioneered many technological advances, such as the construction of large storage vats, the use of the thermometer
(about 1760), the hydrometer
(1770), and attemperators (about 1780).
The 18th century also saw the development of India Pale Ale. Among the earliest known named brewers whose beers were exported to India was George Hodgson of the Bow Brewery,
The late 1700s saw a system of progressive taxation based on the strength of beer in terms of cost of ingredients, leading to three distinct gradations: "table", "small" and "strong" beer. Mixing these types was used as a way of achieving variation, and sometimes avoiding taxation, and remained popular for more than a century afterwards.
The beer engine, a device for manually pump
ing beer
from a container in a pub's basement or cellar, was invented by Joseph Bramah
in 1797. The bar-mounted pump handle, with its changeable pump clip indicating the beer on offer remains a familiar and characteristic sight in most English pubs. Before the beer engine, beer was generally poured into jugs in the cellar or tap room and carried into the serving area.
Enacted in 1830, the Beerhouse Act
enabled anyone to brew and sell beer, ale
or cider
, whether from a public house
or their own homes, upon obtaining a moderately priced license of just under ₤2 for beer and ale and ₤1 for cider, without recourse to obtaining them from justices of the peace
, as was previously required. The result was the opening of hundreds of new pubs throughout England
, and the reduction of the influence of the large breweries. One of the motivations of the
Act was to reduce the abusive over-consumption of gin
.
Demand for the export style of pale ale, which had become known as "India Pale Ale," developed in England around 1840 and India Pale Ale became a popular product in England. Some brewers dropped the term "India" in the late 19th century, but records indicated that these "pale ales" retained the features of earlier IPA.
A pale and well hopped style of beer was developed in Burton in parallel with the development of India Pale Ale elsewhere. Previously, Englishmen had drunk mainly stout and porter, but bitter (a development of pale ale) came to predominate. Beers from Burton were considered of a particularly high quality due to synergy between the malt and hops in use and local water chemistry, especially the presence of gypsum
.This extensively hopped, lighter beer was easier to store and transport, and so favoured the growth of larger breweries. The switch from pewter
tankard
s to glassware also led drinkers to prefer lighter beers. The development of rail links to Liverpool enabled brewers to export their beer throughout the British Empire. Burton retained absolute dominance in pale ale brewing: at its height one quarter of all beer sold in Britain was produced there until a chemist, C. W. Vincent discovered the process of Burtonisation to reproduce the chemical composition of the water from Burton-upon-Trent, thus giving any brewery the capability to brew pale ale.
Continental lager
s began to be offered in pubs in the late 19th century, but remained a small part of the market for many decades.
In 1960 almost 40 per cent of beer drunk nationally was sold in bottled form, although the figure was 60 per cent in the South of England, falling to 20 per cent in the North of England. Pale ale had replaced mild as the beer of choice for the majority of drinkers.
In the early 20th century, serving draught beer from pressurised containers began. Artificial carbonation
was introduced in the United Kingdom
in 1936, with Watney’s experimental pasteurised
beer Red Barrel, although this method of serving beer did not take hold in the U.K. until the late 1960s.
Home brewing without a licence was legalised in 1963.
Lager rapidly rose in popularity from the 1970s, with English brewers producing their own brands or brewing under licence. Canned beer was also introduced about this time.
A consumer organisation called the Campaign for Real Ale
(CAMRA) was founded, in 1971, to protect unpressurised beer, the group devised the term real ale to differentiate between beer served from the cask and beer served under pressure and to differentiate both from lager. "Ale" now meant a top-fermented beer, not an unhopped beer. By 2004, the term real ale had been expanded to include bottle-conditioned
beer, while the term cask ale had become the accepted global term to indicate a beer not served under pressure. CAMRA also campaigns against the tendency of smaller brewers to be bought up by larger ones, against short measures, and for increased choice and longer
opening hours for pubs.
Two pieces of legislation introduced in December 1989, partly in response to CAMRA campaigning. The Orders restricted the number of tied pubs that could be owned by large brewery groups in the United Kingdom to 2000, and required large brewer landlords to allow a guest ale
to be sourced by tenants from someone other than their landlord. The industry responded by spinning off purely pub-owning companies ("pubcos"), such as (Punch Taverns
and Enterprise Inns
) from the older brewing-and-owning companies (notably Allied Lyons
, Bass, and Scottish & Newcastle
). The Beer Orders were revoked in January 2003, by which time the industry had been transformed.
A change to beer taxation, Progressive Beer Duty
was introduced by Gordon Brown
in 2002. It was a reduction in beer duty based on a brewery's total production and aimed at helping smaller breweries. The legislation had been campaigned for by the federation of small and independent brewers (SIBA).
The popularity of lager peaked at just under 75% in 2008. The total number of breweries was estimated at 700 in 2010, about twice the number when CAMRA was founded, with most new breweries being microbreweries. Meanwhile, the former national breweries were amalgamated into multinational
companies.
Bitter
is a broad term applied to a well-hopped pale ale
, from about 3.5% to 7% in strength and pale gold to dark mahogany in colour. British brewers have several loose names for variations in beer strength, such as best bitter, special bitter, extra special bitter, and premium bitter. There is no agreed and defined difference between an ordinary and a best bitter other than one particular brewery's best bitter will usually be stronger than its ordinary. Two groups of drinkers may mark differently the point at which a best bitter then becomes a premium bitter. Hop levels will vary within each sub group, though there is a tendency for the hops in the session bitter group to be more noticeable. Bitter is dispensed in most formats — hand-pulled
from the cask
, on draught from the keg, smoothflow or bottled. Drinkers tend to loosely group the beers into:
Session or ordinary bitter
Strength up to 4.1% abv. The majority of British beers with the name IPA
will be found in this group, such as Greene King IPA, Flowers IPA
, Wadworth
Henrys Original IPA, etc. These session bitters are not as strong and hoppy as the 18th and 18th century IPAS (or as an India Pale Ale would be in the USA) although IPAs with modest gravities (below 1040º) have been brewed in Britain since at least the 1920s. This is the most common strength of bitter sold in British pubs. It accounts for 16.9% of pub sales.
Best bitter. Strength between 3.8% and 4.7% abv. In the United Kingdom, Bitter above 4.2% abv accounts for just 2.9% of pub sales. The disappearance of weaker bitters from some brewer's rosters means "best" bitter is actually the weakest in the range.
Premium bitter Strength of 4.8% abv and over. Also known as extra special bitter, for instance Fuller's ESB.
Golden ale
Golden or summer ales were developed in the late 20th century by breweries to compete with the pale lager
market. A typical golden ale has an appearance and profile similar to that of a pale lager. Malt
character is subdued and the hop
profile ranges from spicy to citrus; common hop additions include Styrian Golding and Cascade. Alcohol is in the 4% to 5% range ABV. The style was marketed in 1989 by John Gilbert, a former brewer at Watney in Mortlake, London, who had opened his own operation, the Hop Back Brewery
, in Salisbury
, England. His aim was to develop a pale ale
that could be as refreshing as lager. The result was a drier and hoppier pale ale he called "Summer Lightning", after a novel by PG Wodehouse; it won several awards and inspired numerous imitators.
India Pale Ale
It is often said that India Pale Ale
, a strong and well-hopped beer was designed to "survive the sea voyage to India", but some modern authorities consider this to be a myth. Twentieth century IPAs were equivalent to a typical bitter, although there has been a recent tendency to return to 18th century strengths (5.5% upwards) and hop rates, e.g. Thornbridge Brewery
's Jaipur
IPA and Fuller, Smith and Turner
's Bengal Lancer. As can
be seen from the examples, such "true" IPAs tend to emphasise the Indian connection in their branding.
range from beers such as Manns Original Brown Ale, which is quite sweet and low in alcohol, to North Eastern brown ale such as Newcastle Brown Ale
, Double Maxim
and Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale.
Mild ale
in modern times is generally considered to be a low-gravity
beer with a low hop rate and predominantly malty palate. Historically, mild ales were of standard strength for the time (and rather strong by modern standards). Modern mild ales are mainly dark coloured with an abv
of 3% to 3.6%, though there are lighter hued examples, as well as stronger more traditional examples reaching 6% abv and higher. The term 'mild' originally had nothing to do with strength or level of hop bitterness, but rather as a label for beers that were not "vatted" (aged) and hence did not have some of the tart and even slightly sour flavor of ales that were subject to long aging, which was considered a desirable attribute of premium ales.
The dark colour characteristic of modern day milds can come from either the use of roast malt or caramelised sugars, or more commonly, both. These ingredients lead to differences in flavour characteristics.
Mild is often thought to be partly a survival of the older style of hop-less brewing (hops were introduced in the 16th century), partly as a cheaper alternative to bitter (for a long time mild was a penny a pot, and bitter beer tuppence), and partly a sustaining but relatively unintoxicating beverage suitable for lunchtime drinking by manual workers. But in reality, mild was likely not hopped any differently than other beers of the day, since the term 'mild' referred primarily to a lack of the sour tang contributed by age, and not a lack of hop character or alcoholic strength,
Once sold in every pub, mild experienced a catastrophic fall in popularity after the 1960s and was in danger of completely disappearing from many parts of the United Kingdom. However, in recent years the explosion of microbreweries has led to a modest renaissance, and an increasing number of mild (sometimes labelled 'Dark') brands are now being brewed. Most of these are in the more modern interpretation of 'mild'...a sweeter brew with lower alcoholic strength.
Some breweries have revived the traditional high-gravity "mild", with alcohol content of 6% or so, the classic example being Sarah Hughes Ruby, brewed to a Victorian recipe.
is a term applied to dark, malty beers above 4.5% abv
, also sometimes called Winter Warmers. Many have "old" in the name, such as Theakston's Old Peculier, Marston's Owd Roger, Robinson's
Old Tom. Many brewers make high abv
old ales for bottling, some of which are bottle-conditioned
and can mature for several years. Some of these stronger versions are known as barley wine
. Stock ale is a strong beer which is used for blending with weaker beers at the brewery and not sold directly. The upper limit on strength for this style is about 11%-12% ABV.
is a historically significant style developed in 18th century London, which is the ancestor of stout, a style now considered typically Irish. English Porters and stouts are generally as dark or darker than old ales, and significantly more bitter. They differ from dark milds and old ales in the use of roast grains, which adds to the bitterness, and lends flavours of toast
, biscuit
or coffee
.
Variations on the style include oatmeal stout, oyster stout, the sweet milk stout, and the very strong imperial stout, all of which are generally available in bottles only. These speciality beers have a tiny proportion of the market, but are of interest to connoisseurs worldwide.
London porter differs from stout in having generally lower gravity and lighter body, closer to bitter. Porter as distinct from stout virtually disappeared during the mid-20th century, but has had a modest revival since the 1980s (e.g. Dark Star
Original, Fuller's London Porter).
Wobble was historically a low-strength ale that was provided on site to workers in particularly heavy and thirst-inducing occupations, such as foundries
. However, modern-day beers called Wobble tend to be strong
Stingo or spingo was strong or old ale. The name possible comes from the sharp, or "stinging" flavour of a well-matured beer. The Blue Anchor, Helston calls it beers "spingo". The term "stingo" has associations with Yorkshire
.
Three threads and Entire. A much repeated story has it that 18th century London drinkers liked to blend aged (up to 18 months) and fresh beers into a mixture known as three threads, and that a certain Ralph Harwood came up with an "entire" beer that reproduced the taste of the mixture in a single brew, and that this "Entire" was the ancestor of porter and stout. However, modern beer scholars tend to doubt the veracity of the story Nevertheless, a few latter-day Entires are produced (e.g Old Swan Brewery and Hop Back Brewery
).
