Victoria brewing volumes by region, 1863

I'm still mining those articles from the last few posts and today I've got something pretty cool. Although I guess that may stretch commonly accepted definitions of cool.

I've got the weekly production numbers here for a whole bunch of regions in Victoria. It's a real luxury to have this kind of information because we're relying so heavily on newspapers rather than official reports. This is from 1863, well into the gold-rush and the population of the colony had grown from 76,000 to over 500,000 in the previous 12 years.

Region	Hogsheads/week	Hectolitres/week
Bendigo	640	1568
Ballarat	500	1225
Castlemaine	500	1225
Talbot, Carisbrook, Daylesford, Lamplough	250	612.5
Inglewood, Newbridge, Loddon, Rushworth	125	306.25
Kyneton, Gisborne, Malmesbury, Kilmore	90	220.5
Geelong	100	245
Beechworth	250	612.5
Portland, Warrnambool, Port Fairy	125	306.25
Gippsland	50	122.5
Melbourne	1500	3675
Total	4130	10118.5

I guess all those miners were a thirsty lot. Over 1,000,000L a week! And that's not counting all the imported beer and ale which were really taking off in Victoria at this stage.

The brewers were brewing ale and porter and Thomas Moulden, the author, notes that the brewers in Bendigo tended to brew stronger ale than in the other regions.

A couple of odd beer exports

One of the awesome things about sifting through old newspapers are the incidental details that pop up. From the same article with details about hopping rates that I found yesterday come two separate mentions of beer exports that surprised me and I thought were worth sharing.

The first is mention of the export of pale ale from the UK to Naples. From the description it sounds like this is from the 1830s or 40s. That isn't unusual in itself although I don't associate Naples with beer. The unusual thing is that these pale ales were brewed with wheat malt. I wonder if many breweries in the UK were using wheat malt at the time?

The Star (Ballarat), 31 December, 1863

The second snippet mentions the thriving trade that California was doing sending beer to China and India in the 1860s. Now this one raises heaps more questions but I always find references to pre-20th century America's engagement with the outside world interesting. What kinds of beers were they producing? How much were they exporting? Wasn't having impact on the London and Scottish breweries? And who was drinking the beer in China? Martyn Cornell recently wrote about the history of brewing in Hong Kong, I wonder if that's what's meant by China in this article?

The Star (Ballarat), 31 December, 1863

So there are lots more questions but these kinds of details help fill out the picture a little bit more.

1860s Australian pale ale recipe outline

I’d been sitting on yesterday's post about wheat malt and the beginnings of a distinctive Australian beer for a few weeks. I was hoping to find information about hopping rates to go with the information about malt and sugar so that I could produce a recipe outline. So of course the day after I gave up and posted it I stumbled across exactly what I had been searching for. I don't know how I managed to miss it but only two weeks later the same author wrote about the use of colonial hops. So much for my searching skills.

Anyway, now I've got enough information to sketch out a 1860s Australian pale ale. There's lots more to the article and I'll try to get back to it soon but the snippet below contains the gold for my purposes today:

The Star (Ballarat),  31 December, 1863

4 pounds per hogshead is described as the ‘low average’ hopping rate, that's about 7.5g/L or 170g in a 23L batch. We’re not given any details on how or when these hops were added but from the 8-10 homebrew recipes I've found from the time, the hops were often added as one giant first wort hop addition and that's exactly how I would do it here. Whenever I've used the FWH technique I've found that it has given a softer bitterness which would probably be a good thing when making such a large addition of hops. We're talking about roughly 90 IBUs by my calculations. That might sound excessive but if you've seen some of the recipes on Shut Up About Barclay Perkins, you'll know that it's not unusual. There's not enough information to be dogmatic about it though so add the hops as you see fit.

So based on that and the information I posted yesterday, if you want to brew a reasonably authentic mid-19th century Australian pale ale:


Fermentables
A starting gravity in the range of 1.045-1.055 made up of:

• Australian barley and/or wheat malt in any combination up to 100% wheat
• Sugar worth up to 25% of the gravity points

Hops
7.5g/L of hops, both colonial and UK hops were used so go with East Kent Goldings. Unfortunately I think Tasmanian Goldings are a thing of the past so until I can grow my own, the UK ones will have to do.

As discussed above, it's probably worth making it a first wort hop addition but the lack of specific information means you should use your own judgment. You might also want to adjust for the age and lack of cold storage of 19th century hops but I'm not sure how to go about that.


Yeast
It seems that Australian brewers were using yeast from imported beers and ales so the best way to go would be to use something descended from a Burton, London or Edinburgh brewery or use the Coopers strain. You can probably get away with any UK strain though.