Lager
is the term generally used in England for bottom-fermented beer.
Despite the traditional English beer being ale
, more than half of the current English market is now lager in the Pilsener
and Export
styles. These lighter coloured, bottom fermented beers first started gaining real popularity in England in the later part of the 20th Century.
Carling
, which is owned by the American/Canadian brewing giant Molson Coors Brewing Company
is the highest selling beer in England and is mainly brewed in Burton upon Trent
. Meanwhile the largest brewery in Britain today, Scottish & Newcastle
, which has three main breweries (Manchester
, Reading
and Tadcaster
) brews Britain's second highest selling beer which is the lager Foster's
.
Other lagers popular in England include Kronenbourg
(which also belongs to Scottish & Newcastle
) and Stella Artois
(which belongs to the Belgian brewery InBev
and in Britain is brewed in South Wales and Samlesbury
near Preston).
Indian cuisine
is very popular in Britain, and special lagers such as Cobra Beer
have been developed to accompany it.
), these are traditionally mitigated by serving the beer through a hand pump fitted with a sparkler, a device that mixes air with the beer, oxidising it slightly and softening the flavour.
Cask beer
is the traditional method of service, via a hand pump or by gravity straight from the cask on stillage
. Cask conditioned beer is unfiltered, unpasteurized and lacking artificial carbonation, giving it a limited shelf-life. This dispense method is strongly associated with ale, although there is no technical barrier to serving lager or stout this way. Most pubs use hand pumps ("beer engines") to draw the beer, whereas stillages are commonly employed at beer festivals. Cask ale and bottle conditioned
beer are championed by the Campaign for Real Ale under the name real ale.
Keg beer is a term for beer
which is served from a pressurized keg
. Keg beer is often filtered
and/or pasteurized
, both of which are processes that render the yeast
inactive, increasing the shelf life of the product. However, some believe this is at the expense of flavor.
Nitrokeg dispense is a variation on keg dispense associated with stouts and Irish "red" ales.
Whilst draught beer
takes up the majority of the market, bottled beer has a firm place and is a growing sector. Some brands are sold almost entirely in the bottled format, such as Newcastle Brown Ale
and Worthington White Shield. CAMRA promotes bottle-conditoned beer as "real ale in a bottle" (RAIB).
Some on-licensed establishments are considered bar
s rather than pubs; they are less likely to be free standing, and more likely to be urban in setting and modern in style. "New wave" beer bars tend to specialise in bottled and pressure-dispensed craft beers from around the world, rather than the cask ales of traditional real ale pubs. Some establishments imitate Dutch
or Belgian cafés, or German bierkellers as a novelty, with a range of draught and bottled beer to match.
Most off licences (i.e. liquor stores) sell at least a dozen bottled beers. Some specialists sell many more, and may include a few cask ales that can be dispensed to customers in containers to be taken home.
The English do not have a long-standing tradition of beer festival
s like the Munich Oktoberfest
, but the idea of a "beer exhibition" where a wide variety can be sampled has been enthusiastically taken up since the 1970s.
The largest is CAMRA's Great British Beer Festival
held every August. Local CAMRA branches organise smaller festivals in most vicinities. Beer festivals often include competitions to judge the best beer.
is a form of drinkware consisting of a large, roughly cylindrical
, drinking cup with a single handle. Tankards are usually made of silver
, pewter
, or glass
, but can be made of other materials, for example wood
, ceramic
or leather
. A tankard may have a hinged lid, and tankards featuring glass bottoms are also fairly common. Tankards are now rarely used, except where made from glass, but historic tankards are often used as decorative items.
A Toby Jug - also sometimes known as a Fillpot (or Philpot) - is a pottery
jug in the form of a seated person, or the head of a recognizable person (often an English king). Typically the seated figure is a heavily-set, jovial man holding a mug of beer
in one hand and a pipe of tobacco
in the other and wearing 18th century attire: a long coat and a tricorn hat. Like metal tankards, they are now considered decorative items.
A yard of ale or yard glass is a very tall beer glass used for drinking around 2.5 pints (1.4 l) of beer, depending upon the diameter. The glass is approximately 1 yard
long, shaped with a bulb at the bottom, and a widening shaft which constitutes most of the height. The glass most likely originated in 17th-century England
where the glass was known also as a "Long Glass", a "Cambridge Yard (Glass)" and an "Ell
Glass". It is associated by legend with stagecoach drivers, though was mainly used for drinking feats and special toasts. Drinking a yard glass full of beer as quickly as possible is a traditional pub game; the bulb at the bottom of the glass makes it likely that the contestant will be splashed with a sudden rush of beer towards the end of the feat. The fastest drinking of a yard of ale (1.42 litres) in the Guinness Book of Records is 5 seconds.
The most celebrated English hop
varieties are Fuggles and Goldings, although commercial pressures may incline brewers to use higher-yielding modern varieties. Modern brewers also sometimes make use of American or Continental hops. South-east England, particularly Kent
is the traditional hop growing area; brewers in the north and west used to economise on the cost of importing hops by producing beers with more of a malt character, a regional distinction that has not entirely vanished. A characteristic technique is dry hopping, where hops are added during the fermentation phase in addition to those that went into the initial boil.
Maris Otter
is the most celebrated brewing malt
. Malts can be treated in a number of ways, particularly by degrees of roasting, to obtain different colours and flavours. Oats, wheat malt or unmalted barley may also be included in the mash.
Water — known as "liquor" — is an important ingredient in brewing, and larger breweries often draw supplies from their own wells. Burton upon Trent
(see below) is famed for the suitability of its water for brewing, and its mineral balance is often artificially copied.
Top-fermenting yeasts stay on the surface of fermenting beer whilst active, hence top-ferented beers tend to be less naturally clear than lagers and finings
are therefore used to clarify them. Modern breweries carefully maintain their own distinctive strains of yeast.
English brewers are allowed a free hand in the use of adjuncts which can include honey, ginger and spices, although this practice is not common.
English brewing is often considered to have a four-tier structure.
Brewpubs subsequently resurged, particularly with the rise of the Firkin
pub chain, most of whose pubs brewed on the premises, running to over one hundred at peak. However, that chain was sold and eventually its pubs ceased brewing their own beer. The resulting decline in brewpubs was something of a boon to other forms of microbrewing, as it led to an availability of trained craft brewers and brewing equipment.
British brewpubs are not required to double up as restaurants, as is the case under some legislatures. Many specialise in ale, whilst others brew continental styles such as lager and wheatbeer. Current examples small independent brewpubs such as The Ministry of Ale, Burnley, The Masons Arms in Headington, Oxford, The Brunswick Inn, Derby, The Watermill pub, Ings, Cumbria and The Old Cannon Brewery, Bury St Edmunds.
breweries in the 18th century, the trend grew for pubs to become tied house
s which could only sell beer from one brewery (a pub not tied in this way was called a Free house). The usual arrangement for a tied house was that the pub was owned by the brewery but rented out to a private individual (landlord) who ran it as a separate business (even though contracted to buy the beer from the brewery). Another very common arrangement was (and is) for the landlord to own the premises (whether freehold or leasehold) independently of the brewer, but then to take a mortgage loan from a brewery, either to finance the purchase of the pub initially, or to refurbish it, and be required as a term of the loan to observe the solus tie. A growing trend in the late 20th century was for the brewery to run their pubs directly, employing a salaried manager (who perhaps could make extra money by commission, or by selling food).
Most such breweries, such as the regional brewery Shepherd Neame
in Kent
and Young's
in London, control hundreds of pubs in a particular region of the UK, whilst a few, such as Greene King, are spread nationally. The landlord
of a tied pub may be an employee of the brewery—in which case he would be a manager of a managed house, or a self-employed tenant who has entered into a lease agreement with a brewery, a condition of which is the legal obligation (trade tie) only to purchase that brewery's beer. This tied agreement provides tenants with trade premises at a below market rent providing people with a low-cost entry into self-employment. The beer selection is mainly limited to beers brewed by that particular company. A Supply of Beer law
, passed in 1989, was aimed at getting tied houses to offer at least one alternative beer, known as a guest beer
, from another brewery
.This law has now been repealed but while in force it dramatically altered the industry.
The period since the 1980s saw many breweries absorbed by, or becoming by take-overs, larger companies in the food, hotel or property sectors. The low returns of a pub-owning business led to many breweries selling their pub estates, especially those in cities, often to a new generation of small chains, many of which have now grown considerably and have a national presence. Other pub chain
s, such as All Bar One
and Slug and Lettuce offer youth-oriented atmospheres, often in premises larger than traditional pubs.
A free house is a pub that is free of the control of any one particular brewery. Free houses can, but do not necessarily, serve a varied selection range of guest beers. Some pub chains do so as well.
has been associated with the brewing
industry due to the quality of the local water (from boreholes, not from the River Trent
). This comes from the high proportion of dissolved salts in the water, predominantly caused by the gypsum
in the surrounding hills; the resulting sulphate brings out the hops – see Burtonisation. Much of the open land within and around the town is protected from chemical treatment to help preserve this water quality.
The town is still home to seven brewers:
The Bass Museum of Brewing - renamed the Coors Visitor Centre
after Coors took over the brewery - continued until June 2008. This was reopened in 2010 as the William Worthington Brewery and its ales - including Worthington Red Shield, White Shield, and "E", are primarily sold through the on-site Brewery Tap outlet
A by-product of the brewing industry, figuratively and literally, is the Marmite
factory in the town: Marmite being made from spent brewer's yeast. Together with the breweries this can give the area a distinctive smell.
A pale and well hopped style of beer was developed in Burton in parallel with the development of India Pale Ale elsewhere. Previously, Englishmen had drunk mainly stout and porter - dark beers flavoured with roasted barley and similar to Guinness
- but bitter (a development of pale ale) came to predominate. This extensively hopped, lighter beer was easier to store and transport, and so favoured the growth of larger breweries.
Burton came to dominate this trade, and at its height one quarter of all beer sold in Britain
was produced here. Although over 30 breweries are recorded in 1880, a process of mergers and buy-outs resulted in three main breweries remaining by 1980: Bass, Ind Coopes and Marston's.
The fame of Burton ales gave rise to the English euphemism "gone for a Burton" meaning to die — a World War II
humorous suggestion that a missing comrade had merely nipped out for a beer.
The town's connection with the brewing industry is celebrated by a sculpture of the Burton Cooper, which is now housed in the shopping centre.
Burton upon Trent is also known in beer technology circles for the Burton Union recirculating fermenter system, now used only by Marston's
Brewery (all other Burton brewers have switched to stainless steel).
refers to any article containing a brewery
name or brand name,usually in connection to collecting them as a hobby. Examples include beer cans, bottles, openers, tin signs, coasters, beer trays, wooden cases and neon
signs.
- A. A. Milne
--John Ray
(1627–1705)
Beer was the first alcoholic drink to be produced in England, and has been brewed continuously since prehistoric times. England is known for its top fermented cask beer (also called real ale) which finishes maturing in the cellar of the pub rather than at the brewery
Brewery
A brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made at home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....
and is served with only natural carbonation
Carbonation
Carbonation is the process of dissolving carbon dioxide in water. The process usually involves carbon dioxide under high pressure. When the pressure is reduced, the carbon dioxide is released from the solution as small bubbles, which cause the solution to "fizz." This effect is seen in carbonated...
.
English beer styles include bitter
Bitter (beer)
Bitter is an English term for pale ale. Bitters vary in colour from gold to dark amber and in strength from 3% to 7% alcohol by volume.-Brief history:...
, mild
Mild ale
Mild ale is a low-gravity beer, or beer with a predominantly malty palate, that originated in Britain in the 17th century or earlier. Modern mild ales are mainly dark coloured with an abv of 3% to 3.6%, though there are lighter hued examples, as well as stronger examples reaching 6% abv and...
, brown ale
Brown ale
Brown ale is a style of beer with a dark amber or brown colour. The term was first used by London brewers in the late 17th century to describe their products, such as mild ale, though the term had a rather different meaning than it does today...
and old ale
Old ale
Old ale is a term commonly applied to dark, malty beers in England, generally above 5% abv, also to dark ales of any strength in Australia. Sometimes associated with stock ale or, archaically, keeping ale, in which the beer is held at the brewery....
. Stout
Stout
Stout is a dark beer made using roasted malt or barley, hops, water and yeast. Stouts were traditionally the generic term for the strongest or stoutest porters, typically 7% or 8%, produced by a brewery....
was also originally brewed in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
Lager
Lager
Lager is a type of beer made from malted barley that is brewed and stored at low temperatures. There are many types of lager; pale lager is the most widely-consumed and commercially available style of beer in the world; Pilsner, Bock, Dortmunder Export and Märzen are all styles of lager...
style beer has increased considerably in popularity since the mid 20th century. Other modern developments include consolidation of large brewers into multinational corporations; growth of beer consumerism; expansion of microbreweries and increased interest in bottle conditioned beer
Bottle conditioning
Bottle conditioned beers are either unfiltered so the final conditioning of the beer takes place in the bottle, or filtered and then reseeded with yeast so that an additional fermentation may take place.-Priming:...
s.
Romano-Celtic Britain
Brewing in England was probably well established when the Romans arrived in 54BC, and certainly continued under them.
"In the 1980s archaeologists found the evidence that Rome's soldiers in
Britain sustained themselves on Celtic ale. A series of domestic and
military accounts written on wooden tablets were dug up at the Roman fort of
VindolandaVindolandaVindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort just south of Hadrian's Wall in northern England. Located near the modern village of Bardon Mill, it guarded the Stanegate, the Roman road from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth...
, at Chesterholm in modern NorthumbriaNorthumbriaNorthumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...
, dating to between AD90 and
AD130. They reveal the garrisonGarrisonGarrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base....
at Vindolanda buying ceruese, or beer, as
the legions doubtless did throughout the rest of Roman Britain, almost
certainly from brewers in the local area."
"One list of accounts from Vindolanda mentions Atrectus the brewer
(Atrectus ceruesar[ius), the first named brewer in British history, as well
as the first known professional brewer in Britain. The accounts also show
purchases of bracis or braces, that is, emmer wheat (or malt), doubtless for
brewing. Quite possibly the garrison bought the malt, and hired a local
brewer to make beer from it for the troops."
"In Roman Britain, brewing, both domestic and retail, must have been
widespread: remains indicating the existence of Roman-era malting or brewing
operations have been found from SomersetSomersetThe ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
to NorthumberlandNorthumberlandNorthumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
, and South WalesWalesWales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
to ColchesterColchesterColchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...
. In the third and fourth centuries AD Roman hypocaustHypocaustA hypocaust was an ancient Roman system of underfloor heating, used to heat houses with hot air. The word derives from the Ancient Greek hypo meaning "under" and caust-, meaning "burnt"...
technology, for supplying central heatingCentral heatingA central heating system provides warmth to the whole interior of a building from one point to multiple rooms. When combined with other systems in order to control the building climate, the whole system may be a HVAC system.Central heating differs from local heating in that the heat generation...
to homes, was adapted in Britain
to build permanent corn dryers/maltings, and the remains of these
double-floored buildings, with underground flues, are found in Roman towns
as well as on Roman farms."
English brewing is generally though to have been part of a wider Celtic tradition. Since this was well before the introduction of hops
Hops
Hops are the female flower clusters , of a hop species, Humulus lupulus. They are used primarily as a flavoring and stability agent in beer, to which they impart a bitter, tangy flavor, though hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine...
, other flavourings such as honey
Honey
Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...
, meadowsweet
Meadowsweet
Filipendula ulmaria, commonly known as Meadowsweet, is a perennial herb in the family Rosaceae that grows in damp meadows. It is native throughout most of Europe and Western Asia...
and mugwort may have been used.
Middle ages: Ale-wands, ale-wives and ale-conners
Beer was one of the most common drinks during the Middle AgesMedieval cuisine
Medieval cuisine includes the foods, eating habits, and cooking methods of various European cultures during the Middle Ages, a period roughly dating from the 5th to the 16th century...
. It was consumed daily by all social classes in the northern and eastern parts of Europe where grape
Grape
A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...
cultivation was difficult or impossible . Since the purity of water could seldom be guaranteed, alcoholic drinks were a popular choice, having been boiled as part of the brewing process. Beer also provided a considerable amount of the daily calories in the northern regions. In England, the per capita consumption was 275-300 liters (60-66 gallons) a year by the Late Middle Ages
Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th to the 16th century . The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern era ....
, and beer was drunk with every meal.
In the Middle Ages, ale would have been brewed on the premises from which it was sold. Alewives would put out an ale-wand to show when their beer was ready. The mediaeval authorities were more interested in ensuring adequate quality and strength of the beer than discouraging drinking. Gradually men became involved in brewing
Brewing
Brewing is the production of beer through steeping a starch source in water and then fermenting with yeast. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BCE, and archeological evidence suggests that this technique was used in ancient Egypt...
and organized themselves into guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
s such as the Brewers Guild in London of 1342 and the Edinburgh Society of Brewers in 1598. As brewing became more organized and reliable many inns and tavern
Tavern
A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food, and in some cases, where travelers receive lodging....
s ceased brewing for themselves and bought beer from these early commercial breweries.
An ale-conner
Ale conner
An ale-conner was an officer appointed yearly at the court-leet of ancient English communities to ensure the goodness and wholesomeness of bread, ale, and beer. There were many different names for this position which varied from place to place: "ale-tasters," gustatores cervisiae, "ale-founders,"...
, sometimes "aleconner", was an officer appointed yearly at the court-leet of ancient English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
communities to ensure the goodness and wholesomeness of bread
Bread
Bread is a staple food prepared by cooking a dough of flour and water and often additional ingredients. Doughs are usually baked, but in some cuisines breads are steamed , fried , or baked on an unoiled frying pan . It may be leavened or unleavened...
, ale
Ale
Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a warm fermentation with a strain of brewers' yeast. The yeast will ferment the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste...
, and beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
. There were many different names for this position, which varied from place to place: "ale-tasters," gustatores cervisiae, "ale-founders," and "ale-conners". Ale-conners were often trusted to ensure that the beer was sold at a fair price. Historically, four ale-conners were chosen annually by the common-hall of the city.
It is sometimes said that:
The Ale Conner was a type of early tax-man whose job it was to test the quality and strength of beer, not by quaffing, but by sitting in a puddle of it! They travelled from pub to pub clad in sturdy leather britches. Beer was poured on a wooden bench and the Conner sat in it. Depending on how sticky they felt it to be when they stood up, they were able to assess its alcoholic strength and impose the appropriate duty.
However, the accuracy of the colourful legend is doubtful.
1400-1699: Rise of hopped beer
The use of hops in beer was written of as early as 822 by a CarolingianCarolingian
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name "Carolingian", Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested Old High German *karling, kerling The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the...
Abbot. Flavouring beer with hops was known at least since the 9th century, but was only gradually adopted because of difficulties in establishing the right proportions of ingredients. Before that, gruit
Gruit
Gruit is an old-fashioned herb mixture used for bittering and flavoring beer, popular before the extensive use of hops. Gruit or grut ale may also refer to the beverage produced using gruit....
, a mix of various herbs had been used, but did not have the same conserving properties as hops.
In the 15th century, an unhopped beer would have been known as an ale, while the use of hops would make it a beer. Hopped beer was imported to England from the Netherlands as early as 1400 in Winchester, and hops were being planted on the island by 1428. At the time, ale and beer brewing were carried out separately, no brewer being allowed to produce both. The Brewers Company of London stated "no hops, herbs, or other like thing be put into any ale or liquore wherof ale shall be made — but only liquor (water), malt, and yeast." This comment is sometimes misquoted as a prohibition on hopped beer. However, hopped beer was opposed by some, e.g.
Ale is made of malte and water; and they the which do put any other thynge to ale than is rehersed, except yest, barme, or goddesgood [three words for yeast], doth sophysticat there ale. Ale for an Englysshe man is a naturall drinke. Ale muste haue these properties, it muste be fresshe and cleare, it muste not be ropy, nor smoky, nor it must haue no wefte nor tayle. Ale shulde not be dronke vnder .v.[5] dayes olde …. Barly malte maketh better ale than Oten malte or any other corne doth … Beere is made of malte, of hoppes, and water; it is a naturall drynke for a doche [Dutch] man, and nowe of late dayes [recently] it is moche vsed in Englande to the detryment of many Englysshe men … for the drynke is a colde drynke. Yet it doth make a man fatte, and doth inflate the bely, as it doth appere by the doche mennes faces and belyes.
1700-1899: Industry and empire
Whitbread
Whitbread PLC is a global hotel, coffee shop and restaurant company headquartered in Dunstable, United Kingdom. Its largest division is Premier Inn, which is the largest hotel brand in the UK with around 580 hotels and over 40,000 rooms. Its Costa Coffee chain has around 1,600 stores across 25...
, Truman
Old Truman Brewery
The Old Truman Brewery is the former Black Eagle brewery complex located around Brick Lane in the Spitalfields area, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was established by the brewers Truman's which subsequently became Truman, Hanbury and Buxton...
, Parsons and Thrale
Henry Thrale
Henry Thrale was an 18th century English Member of Parliament and a close friend of Samuel Johnson. Like his father, he was the proprietor of the large London brewery, H. Thrale & Co....
, achieved great success financially.
The large London porter breweries pioneered many technological advances, such as the construction of large storage vats, the use of the thermometer
Thermometer
Developed during the 16th and 17th centuries, a thermometer is a device that measures temperature or temperature gradient using a variety of different principles. A thermometer has two important elements: the temperature sensor Developed during the 16th and 17th centuries, a thermometer (from the...
(about 1760), the hydrometer
Hydrometer
A hydrometer is an instrument used to measure the specific gravity of liquids; that is, the ratio of the density of the liquid to the density of water....
(1770), and attemperators (about 1780).
The 18th century also saw the development of India Pale Ale. Among the earliest known named brewers whose beers were exported to India was George Hodgson of the Bow Brewery,
The late 1700s saw a system of progressive taxation based on the strength of beer in terms of cost of ingredients, leading to three distinct gradations: "table", "small" and "strong" beer. Mixing these types was used as a way of achieving variation, and sometimes avoiding taxation, and remained popular for more than a century afterwards.
The beer engine, a device for manually pump
Pump
A pump is a device used to move fluids, such as liquids, gases or slurries.A pump displaces a volume by physical or mechanical action. Pumps fall into three major groups: direct lift, displacement, and gravity pumps...
ing beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
from a container in a pub's basement or cellar, was invented by Joseph Bramah
Joseph Bramah
Joseph Bramah , born Stainborough Lane Farm, Wentworth, Yorkshire, England, was an inventor and locksmith. He is best known for having invented the hydraulic press...
in 1797. The bar-mounted pump handle, with its changeable pump clip indicating the beer on offer remains a familiar and characteristic sight in most English pubs. Before the beer engine, beer was generally poured into jugs in the cellar or tap room and carried into the serving area.