My shortlist would probably be cultured up Coopers dregs, WLP009 or WY1028.


So there you have it, I just need to find the time and energy to get brewing. I'd love to hear from anyone else who gives it a try.

Colonial-style Australian pale ale

I've been getting hints at what some of the colonial ales and beers looked like through homebrew recipes and comparisons made in newspapers but most of the time they were either nasty bran & molasses affairs or otherwise very similar to the Burton and pale ales being imported into the country. Our national inferiority complex was in full effect even then and meant that very often our colonial ales and beers were attempts to mimic British beers.

But I found an article which shows something else emerging in Victoria & South Australia in the mid-19th century, something uniquely Australian. It's agenda is to argue for prioritising the use of the abundant colonial wheat in brewing instead of spending money on imported British malt. In the process gives heaps of interesting details about the practice of breweries in the area. I think we're getting an early glimpse of the Australian pale ale, an ale more appropriate to our climate and available ingredients than most of the imported stuff.

The Star (Ballarat), 15 December, 1863

The first gem is an outline of the standard grist used by brewers in the region: the equivalent of 4 bushels of malt per hogshead made up of 3 bushels of malt and sugar equivalent to 1 bushel of malt. 3 bushels of malt/hogshead is, if Wikipedia can be trusted, around 190g/litre. In a 23L batch of homebrew that's 4.35 kilograms of malt. Exactly how much sugar they were able to extract from that malt is not clear up my hunch is that it would be more comparable to homebrew systems than the high efficiency of today's commercial breweries. Assuming 70% efficiency, we're talking about an original gravity of around 1.048 of which 1.036 is from the malt and 1.012 is from sugar.

Use of sugar deserves attention. As I mentioned above, the article suggests that around 25% of the fermentables came from sugar. There were plenty of reasons for colonial brewers to use sugar and I’ll probably have a post up about that soon. Even more than the presence of wheat, the use of sugar was a distinctive of early colonial brewing while the the use of sugar was illegal in Britain until 1847 and only seems to have become popular through the 1870-80s. The use of sugar in these Australian pale ales led to a lighter bodied, more refreshing ale than the majority of the imported ales that were available.

The Star (Ballarat), 15 December, 1863

It's worth noting that they were often using a large amount of wheat. I already posted about Tasmanian homebrewers using wheat in times of plenty but above we've got a report of a brewery in Bendigo relying on wheat malt and only turning to barley once there was no more wheat available. There's also mention of a brewery in Adelaide using wheat when there was a shortage of barley and several others in the Beechworth district and Melbourne were also using it. It doesn't seem like everyone was using it but it sounds as if it was common enough and hints at the beginnings of a unique style of beer – the Australian pale ale.

There's some more gold to be mined from the article as well as more about wheat malt and sugar in colonial brewing that needs to be pursued. Each post leads to way more questions. Well, for me at least.

A death in a Hobart brewery, 1830

Just a little snippet today. I always find it shocking to hear about deaths in breweries, even if they're from the 19th century. Beer is fun and light and rarely too serious and I think it makes this kind of thing especially sobering. Safety has obviously improved since then but a brewery is an industrial environment and there's always an element of danger.

A serious accident happened on Saturday last, to a man of the name of Stephen Ward, who was in the service of Mr. GATEHOUSE, at New-town. It appears that some alterations were considered necessary with respect to the replacing of some of the coolers, which were in the process of being removed, the part of the building where they stood being rendered unsafe, through one of the side walls having given away, and with it the first floor. A new wall was just finished to replace it. The morning following the replacing of the coolers, the unfortunate man was turning in the water to supply the brewery and malt cistern, when sad to relate, the new wall gave way, and with it the floor of the cooling room, on which he was standing, and with it the coolers, all of which were instantly precipitated to the underground cellar. The poor man's right leg was locked between the beam and the edge of one of the coolers, and was crushed in a most dreadful manner. Surgical assistance was obtained as early as possible, but he only survived the amputation about half an hour. We understand he has left a wife and large family to lament his loss. [taken from Colonial Times (Hobart), 30 April, 1830]

This is the second brewery related amputation I've read about in the early brewing scene (James Whyte is the other). Both guys died soon after probably because they had amputations in the early 19th century.

The gold standard and Australian ale

The little editor's note is what caught my eye: "fully equal to the best V. D. Land ale." The beers and ales of Van Diemen's Land were the standard by which Australian brews were judged at least through the first half of the 19th century. I get the impression that this had changed somewhat by the time of federation and I'd like to try and figure that out sometime.

The Sydney Monitor, 25 August, 1830.

It's also an early indication of brewers successfully adapting to Australian conditions. It understandably took time for Australian brewing to develop an identity of its own but it's useful to have a hint of it happening in 1830.