Enacted in 1830, the Beerhouse Act
Beerhouse Act
The Beerhouse Act 1830 was a United Kingdom law to liberalise the regulations governing the brewing and sale of beer...
enabled anyone to brew and sell beer, ale
Ale
Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a warm fermentation with a strain of brewers' yeast. The yeast will ferment the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste...
or cider
Cider
Cider or cyder is a fermented alcoholic beverage made from apple juice. Cider varies in alcohol content from 2% abv to 8.5% abv or more in traditional English ciders. In some regions, such as Germany and America, cider may be termed "apple wine"...
, whether from a public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
or their own homes, upon obtaining a moderately priced license of just under ₤2 for beer and ale and ₤1 for cider, without recourse to obtaining them from justices of the peace
Justice of the Peace
A justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer elected or appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice or merely deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...
, as was previously required. The result was the opening of hundreds of new pubs throughout England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and the reduction of the influence of the large breweries. One of the motivations of the
Act was to reduce the abusive over-consumption of gin
Gin Craze
The Gin Craze was a period in the first half of the 18th century when the consumption of gin increased rapidly in Great Britain, especially in London...
.
Demand for the export style of pale ale, which had become known as "India Pale Ale," developed in England around 1840 and India Pale Ale became a popular product in England. Some brewers dropped the term "India" in the late 19th century, but records indicated that these "pale ales" retained the features of earlier IPA.
A pale and well hopped style of beer was developed in Burton in parallel with the development of India Pale Ale elsewhere. Previously, Englishmen had drunk mainly stout and porter, but bitter (a development of pale ale) came to predominate. Beers from Burton were considered of a particularly high quality due to synergy between the malt and hops in use and local water chemistry, especially the presence of gypsum
Gypsum
Gypsum is a very soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. It is found in alabaster, a decorative stone used in Ancient Egypt. It is the second softest mineral on the Mohs Hardness Scale...
.This extensively hopped, lighter beer was easier to store and transport, and so favoured the growth of larger breweries. The switch from pewter
Pewter
Pewter is a malleable metal alloy, traditionally 85–99% tin, with the remainder consisting of copper, antimony, bismuth and lead. Copper and antimony act as hardeners while lead is common in the lower grades of pewter, which have a bluish tint. It has a low melting point, around 170–230 °C ,...
tankard
Tankard
A tankard is a form of drinkware consisting of a large, roughly cylindrical, drinking cup with a single handle. Tankards are usually made of silver, pewter, or glass, but can be made of other materials, for example wood, ceramic or leather. A tankard may have a hinged lid, and tankards featuring...
s to glassware also led drinkers to prefer lighter beers. The development of rail links to Liverpool enabled brewers to export their beer throughout the British Empire. Burton retained absolute dominance in pale ale brewing: at its height one quarter of all beer sold in Britain was produced there until a chemist, C. W. Vincent discovered the process of Burtonisation to reproduce the chemical composition of the water from Burton-upon-Trent, thus giving any brewery the capability to brew pale ale.
Continental lager
Lager
Lager is a type of beer made from malted barley that is brewed and stored at low temperatures. There are many types of lager; pale lager is the most widely-consumed and commercially available style of beer in the world; Pilsner, Bock, Dortmunder Export and Märzen are all styles of lager...
s began to be offered in pubs in the late 19th century, but remained a small part of the market for many decades.
1900 to present: Megabreweries and microbreweries
The temperance movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in combination with First World War emergency measures, introduced a number of changes, such as higher taxation on beer, lower strengths, a ban on "buying a round" and restricted opening hours. Most were gradually repealed over subsequent decades.In 1960 almost 40 per cent of beer drunk nationally was sold in bottled form, although the figure was 60 per cent in the South of England, falling to 20 per cent in the North of England. Pale ale had replaced mild as the beer of choice for the majority of drinkers.
In the early 20th century, serving draught beer from pressurised containers began. Artificial carbonation
Carbonation
Carbonation is the process of dissolving carbon dioxide in water. The process usually involves carbon dioxide under high pressure. When the pressure is reduced, the carbon dioxide is released from the solution as small bubbles, which cause the solution to "fizz." This effect is seen in carbonated...
was introduced in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1936, with Watney’s experimental pasteurised
Pasteurization
Pasteurization is a process of heating a food, usually liquid, to a specific temperature for a definite length of time, and then cooling it immediately. This process slows microbial growth in food...
beer Red Barrel, although this method of serving beer did not take hold in the U.K. until the late 1960s.
Home brewing without a licence was legalised in 1963.
Lager rapidly rose in popularity from the 1970s, with English brewers producing their own brands or brewing under licence. Canned beer was also introduced about this time.
A consumer organisation called the Campaign for Real Ale
Campaign for Real Ale
The Campaign for Real Ale is an independent voluntary consumer organisation based in St Albans, England, whose main aims are promoting real ale, real cider and the traditional British pub...
(CAMRA) was founded, in 1971, to protect unpressurised beer, the group devised the term real ale to differentiate between beer served from the cask and beer served under pressure and to differentiate both from lager. "Ale" now meant a top-fermented beer, not an unhopped beer. By 2004, the term real ale had been expanded to include bottle-conditioned
Bottle conditioning
Bottle conditioned beers are either unfiltered so the final conditioning of the beer takes place in the bottle, or filtered and then reseeded with yeast so that an additional fermentation may take place.-Priming:...
beer, while the term cask ale had become the accepted global term to indicate a beer not served under pressure. CAMRA also campaigns against the tendency of smaller brewers to be bought up by larger ones, against short measures, and for increased choice and longer
opening hours for pubs.
Guest beer
In 1989, licensing legislation passed by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government made it possible for a tied pub to stock at least one guest beer from a different brewery....
to be sourced by tenants from someone other than their landlord. The industry responded by spinning off purely pub-owning companies ("pubcos"), such as (Punch Taverns
Punch Taverns
Punch Taverns plc is the largest pub and bar operator in the United Kingdom, with around 6,800 leased, tenanted and managed pubs. It is headquartered in the traditional brewing centre of Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire...
and Enterprise Inns
Enterprise Inns
Enterprise Inns Plc is a UK leased and tenanted pub company, headquartered in Solihull, West Midlands in the United Kingdom.-History:Enterprise Inns was founded by Ted Tuppen in 1991, initially with 368 pubs from Bass...
) from the older brewing-and-owning companies (notably Allied Lyons
Allied Domecq
Allied Domecq PLC was an international company, headquartered in Bristol, UK that operated spirits, wine, and quick service restaurant businesses. It was once a FTSE 100 Index constituent but has been acquired by Pernod Ricard.-History:...
, Bass, and Scottish & Newcastle
Scottish & Newcastle
Scottish & Newcastle plc was a "long alcoholic drinks" company with positions in 15 countries, including UK, France and Russia. It was headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. In the last 20 years, S&N expanded significantly from its home base to become an international business with beer...
). The Beer Orders were revoked in January 2003, by which time the industry had been transformed.
A change to beer taxation, Progressive Beer Duty
Progressive Beer Duty
Progressive Beer Duty is a term used to describe a beer duty system that allows smaller breweries to pay less tax on their products. The idea originates from Bavaria where such a system has underpinned the brewing industry and helped support local production. This idea encourages competition in...
was introduced by Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...
in 2002. It was a reduction in beer duty based on a brewery's total production and aimed at helping smaller breweries. The legislation had been campaigned for by the federation of small and independent brewers (SIBA).
The popularity of lager peaked at just under 75% in 2008. The total number of breweries was estimated at 700 in 2010, about twice the number when CAMRA was founded, with most new breweries being microbreweries. Meanwhile, the former national breweries were amalgamated into multinational
Multinational corporation
A multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...
companies.
Bitter
Bitter (beer)
Bitter is an English term for pale ale. Bitters vary in colour from gold to dark amber and in strength from 3% to 7% alcohol by volume.-Brief history:...
is a broad term applied to a well-hopped pale ale
Pale ale
Pale ale is a beer which uses a warm fermentation and predominantly pale malt. It is one of the world's major beer styles.The higher proportion of pale malts results in a lighter colour. The term "pale ale" was being applied around 1703 for beers made from malts dried with coke, which resulted in a...
, from about 3.5% to 7% in strength and pale gold to dark mahogany in colour. British brewers have several loose names for variations in beer strength, such as best bitter, special bitter, extra special bitter, and premium bitter. There is no agreed and defined difference between an ordinary and a best bitter other than one particular brewery's best bitter will usually be stronger than its ordinary. Two groups of drinkers may mark differently the point at which a best bitter then becomes a premium bitter. Hop levels will vary within each sub group, though there is a tendency for the hops in the session bitter group to be more noticeable. Bitter is dispensed in most formats — hand-pulled
Beer engine
A beer engine is a device for pumping beer, originally manually operated and typically used to dispense beer from a cask or container in a pub's basement or cellar. It was invented by the locksmith and hydraulic engineer Joseph Bramah in 1797...
from the cask
Cask ale
Cask ale or cask-conditioned beer is the term for unfiltered and unpasteurised beer which is conditioned and served from a cask without additional nitrogen or carbon dioxide pressure...
, on draught from the keg, smoothflow or bottled. Drinkers tend to loosely group the beers into:
Session or ordinary bitter
Strength up to 4.1% abv. The majority of British beers with the name IPA
India Pale Ale
India Pale Ale or IPA is a style of beer within the broader category of pale ale. It was first brewed in England in the 19th century.The first known use of the expression "India pale ale" comes from an advertisement in the Liverpool Mercury newspaper published January 30, 1835...
will be found in this group, such as Greene King IPA, Flowers IPA
Interbrew
Interbrew was a large Belgium-based brewing company which owned many internationally known beers, as well as some smaller local beers. In 2004 Interbrew merged with Brazilian brewer AmBev to form InBev, which is the now largest brewer in the world by volume, with a 13% global market share now...
, Wadworth
Wadworth Brewery
Wadworth is a regional brewery founded in 1875 in Devizes, Wiltshire, England. They are particularly famous for their 6X beer, but also are a major brewery in the South of England.-History:...
Henrys Original IPA, etc. These session bitters are not as strong and hoppy as the 18th and 18th century IPAS (or as an India Pale Ale would be in the USA) although IPAs with modest gravities (below 1040º) have been brewed in Britain since at least the 1920s. This is the most common strength of bitter sold in British pubs. It accounts for 16.9% of pub sales.
Best bitter. Strength between 3.8% and 4.7% abv. In the United Kingdom, Bitter above 4.2% abv accounts for just 2.9% of pub sales. The disappearance of weaker bitters from some brewer's rosters means "best" bitter is actually the weakest in the range.
Premium bitter Strength of 4.8% abv and over. Also known as extra special bitter, for instance Fuller's ESB.
Golden ale
Golden or summer ales were developed in the late 20th century by breweries to compete with the pale lager
Pale lager
Pale lager is a very pale to golden-coloured beer with a well attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid 19th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and applied it...
market. A typical golden ale has an appearance and profile similar to that of a pale lager. Malt
Malt
Malt is germinated cereal grains that have been dried in a process known as "malting". The grains are made to germinate by soaking in water, and are then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air...
character is subdued and the hop
Hops
Hops are the female flower clusters , of a hop species, Humulus lupulus. They are used primarily as a flavoring and stability agent in beer, to which they impart a bitter, tangy flavor, though hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine...
profile ranges from spicy to citrus; common hop additions include Styrian Golding and Cascade. Alcohol is in the 4% to 5% range ABV. The style was marketed in 1989 by John Gilbert, a former brewer at Watney in Mortlake, London, who had opened his own operation, the Hop Back Brewery
Hop Back Brewery
Hop Back, one of England's award-winning small breweries, brewers of Summer Lightning, Crop Circle, G.F.B. and other beers was founded by John and Julie Gilbert. Beer was first brewed in 1986 at the Wyndham Arms in Salisbury, and moved to larger premises in Downton six years later...
, in Salisbury
Salisbury
Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England and the only city in the county. It is the second largest settlement in the county...
, England. His aim was to develop a pale ale
Pale ale
Pale ale is a beer which uses a warm fermentation and predominantly pale malt. It is one of the world's major beer styles.The higher proportion of pale malts results in a lighter colour. The term "pale ale" was being applied around 1703 for beers made from malts dried with coke, which resulted in a...
that could be as refreshing as lager. The result was a drier and hoppier pale ale he called "Summer Lightning", after a novel by PG Wodehouse; it won several awards and inspired numerous imitators.
India Pale Ale
It is often said that India Pale Ale
India Pale Ale
India Pale Ale or IPA is a style of beer within the broader category of pale ale. It was first brewed in England in the 19th century.The first known use of the expression "India pale ale" comes from an advertisement in the Liverpool Mercury newspaper published January 30, 1835...
, a strong and well-hopped beer was designed to "survive the sea voyage to India", but some modern authorities consider this to be a myth. Twentieth century IPAs were equivalent to a typical bitter, although there has been a recent tendency to return to 18th century strengths (5.5% upwards) and hop rates, e.g. Thornbridge Brewery
Thornbridge Brewery
-History:The first beers appeared in February 2005 and have won many awards.Thornbridge's beers were originally brewed by Martin Dickie, a graduate of the International Centre for Distilling and Brewing at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and Stefano Cossi, a graduate in Food Science and...
's Jaipur
Jaipur
Jaipur , also popularly known as the Pink City, is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Rajasthan. Founded on 18 November 1727 by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amber, the city today has a population of more than 3.1 million....
IPA and Fuller, Smith and Turner
Fuller, Smith and Turner
Fuller's Brewery is a regional brewery founded in 1845 at the Griffin Brewery in Chiswick, West London.It has an estate of over three hundred public houses.-History:...
's Bengal Lancer. As can
be seen from the examples, such "true" IPAs tend to emphasise the Indian connection in their branding.
Brown ale
English brown alesBrown ale
Brown ale is a style of beer with a dark amber or brown colour. The term was first used by London brewers in the late 17th century to describe their products, such as mild ale, though the term had a rather different meaning than it does today...
range from beers such as Manns Original Brown Ale, which is quite sweet and low in alcohol, to North Eastern brown ale such as Newcastle Brown Ale
Newcastle Brown Ale
Newcastle Brown Ale is a beer produced by Heineken International. It was introduced in 1927 by Newcastle Breweries. In 2005, brewing was moved out of Newcastle upon Tyne for the first time, to Dunston on the other side of the River Tyne, and in 2010 moved entirely to Tadcaster, North Yorkshire...
, Double Maxim
Double Maxim Beer Company
The Double Maxim Beer Company was set up to rescue the famous Double Maxim beer, which had ceased production when the Vaux brewery was closed in the same year....
and Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale.
Mild
Mild ale
Mild ale is a low-gravity beer, or beer with a predominantly malty palate, that originated in Britain in the 17th century or earlier. Modern mild ales are mainly dark coloured with an abv of 3% to 3.6%, though there are lighter hued examples, as well as stronger examples reaching 6% abv and...
in modern times is generally considered to be a low-gravity
Gravity (beer)
Gravity, in the context of fermenting alcoholic beverages, refers to the specific gravity, or relative density compared to water, of the wort or must at various stages in the fermentation. The concept is used in brewing and wine making industry...
beer with a low hop rate and predominantly malty palate. Historically, mild ales were of standard strength for the time (and rather strong by modern standards). Modern mild ales are mainly dark coloured with an abv
Alcohol by volume
Alcohol by volume is a standard measure of how much alcohol is contained in an alcoholic beverage .The ABV standard is used worldwide....
of 3% to 3.6%, though there are lighter hued examples, as well as stronger more traditional examples reaching 6% abv and higher. The term 'mild' originally had nothing to do with strength or level of hop bitterness, but rather as a label for beers that were not "vatted" (aged) and hence did not have some of the tart and even slightly sour flavor of ales that were subject to long aging, which was considered a desirable attribute of premium ales.
The dark colour characteristic of modern day milds can come from either the use of roast malt or caramelised sugars, or more commonly, both. These ingredients lead to differences in flavour characteristics.
Mild is often thought to be partly a survival of the older style of hop-less brewing (hops were introduced in the 16th century), partly as a cheaper alternative to bitter (for a long time mild was a penny a pot, and bitter beer tuppence), and partly a sustaining but relatively unintoxicating beverage suitable for lunchtime drinking by manual workers. But in reality, mild was likely not hopped any differently than other beers of the day, since the term 'mild' referred primarily to a lack of the sour tang contributed by age, and not a lack of hop character or alcoholic strength,
Once sold in every pub, mild experienced a catastrophic fall in popularity after the 1960s and was in danger of completely disappearing from many parts of the United Kingdom. However, in recent years the explosion of microbreweries has led to a modest renaissance, and an increasing number of mild (sometimes labelled 'Dark') brands are now being brewed. Most of these are in the more modern interpretation of 'mild'...a sweeter brew with lower alcoholic strength.
Some breweries have revived the traditional high-gravity "mild", with alcohol content of 6% or so, the classic example being Sarah Hughes Ruby, brewed to a Victorian recipe.
Old ale
Old aleOld ale
Old ale is a term commonly applied to dark, malty beers in England, generally above 5% abv, also to dark ales of any strength in Australia. Sometimes associated with stock ale or, archaically, keeping ale, in which the beer is held at the brewery....
is a term applied to dark, malty beers above 4.5% abv
ABV
ABV is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* Alcohol by volume, a measure of the alcohol content of alcoholic drinks* Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, Nigeria, from its IATA airport code...
, also sometimes called Winter Warmers. Many have "old" in the name, such as Theakston's Old Peculier, Marston's Owd Roger, Robinson's
Robinson's Brewery
Robinsons is a family run regional brewery founded in 1838 by William Robinson at the Unicorn Inn, Stockport, England. The company's brewery is called the Unicorn Brewery....
Old Tom. Many brewers make high abv
Alcohol by volume
Alcohol by volume is a standard measure of how much alcohol is contained in an alcoholic beverage .The ABV standard is used worldwide....
old ales for bottling, some of which are bottle-conditioned
Bottle conditioning
Bottle conditioned beers are either unfiltered so the final conditioning of the beer takes place in the bottle, or filtered and then reseeded with yeast so that an additional fermentation may take place.-Priming:...
and can mature for several years. Some of these stronger versions are known as barley wine
Barley wine
Barley wine or Barleywine is a beer style of strong ale originating in England. The first beer to be marketed as Barley Wine was Bass No. 1 Ale, around 1870...
. Stock ale is a strong beer which is used for blending with weaker beers at the brewery and not sold directly. The upper limit on strength for this style is about 11%-12% ABV.
Porter and Stout
PorterPorter (beer)
Porter is a dark-coloured style of beer. The history and development of stout and porter are intertwined. The name was first used in the 18th century from its popularity with the street and river porters of London. It is generally brewed with dark malts...
is a historically significant style developed in 18th century London, which is the ancestor of stout, a style now considered typically Irish. English Porters and stouts are generally as dark or darker than old ales, and significantly more bitter. They differ from dark milds and old ales in the use of roast grains, which adds to the bitterness, and lends flavours of toast
Toast
Toast is bread that has been browned by exposure to radiant heat. This browning reaction is known as the Maillard reaction. Toasting warms the bread and makes it firmer, so it holds toppings more securely...
, biscuit
Biscuit
A biscuit is a baked, edible, and commonly flour-based product. The term is used to apply to two distinctly different products in North America and the Commonwealth Nations....
or coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
.
Variations on the style include oatmeal stout, oyster stout, the sweet milk stout, and the very strong imperial stout, all of which are generally available in bottles only. These speciality beers have a tiny proportion of the market, but are of interest to connoisseurs worldwide.
London porter differs from stout in having generally lower gravity and lighter body, closer to bitter. Porter as distinct from stout virtually disappeared during the mid-20th century, but has had a modest revival since the 1980s (e.g. Dark Star
Dark Star (brewery)
Dark Star is a brewery in currently located in Partridge Green, in the county of West Sussex, England.-Name:Dark Star was originally the name of a porter developed by Rob Jones when he was employed by the Pitfield Brewery. The name comes from the Grateful Dead song Dark Star. It was highly...
Original, Fuller's London Porter).
Archaic styles
Small beer was a low-strength beer that was consumed throughout the day by all ages. From the Middle Ages to about the 18th century, there was a tendency to avoid drinking water since it was often contaminated. The boiling stage of brewing (it was often made in the home) would have sterilised it, although the actual microbiology was not understood at the time. A later survival of small beer were the low-gravity light ale and boys bitter.Wobble was historically a low-strength ale that was provided on site to workers in particularly heavy and thirst-inducing occupations, such as foundries
Foundry
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...
. However, modern-day beers called Wobble tend to be strong
Stingo or spingo was strong or old ale. The name possible comes from the sharp, or "stinging" flavour of a well-matured beer. The Blue Anchor, Helston calls it beers "spingo". The term "stingo" has associations with Yorkshire
Yorkshire Stingo
The Yorkshire Stingo was a public house in Marylebone, London which was a significant landmark outside central London in the eighteenth and 19th century....
.
Three threads and Entire. A much repeated story has it that 18th century London drinkers liked to blend aged (up to 18 months) and fresh beers into a mixture known as three threads, and that a certain Ralph Harwood came up with an "entire" beer that reproduced the taste of the mixture in a single brew, and that this "Entire" was the ancestor of porter and stout. However, modern beer scholars tend to doubt the veracity of the story Nevertheless, a few latter-day Entires are produced (e.g Old Swan Brewery and Hop Back Brewery
Hop Back Brewery
Hop Back, one of England's award-winning small breweries, brewers of Summer Lightning, Crop Circle, G.F.B. and other beers was founded by John and Julie Gilbert. Beer was first brewed in 1986 at the Wyndham Arms in Salisbury, and moved to larger premises in Downton six years later...
).
Lager
Pale lager
Pale lager is a very pale to golden-coloured beer with a well attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid 19th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and applied it...
is the term generally used in England for bottom-fermented beer.
Despite the traditional English beer being ale
Ale
Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a warm fermentation with a strain of brewers' yeast. The yeast will ferment the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste...
, more than half of the current English market is now lager in the Pilsener
Pilsener
Pilsner is a type of pale lager. It takes its name from the city of Pilsen , Bohemia, in today's Czech Republic, where it has been developed since 1842, when a bottom-fermented beer was first produced. The original Pilsner Urquell beer is produced there today.-Origin:Until the mid-1840s, most ...
and Export
Dortmunder Export
Dortmunder Export or Dortmunder is a pale lager that originated in the then industrial city of Dortmund in Germany. Originally brewed by Dortmunder Union in 1873, this soft pilsner style beer became very popular with industrial workers, and was responsible for Dortmunder Union becoming Germany's...
styles. These lighter coloured, bottom fermented beers first started gaining real popularity in England in the later part of the 20th Century.
Carling
Carling
Carling brands are currently owned by the Molson Coors Brewing Company. In South Africa it is distributed by SABMiller.Carling Black Label is the name of a brand of Canadian lager in Australia, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and South Africa...
, which is owned by the American/Canadian brewing giant Molson Coors Brewing Company
Molson Coors Brewing Company
Molson Coors Brewing Company is a company that was created by the merger of two of North America's largest breweries: Molson of Canada, and Coors of the United States, on February 9, 2005...
is the highest selling beer in England and is mainly brewed in Burton upon Trent
Burton upon Trent
Burton upon Trent, also known as Burton-on-Trent or simply Burton, is a town straddling the River Trent in the east of Staffordshire, England. Its associated adjective is "Burtonian"....
. Meanwhile the largest brewery in Britain today, Scottish & Newcastle
Scottish & Newcastle
Scottish & Newcastle plc was a "long alcoholic drinks" company with positions in 15 countries, including UK, France and Russia. It was headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. In the last 20 years, S&N expanded significantly from its home base to become an international business with beer...
, which has three main breweries (Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, Reading
Reading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....
and Tadcaster
Tadcaster
Tadcaster is a market town and civil parish in the Selby district of North Yorkshire, England. Lying on the Great North Road approximately east of Leeds and west of York. It is the last town on the River Wharfe before it joins the River Ouse about downstream...
) brews Britain's second highest selling beer which is the lager Foster's
Foster's Lager
Foster's Lager is an internationally distributed Australian brand of 5.0% abv pale lager, It is a product of Foster's Group brewed under licence in several countries, including the U.S. and Russia...
.
Other lagers popular in England include Kronenbourg
Kronenbourg
Kronenbourg Brewery is a brewery founded in 1664 by Geronimus Hatt in Strasbourg, France as the Hatt Brewery. The name comes from the area where the brewery relocated in 1850. The company is owned by the Carlsberg Group...
(which also belongs to Scottish & Newcastle
Scottish & Newcastle
Scottish & Newcastle plc was a "long alcoholic drinks" company with positions in 15 countries, including UK, France and Russia. It was headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. In the last 20 years, S&N expanded significantly from its home base to become an international business with beer...
) and Stella Artois
Stella Artois
Stella Artois is a 5% ABV lager brewed in Leuven, Belgium since 1926. In the UK, Canada and New Zealand a 4% ABV version is also available.-Production:...
(which belongs to the Belgian brewery InBev
InBev
InBev is a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev. The company existed independently for several years - since the merger between Interbrew and AmBev and until the acquisition of Anheuser-Busch. InBev has operations in over 30 countries and sales in over 130 countries...
and in Britain is brewed in South Wales and Samlesbury
Samlesbury
Samlesbury is a small village and civil parish in the South Ribble borough of Lancashire, England. Samlesbury Hall, a historic house, is located in the village as well as Samlesbury Aerodrome...
near Preston).
Indian cuisine
Indian cuisine
Indian cuisine consists of thousands of regional cuisines which date back thousands of years. The dishes of India are characterised by the extensive use of various Indian spices, herbs, vegetables and fruit. Indian cuisine is also known for the widespread practice of vegetarianism in Indian society...
is very popular in Britain, and special lagers such as Cobra Beer
Cobra Beer
Cobra Beers main product is an extra-smooth premium beer with an alcohol strength of 5% volume. The beer was founded in 1989 by Karan Bilimoria, who thought that Britain needed a smoother, less gassy lager, which would appeal to both ale drinkers and lager drinkers alike...
have been developed to accompany it.
Mixtures
- ShandyShandyShandy, or shandygaff, is normally a beer mixed with citrus-flavored soda, carbonated lemonade, ginger beer, ginger ale, or cider. The proportions of the two ingredients are adjusted to taste, normally half-and-half. There are also non-alcoholic shandy mixes known as “rock shandies”...
is any kind of beer mixed about half-and-half with lemonadeLemonadeLemonade is a lemon-flavored drink, typically made from lemons, water and sugar.The term can refer to three different types of beverage:...
to make a low-alcohol beverage. - A "top" — for instance a lager top or bitter top — is a dash of lemonade, added as a matter of personal taste or to improve effervescence.
- A Snakebite is lager and cider
- Lager and black. A dash of blackcurrantBlackcurrantBlackcurrant, Ribes nigrum, is a species of Ribes berry native to central and northern Europe and northern Asia, and is a perennial....
cordial is added, giving a purple colour. - Black velvet is Guinness and champagne.
- Black and tanBlack and TanBlack and Tan is a drink made from a blend of pale ale, usually Bass Pale Ale, and a dark beer such as a stout or porter, most often Guinness. Sometimes a pale lager is used instead of ale; this is usually called a half and half. Contrary to popular belief, however, Black and Tan as a mixture of...
. Guinness with bitter or lager. - Mother-in-law. Old ale and bitter ("Old and bitter")
- Granny. Old and mild.
- Half-and-half. A number of mixtures, usually a stronger beer and a weaker one.
- Nip. A 1/3 pint bottle of strong barley wineBarley wineBarley wine or Barleywine is a beer style of strong ale originating in England. The first beer to be marketed as Barley Wine was Bass No. 1 Ale, around 1870...
that could be mixed with ordinary bitter to taste. - A pint of Mix is the combination of half a pint of bitter and half a pint of mild
- A 'Mickey Mouse' is the combination of half a pint of bitter and half a pint of lager
Serving beer
Temperature
One common misconception of beer served in the United Kingdom concerns the serving temperature: it is believed that British beer is served warm. In reality, beer in the UK is usually served at cellar temperature (between 10–14 °C (50–57.2 F), which is often carefully controlled in a modern-day pub, although the temperature can naturally fluctuate with the seasons. Proponents of British beer say that it relies on subtler flavours than that of other nations, and these are brought out by serving it at a temperature that would make other beers seem harsh. Where harsher flavours do exist in beer (most notably in those brewed in YorkshireYorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
), these are traditionally mitigated by serving the beer through a hand pump fitted with a sparkler, a device that mixes air with the beer, oxidising it slightly and softening the flavour.
Cask ale
Cask ale
Cask ale or cask-conditioned beer is the term for unfiltered and unpasteurised beer which is conditioned and served from a cask without additional nitrogen or carbon dioxide pressure...
is the traditional method of service, via a hand pump or by gravity straight from the cask on stillage
Stillage
A stillage is like a pallet or skid but with a cage or sides or some form of support specifically tailored to the material it is intended to carry. Some are designed to be stackable....
. Cask conditioned beer is unfiltered, unpasteurized and lacking artificial carbonation, giving it a limited shelf-life. This dispense method is strongly associated with ale, although there is no technical barrier to serving lager or stout this way. Most pubs use hand pumps ("beer engines") to draw the beer, whereas stillages are commonly employed at beer festivals. Cask ale and bottle conditioned
Bottle conditioning
Bottle conditioned beers are either unfiltered so the final conditioning of the beer takes place in the bottle, or filtered and then reseeded with yeast so that an additional fermentation may take place.-Priming:...
beer are championed by the Campaign for Real Ale under the name real ale.
Keg ale
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
which is served from a pressurized keg
Keg
A keg is a small barrel.Traditionally, a wooden keg is made by a cooper used to transport items such as nails, gunpowder., and a variety of liquids....
. Keg beer is often filtered
Filtration
Filtration is commonly the mechanical or physical operation which is used for the separation of solids from fluids by interposing a medium through which only the fluid can pass...
and/or pasteurized
Pasteurization
Pasteurization is a process of heating a food, usually liquid, to a specific temperature for a definite length of time, and then cooling it immediately. This process slows microbial growth in food...
, both of which are processes that render the yeast
Yeast
Yeasts are eukaryotic micro-organisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with 1,500 species currently described estimated to be only 1% of all fungal species. Most reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by an asymmetric division process called budding...
inactive, increasing the shelf life of the product. However, some believe this is at the expense of flavor.
Nitrokeg dispense is a variation on keg dispense associated with stouts and Irish "red" ales.
Bottled beer
Draught beer
Draught beer is beer served from a cask or a pressurised keg.-History of draught:Until Joseph Bramah patented the beer engine in 1785, beer was served directly from the barrel and carried to the customer. The Old English word for carry was dragen which developed into a series of related words,...
takes up the majority of the market, bottled beer has a firm place and is a growing sector. Some brands are sold almost entirely in the bottled format, such as Newcastle Brown Ale
Newcastle Brown Ale
Newcastle Brown Ale is a beer produced by Heineken International. It was introduced in 1927 by Newcastle Breweries. In 2005, brewing was moved out of Newcastle upon Tyne for the first time, to Dunston on the other side of the River Tyne, and in 2010 moved entirely to Tadcaster, North Yorkshire...
and Worthington White Shield. CAMRA promotes bottle-conditoned beer as "real ale in a bottle" (RAIB).
Outlets
The English pub is a famed institution. At one time certain pubs, known as alehouses, were allowed to sell only beer. Now most pubs are licensed to sell a range of drinks, with beer making up a significant proportion. The range of beer available in a given establishment can vary from a few mass-market products to a wide selection of cask ales and bottled beers, in a free house. The latter are sometimes called "chalkies" because the current selection of cask ales is often written on a blackboard.Some on-licensed establishments are considered bar
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
s rather than pubs; they are less likely to be free standing, and more likely to be urban in setting and modern in style. "New wave" beer bars tend to specialise in bottled and pressure-dispensed craft beers from around the world, rather than the cask ales of traditional real ale pubs. Some establishments imitate Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
or Belgian cafés, or German bierkellers as a novelty, with a range of draught and bottled beer to match.
Most off licences (i.e. liquor stores) sell at least a dozen bottled beers. Some specialists sell many more, and may include a few cask ales that can be dispensed to customers in containers to be taken home.
The English do not have a long-standing tradition of beer festival
Beer festival
A Beer Festival is an organised event during which a variety of beers are available for tasting and purchase. Beer festivals are held in a number of countries...
s like the Munich Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest, or Wiesn, is a 16–18 day beer festival held annually in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, running from late September to the first weekend in October. It is one of the most famous events in Germany and is the world's largest fair, with more than 5 million people attending every year. The...
, but the idea of a "beer exhibition" where a wide variety can be sampled has been enthusiastically taken up since the 1970s.
The largest is CAMRA's Great British Beer Festival
Great British Beer Festival
The Great British Beer Festival is a yearly beer festival organised by the Campaign for Real Ale . It presents a selection of cask ales and other alcoholic drinks from the UK and beyond. The festival is also home to the Champion Beer of Britain awards...
held every August. Local CAMRA branches organise smaller festivals in most vicinities. Beer festivals often include competitions to judge the best beer.
Historic drinking vessels
A tankardTankard
A tankard is a form of drinkware consisting of a large, roughly cylindrical, drinking cup with a single handle. Tankards are usually made of silver, pewter, or glass, but can be made of other materials, for example wood, ceramic or leather. A tankard may have a hinged lid, and tankards featuring...
is a form of drinkware consisting of a large, roughly cylindrical
Cylinder (geometry)
A cylinder is one of the most basic curvilinear geometric shapes, the surface formed by the points at a fixed distance from a given line segment, the axis of the cylinder. The solid enclosed by this surface and by two planes perpendicular to the axis is also called a cylinder...
, drinking cup with a single handle. Tankards are usually made of silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
, pewter
Pewter
Pewter is a malleable metal alloy, traditionally 85–99% tin, with the remainder consisting of copper, antimony, bismuth and lead. Copper and antimony act as hardeners while lead is common in the lower grades of pewter, which have a bluish tint. It has a low melting point, around 170–230 °C ,...
, or glass
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...
, but can be made of other materials, for example wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
, ceramic
Ceramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
or leather
Leather
Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...
. A tankard may have a hinged lid, and tankards featuring glass bottoms are also fairly common. Tankards are now rarely used, except where made from glass, but historic tankards are often used as decorative items.
A Toby Jug - also sometimes known as a Fillpot (or Philpot) - is a pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
jug in the form of a seated person, or the head of a recognizable person (often an English king). Typically the seated figure is a heavily-set, jovial man holding a mug of beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
in one hand and a pipe of tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
in the other and wearing 18th century attire: a long coat and a tricorn hat. Like metal tankards, they are now considered decorative items.
A yard of ale or yard glass is a very tall beer glass used for drinking around 2.5 pints (1.4 l) of beer, depending upon the diameter. The glass is approximately 1 yard
Yard
A yard is a unit of length in several different systems including English units, Imperial units and United States customary units. It is equal to 3 feet or 36 inches...
long, shaped with a bulb at the bottom, and a widening shaft which constitutes most of the height. The glass most likely originated in 17th-century England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
where the glass was known also as a "Long Glass", a "Cambridge Yard (Glass)" and an "Ell
Ell
An ell , is a unit of measurement, approximating the length of a man's arm.Several national forms existed, with different lengths, includingthe Scottish ell ,the Flemish ell ,the French ell...
Glass". It is associated by legend with stagecoach drivers, though was mainly used for drinking feats and special toasts. Drinking a yard glass full of beer as quickly as possible is a traditional pub game; the bulb at the bottom of the glass makes it likely that the contestant will be splashed with a sudden rush of beer towards the end of the feat. The fastest drinking of a yard of ale (1.42 litres) in the Guinness Book of Records is 5 seconds.
Current beer glasses
Beer is now generally sold in pint and half-pint glasses ( Half-pint glasses are generally smaller versions of pint glasses.). The common shapes of pint glass are:- Conical glasses are shaped, as the name suggests, as an inverted truncated coneCone (geometry)A cone is an n-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a base to a point called the apex or vertex. Formally, it is the solid figure formed by the locus of all straight line segments that join the apex to the base...
around 6 inches (15.2 cm) tall and tapering by about 1 inches (2.5 cm) in diameterDiameterIn geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints are on the circle. The diameters are the longest chords of the circle...
over its height. - The nonic, a variation on the conical design, where the glass bulges out a couple of inches from the top; this is partly for improved grip, partly to prevent the glasses from sticking together when stacked, and partly to give strength and stop the rim from becoming chipped or "nicked". The term "nonic" derives from from "no nick".
- Jug glasses, or "dimple mugs", are shaped more like a large mug with a handle. They are moulded with a grid pattern of thickened glass on the outside, somewhat resembling the segmentation of a WWII-era hand grenadeHand grenadeA hand grenade is any small bomb that can be thrown by hand. Hand grenades are classified into three categories, explosive grenades, chemical and gas grenades. Explosive grenades are the most commonly used in modern warfare, and are designed to detonate after impact or after a set amount of time...
. The dimples prevent the glass slipping out of the fingers in a washing-up bowl, and the design of the glass emphasises strength, also to withstand frequent manual washing. These design features became less important when manual washing was superseded by machine washing. from the 1960s onwards. Dimpled glasses are now rarer than the other types and are regarded as more traditional. This sort of glass is also known as a "Handle" due to the handle on the glass. They are popular with the older generation and people with restricted movement in their hands which can make holding a usual pint glass difficult.
Ingredients
.The most celebrated English hop
Hops
Hops are the female flower clusters , of a hop species, Humulus lupulus. They are used primarily as a flavoring and stability agent in beer, to which they impart a bitter, tangy flavor, though hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine...
varieties are Fuggles and Goldings, although commercial pressures may incline brewers to use higher-yielding modern varieties. Modern brewers also sometimes make use of American or Continental hops. South-east England, particularly Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
is the traditional hop growing area; brewers in the north and west used to economise on the cost of importing hops by producing beers with more of a malt character, a regional distinction that has not entirely vanished. A characteristic technique is dry hopping, where hops are added during the fermentation phase in addition to those that went into the initial boil.
Maris Otter
Maris Otter
Maris Otter is a 2-row "winter" variety of barley commonly used in the production of malt for the brewing industry. The variety was bred by Dr G D H Bell and his team of plant breeders at Cambridge...
is the most celebrated brewing malt
Mash ingredients
Mash ingredients, mash bill, or grain bill are those materials used in brewing from which a wort can be obtained for fermenting into alcohol...
. Malts can be treated in a number of ways, particularly by degrees of roasting, to obtain different colours and flavours. Oats, wheat malt or unmalted barley may also be included in the mash.
Water — known as "liquor" — is an important ingredient in brewing, and larger breweries often draw supplies from their own wells. Burton upon Trent
Burton upon Trent
Burton upon Trent, also known as Burton-on-Trent or simply Burton, is a town straddling the River Trent in the east of Staffordshire, England. Its associated adjective is "Burtonian"....
(see below) is famed for the suitability of its water for brewing, and its mineral balance is often artificially copied.
Top-fermenting yeasts stay on the surface of fermenting beer whilst active, hence top-ferented beers tend to be less naturally clear than lagers and finings
Finings
FiningsThe term is a mass noun rather than a plural. are substances that are usually added at or near the completion of the processing of brewing wine, beer and various nonalcoholic juice beverages. Their purpose is for removal of organic compounds; to either improve clarity or adjust flavor/aroma...
are therefore used to clarify them. Modern breweries carefully maintain their own distinctive strains of yeast.
English brewers are allowed a free hand in the use of adjuncts which can include honey, ginger and spices, although this practice is not common.
Breweries
- International megabreweries: AB InBev, Molson CoorsMolson Coors Brewing CompanyMolson Coors Brewing Company is a company that was created by the merger of two of North America's largest breweries: Molson of Canada, and Coors of the United States, on February 9, 2005...
, Heineken, GuinnessGuinnessGuinness is a popular Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin. Guinness is directly descended from the porter style that originated in London in the early 18th century and is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide, brewed in almost...
and Carlsberg - National breweries Greene King, Marston'sMarston'sMarston's is the colloquial name for the brewer and pub operator Marston's plc . The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index...
and Wells and Young's. These are "new" nationals, formed by mergers and takeovers of former regional breweries. The old "big six" national breweries were all absorbed into international corporations. - Regional breweries, often owned and run by successive generations of a family.
- Microbreweries and brewpubs, a volatile sector that has undergone considerable expansion in the past 30 years.
Brewpubs
In Britain during the 20th century most of the traditional pubs which brewed their own beer in the brewhouse round the back of the pub, were bought out by larger breweries and ceased brewing on the premises. By the mid-1970s only four brewpubs remained, All Nations, The Old Swan, the Three Tuns and the Blue Anchor.Brewpubs subsequently resurged, particularly with the rise of the Firkin
Firkin Brewery
The Firkin Brewery was a chain of pubs in the United Kingdom. The original UK chain is now defunct, but a number of pubs operate under the Firkin name in other countries. The chain took its name from the firkin, an old English unit of volume....
pub chain, most of whose pubs brewed on the premises, running to over one hundred at peak. However, that chain was sold and eventually its pubs ceased brewing their own beer. The resulting decline in brewpubs was something of a boon to other forms of microbrewing, as it led to an availability of trained craft brewers and brewing equipment.
British brewpubs are not required to double up as restaurants, as is the case under some legislatures. Many specialise in ale, whilst others brew continental styles such as lager and wheatbeer. Current examples small independent brewpubs such as The Ministry of Ale, Burnley, The Masons Arms in Headington, Oxford, The Brunswick Inn, Derby, The Watermill pub, Ings, Cumbria and The Old Cannon Brewery, Bury St Edmunds.
The Tie
After the development of the large London PorterPorter (beer)
Porter is a dark-coloured style of beer. The history and development of stout and porter are intertwined. The name was first used in the 18th century from its popularity with the street and river porters of London. It is generally brewed with dark malts...
breweries in the 18th century, the trend grew for pubs to become tied house
Tied house
In the UK a tied house is a public house that is required to buy at least some of its beer from a particular brewery. This is in contrast to a free house, which is able to choose the beers it stocks freely.- Definition of "tied" :...
s which could only sell beer from one brewery (a pub not tied in this way was called a Free house). The usual arrangement for a tied house was that the pub was owned by the brewery but rented out to a private individual (landlord) who ran it as a separate business (even though contracted to buy the beer from the brewery). Another very common arrangement was (and is) for the landlord to own the premises (whether freehold or leasehold) independently of the brewer, but then to take a mortgage loan from a brewery, either to finance the purchase of the pub initially, or to refurbish it, and be required as a term of the loan to observe the solus tie. A growing trend in the late 20th century was for the brewery to run their pubs directly, employing a salaried manager (who perhaps could make extra money by commission, or by selling food).
Most such breweries, such as the regional brewery Shepherd Neame
Shepherd Neame
Shepherd Neame is an English regional brewery founded in 1698 by Richard Marsh in Faversham, Kent. It is a family owned brewery that produces a range of cask ales and filtered beers. Production is around 230,000 barrels a year...
in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
and Young's
Young's Brewery
Young's is a British pub chain operating nearly 220 pubs.The company was founded as a brewery in 1831 by Charles Young and Anthony Bainbridge when they purchased the Ram Brewery in Wandsworth...
in London, control hundreds of pubs in a particular region of the UK, whilst a few, such as Greene King, are spread nationally. The landlord
Landlord
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant . When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner...
of a tied pub may be an employee of the brewery—in which case he would be a manager of a managed house, or a self-employed tenant who has entered into a lease agreement with a brewery, a condition of which is the legal obligation (trade tie) only to purchase that brewery's beer. This tied agreement provides tenants with trade premises at a below market rent providing people with a low-cost entry into self-employment. The beer selection is mainly limited to beers brewed by that particular company. A Supply of Beer law
Beer Orders
The Supply of Beer Order 1989 and The Supply of Beer Order 1989, commonly known as the Beer Orders, were Statutory Instruments made by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in December 1989.The Orders restricted the number of tied pubs that could be owned by large brewery groups in the...
, passed in 1989, was aimed at getting tied houses to offer at least one alternative beer, known as a guest beer
Guest beer
In 1989, licensing legislation passed by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government made it possible for a tied pub to stock at least one guest beer from a different brewery....
, from another brewery
Brewery
A brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made at home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....
.This law has now been repealed but while in force it dramatically altered the industry.
The period since the 1980s saw many breweries absorbed by, or becoming by take-overs, larger companies in the food, hotel or property sectors. The low returns of a pub-owning business led to many breweries selling their pub estates, especially those in cities, often to a new generation of small chains, many of which have now grown considerably and have a national presence. Other pub chain
Pub chain
A pub chain is a group of pubs or bars with a brand image. The brand may be owned outright by one company, or there may be multiple financiers; the chain may be a division within a larger company, or may be a single operation. Examples include Chef & Brewer, Wetherspoons, Walkabout, Taylor Walker...
s, such as All Bar One
All Bar One
All Bar One is a chain of bars in the UK, owned and operated by Mitchells and Butlers plc which was part of the Six Continents group until 2003....
and Slug and Lettuce offer youth-oriented atmospheres, often in premises larger than traditional pubs.
A free house is a pub that is free of the control of any one particular brewery. Free houses can, but do not necessarily, serve a varied selection range of guest beers. Some pub chains do so as well.
Burton upon Trent
For centuries, Burton upon TrentBurton upon Trent
Burton upon Trent, also known as Burton-on-Trent or simply Burton, is a town straddling the River Trent in the east of Staffordshire, England. Its associated adjective is "Burtonian"....
has been associated with the brewing
Brewing
Brewing is the production of beer through steeping a starch source in water and then fermenting with yeast. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BCE, and archeological evidence suggests that this technique was used in ancient Egypt...
industry due to the quality of the local water (from boreholes, not from the River Trent
River Trent
The River Trent is one of the major rivers of England. Its source is in Staffordshire on the southern edge of Biddulph Moor. It flows through the Midlands until it joins the River Ouse at Trent Falls to form the Humber Estuary, which empties into the North Sea below Hull and Immingham.The Trent...
). This comes from the high proportion of dissolved salts in the water, predominantly caused by the gypsum
Gypsum
Gypsum is a very soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. It is found in alabaster, a decorative stone used in Ancient Egypt. It is the second softest mineral on the Mohs Hardness Scale...
in the surrounding hills; the resulting sulphate brings out the hops – see Burtonisation. Much of the open land within and around the town is protected from chemical treatment to help preserve this water quality.
The town is still home to seven brewers:
- CoorsCoors Brewing CompanyThe Coors Brewing Company is a regional division of the world's fifth-largest brewing company, the Canadian Molson Coors Brewing Company and is the third-largest brewer in the United States...
, a brewery from the United States which produces CarlingCarlingCarling brands are currently owned by the Molson Coors Brewing Company. In South Africa it is distributed by SABMiller.Carling Black Label is the name of a brand of Canadian lager in Australia, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and South Africa...
. In addition to their large-scale plant, Coors also operate the White Shield Brewery, a microbrewery producing a number of prestigious speciality beers. including the eponymous Worthington White Shield. - Marston, Thompson and EvershedMarston'sMarston's is the colloquial name for the brewer and pub operator Marston's plc . The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index...
, now Marston's PLC. Marston's also brew Bass beerBass (beer)The Bass Brewery was founded as a brewery in 1777 by William Bass in Burton upon Trent, England. The main brand was Bass Pale Ale, which was once the highest selling beer in the UK...
and Stones BitterStones BitterStones Bitter is a bitter beer first brewed in 1948 by William Stones Ltd at the Cannon Brewery, Sheffield, England. It was designed for the steelworkers of Sheffield's Lower Don Valley. In 1968 it became a part of Bass Brewery, who extended distribution across the north of England in 1977, and...
under licence from InterbrewInterbrewInterbrew was a large Belgium-based brewing company which owned many internationally known beers, as well as some smaller local beers. In 2004 Interbrew merged with Brazilian brewer AmBev to form InBev, which is the now largest brewer in the world by volume, with a 13% global market share now... - Burton Bridge Brewery, a small brewery founded in 1982 by Geoff Mumford and Bruce Wilkinson.
- Tower Brewery, a new microbrewery
- Cottage Brewery, its retail outlet being the nearby Old Cottage Inn
- Black Hole Brewery, a Microbrewery subsidiary of Kammac, a leading cask supplier
The Bass Museum of Brewing - renamed the Coors Visitor Centre
Coors Visitor Centre
The National Brewery Centre is a museum and tourist attractions in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England. The centre celebrates the brewing heritage of Burton and features exhibits showcasing the history of brewing techniques...
after Coors took over the brewery - continued until June 2008. This was reopened in 2010 as the William Worthington Brewery and its ales - including Worthington Red Shield, White Shield, and "E", are primarily sold through the on-site Brewery Tap outlet
A by-product of the brewing industry, figuratively and literally, is the Marmite
Marmite
Marmite is the name given to two similar food spreads: the original British version, first produced in the United Kingdom and later South Africa, and a version produced in New Zealand...
factory in the town: Marmite being made from spent brewer's yeast. Together with the breweries this can give the area a distinctive smell.
A pale and well hopped style of beer was developed in Burton in parallel with the development of India Pale Ale elsewhere. Previously, Englishmen had drunk mainly stout and porter - dark beers flavoured with roasted barley and similar to Guinness
Guinness
Guinness is a popular Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin. Guinness is directly descended from the porter style that originated in London in the early 18th century and is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide, brewed in almost...
- but bitter (a development of pale ale) came to predominate. This extensively hopped, lighter beer was easier to store and transport, and so favoured the growth of larger breweries.
Burton came to dominate this trade, and at its height one quarter of all beer sold in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
was produced here. Although over 30 breweries are recorded in 1880, a process of mergers and buy-outs resulted in three main breweries remaining by 1980: Bass, Ind Coopes and Marston's.
The fame of Burton ales gave rise to the English euphemism "gone for a Burton" meaning to die — a World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
humorous suggestion that a missing comrade had merely nipped out for a beer.
The town's connection with the brewing industry is celebrated by a sculpture of the Burton Cooper, which is now housed in the shopping centre.
Burton upon Trent is also known in beer technology circles for the Burton Union recirculating fermenter system, now used only by Marston's
Marston's
Marston's is the colloquial name for the brewer and pub operator Marston's plc . The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index...
Brewery (all other Burton brewers have switched to stainless steel).
Home Brewing
Since 1963 it has been legal to brew any amount of beer at home, without a license, providing it is not sold. Home brewing is a reasonably popular hobby, with many towns having home brew shops. Ale is usually brewed, the required equipment being simpler than that for lager.Breweriana
BrewerianaBreweriana
Breweriana commonly refers to any article containing a brewery name or brand name, usually in connection to collecting them as a hobby. Examples include beer cans, bottles, openers, tin signs, coasters, beer trays, wooden cases and neon signs.- History :...
refers to any article containing a brewery
Brewery
A brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made at home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....
name or brand name,usually in connection to collecting them as a hobby. Examples include beer cans, bottles, openers, tin signs, coasters, beer trays, wooden cases and neon
Neon
Neon is the chemical element that has the symbol Ne and an atomic number of 10. Although a very common element in the universe, it is rare on Earth. A colorless, inert noble gas under standard conditions, neon gives a distinct reddish-orange glow when used in either low-voltage neon glow lamps or...
signs.
Beer in English literature
- "The roots and herbs beaten and put into new ale or beer and daily drunk, cleareth, strengthen and quicken the sight of the eyes." - Nicholas CulpeperNicholas CulpeperNicholas Culpeper was an English botanist, herbalist, physician, and astrologer. His published books include The English Physician and the Complete Herbal , which contain a rich store of pharmaceutical and herbal knowledge, and Astrological Judgement of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick ,...
- "I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety." - William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, Henry VHenry V (play)Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to be written in approximately 1599. Its full titles are The Cronicle History of Henry the Fifth and The Life of Henry the Fifth...
- "For a quart of ale is a dish for a king" - William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, A Winter’s Tale
- "Blessings of your heart, you brew good ale." - William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, Two Gentlemen of Verona
- "But if at church they would give some ale. And a pleasant fire our souls to regale. We’d sing and we’d pray all the live long day, Nor ever once from the church to stray." - William BlakeWilliam BlakeWilliam Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
- "Payday came and with it beer" - Rudyard KiplingRudyard KiplingJoseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
- "O Beer! O Hodgson, Guinness, Allsopp, Bass! Names that should be on every infant’s tongue." -C.V. Calverley
- "Sir, I have now in my cellar ten tun of the best ale in Staffordshire; ’tis smooth as oil, sweet as milk, clear as amber, and strong as brandy; and will be just fourteen year old the fifth day of next March, old style.[..] I have fed purely upon ale; I have eat my ale, drank my ale, and I always sleep upon ale."- Boniface in The Beaux' StratagemThe Beaux' StratagemThe Beaux' Stratagem is a comedy by George Farquhar, first produced at the Haymarket Theatre, London, in March 1707. In the play, Archer and Aimwell, two young gentlemen who have fallen on hard times, plan to travel through small towns, entrap young heiresses, steal their money and move on. In the...
by George FarquharGeorge FarquharGeorge Farquhar was an Irish dramatist. He is noted for his contributions to late Restoration comedy, particularly for his plays The Recruiting Officer and The Beaux' Stratagem .-Early life:...
.
- "Of beer, an enthusiast said that it could never be bad, but that some brands might be better than others."
- A. A. Milne
A. A. Milne
Alan Alexander Milne was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work.-Biography:A. A...
- "Poor John Scott lies buried here, although he was both hale and stout. Death stretched his on the bitter bierBierA bier is a stand on which a corpse, coffin or casket containing a corpse, is placed to lie in state or to be carried to the grave.In Christian burial, the bier is often placed in the centre of the nave with candles surrounding it, and remains in place during the funeral.The bier is a flat frame,...
, in another world he hops about." - from the tomb of a LiverpoolLiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
brewer
- "I wish we could all have good luck, all the time! I wish we had wings! I wish rain water was beer!" - Robert BoltRobert BoltRobert Oxton Bolt, CBE was an English playwright and a two-time Oscar winning screenwriter.-Career:He was born in Sale, Cheshire. At Manchester Grammar School his affinity for Sir Thomas More first developed. He attended the University of Manchester, and, after war service, the University of...
(A Man for All SeasonsA Man for All SeasonsA Man for All Seasons is a play by Robert Bolt. An early form of the play had been written for BBC Radio in 1954, and a one-hour live television version starring Bernard Hepton was produced in 1957 by the BBC, but after Bolt's success with The Flowering Cherry, he reworked it for the stage.It was...
)
- "What event is more awfully important to an English Colony than the erection of its first brewhouse?"- Rev.Sydney SmithSydney SmithSydney Smith was an English writer and Anglican cleric. -Life:Born in Woodford, Essex, England, Smith was the son of merchant Robert Smith and Maria Olier , who suffered from epilepsy...
- "He that buys land buys many stones. He that buys flesh buys many bones. He that buys eggs buys many shells. He that buys good ale buys nothing else."
--John Ray
John Ray
John Ray was an English naturalist, sometimes referred to as the father of English natural history. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after "having ascertained that such had been the practice of his family before him".He published important works on botany,...
(1627–1705)
- "American Beer is a lot like making love in a row boat. It's f**king close to water!" - Eric IdleEric IdleEric Idle is an English comedian, actor, author, singer, writer, and comedic composer. He was as a member of the British comedy group Monty Python, a member of the The Rutles on Saturday Night Live and author of the play, Spamalot....
Advocacy and organisations
- The British Beer and Pub AssociationBritish Beer and Pub AssociationThe British Beer and Pub Association is the drinks and hospitality industry's largest and most influential trade association representing 98% of UK brewing and the ownership of over half of the nation's 54,000 pubs.-History:...
represents large brewers. - The Independent Family Brewers of BritainIndependent Family Brewers of BritainThe Independent Family Brewers of Britain was formed in the 1990s by an informal group of family-owned/controlled brewery CEOs known as the Pimlico Group - all of whom were part of the UK's Brewers Society, now the British Beer and Pub Association.It was intended to act against European Commission...
represents regional brewers. It campaigns in favour of the Tie. - The Campaign for a Fair Pint are an organisation of publicans campaigning against the Tie.
- The Society of Independent BrewersSociety of Independent BrewersThe Society of Independent Brewers was founded in 1980 under the title The Small Independent Brewers Association to represent the interests of the growing numbers of independent brewing companies in the United Kingdom...
represents small brewers. - The Craft Brewing Association represents microbreweries and home brewers.
- The Campaign for Real AleCampaign for Real AleThe Campaign for Real Ale is an independent voluntary consumer organisation based in St Albans, England, whose main aims are promoting real ale, real cider and the traditional British pub...
(CAMRA) represents consumers - Cask Marque is a voluntary accreditation scheme that allows publicans to display a special symbol indicating that their cask ale is of good quality, as judged by a series of surprise inspections.
- Real ale's most enthusiastic fans are hobbyists known as tickers or scoopers who try to outdo each other in sampling as many varieties as possible. They are not known to be organised.