I haven't been able to find out anything meaningful about Eveson and this is the only mention of his brewery. With death and financial ruin pretty constant realities to be contended with, many breweries popped up and then vanished again very quickly.

The tradition of Tasmanian stingo

One of the popular ales brewed in Hobart was Tasman Brewery's Stingo, a Tasmanian take on the aged Yorkshire strong ale. It was only brewed for a short time before the owner and brewer, James Whyte, died in a pretty dreadful way. His brewery was continued by his wife but the stingo seems to have disappeared.

Check out the Don Draper-esque ad:

Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen's Land Advertiser,
2 August, 1823

The hyperbole of that ad aside, it was a very popular brew in Hobart. Even in 1829 there was a newspaper article complaining about the absence of Tasman's stingo from the market. It didn't end there though, Tasman's stingo was something like a cult classic.

So in 1835 the Tasmanian Brewery, run by the new owners of the original Tasman Brewery, decided to relaunch the stingo. It not clear how the relaunch was but the absence of further mentions in newspaper advertising is not a positive sign. I've also found a mention that Noake's Brewery in Longford was also brewing one in 1852 and presumably earlier since at that point it already had a good reputation.

There were very limited quantities of the real deal Yorkshire stingo imported into the colonies but that local versions were produced over several decades is a fun little distinctive of Tasmanian brewing.

Peter Dudgeon: brewer, publican & delinquent goat owner

Let me introduce you to Peter Dudgeon. Google won't tell you much about him, he didn't succeed or fail in spectacular enough ways to be remembered or written about. He was known but never one of the leading members of the Van Diemen's Land colony. His story is interesting because it illustrates something of the promise and frustration of operating a brewery in the colony.

Dudgeon was part of the second wave of brewers in Hobart. He arrived in Tasmania in on October 4th, 1825, on board the Triton which had set sail for Hobart from Leith, Edinburgh on May 21st. He was a single bloke and only 21 years old who came out from Scotland with high hopes of 'carrying on an extensive brewery in the colony.'

He soon met Frederick Bell who had shipped out from London and arrived in Hobart just a month before Dudgeon. Soon the new arrivals formed a partnership and bought the Derwent Brewery in January 1826. The brewery had been started by James Ogilvie and included a malting house and kiln and was listed as one of 6 licensed breweries in Hobart in 1823. Ogilvie's stated reason for selling was the burden of managing the brewery on top of his other business ventures, which included the British Hotel and importing goods to the colony. However, the snippet below hints at problems with keeping a regular supply of ingredients, an ongoing problem faced by those running breweries in the colonies and which may have been a factor in his decision.

Hobart Town Gazette & Van Dieman's Land Advertiser,
April 23, 1824.

Ogilvie first put the brewery on sale in May 1825 and it was still on sale in October as Dudgeon arrived on the Triton. Ogilvie was willing to sell the brewery on pretty generous terms with only a deposit, allowing the balance to be paid over time. The sale to Dudgeon and Bell finally went through in January 1826 and in May they started the process of buying barley in preparation for malting and brewing their first batch.

Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser,
June 2, 1826

The brewery got off to a good start, producing ale that was highly regarded if not immediately acclaimed the best in the colonies. They produced a single ale, selling for £6 10s a hogshead of which they sold 15-20 per week in Hobart. The frequent criticism of Dudgeon and Bell's ale was that their beer wasn't high enough in alcohol so in 1827 they began selling a stronger one as well. By April 1827 Dudgeon & Bell's was the standard by which to judge other colonial beers according to at least one NSW writer. It seems to have been regarded as far superior to any of the beers produced in Sydney.

My guess is that some of the success of Dudgeon and Bell was due to their commitment to using colonial grown hops, and being willing to spend quite a bit of money to do so. Those first batches of beer were made with hops grown by Mr. Shoobridge in Providence Valley, North Hobart. Shoobridge himself had migrated to Tasmania from Kent in order to develop a hop garden and by 1826 his hops were beginning to reach maturity. The benefit of using these hops was that they were far superior in quality to the imported hops which were long past their best after the voyage from England.

Hobart Town Gazette, August 19, 1826

Hobart Town Gazette, December 30, 1826

Then in early 1827 Dudgeon was in the news for something else completely. His goat managed to escape and wreck the garden of a poor man called Turner. Turner impounded the goat asking for 10 shillings to cover the damages to his garden. Dudgeon refused but somehow managed to pinch it back from the pound. The goat, in classic goat style, escaped again and this time destroyed Turner's cabbages! Turner locked it up again and demanded 20 shillings from Dudgeon. Then Dudgeon abused him, threatened him and then when the magistrate's ruling didn't go 100% his way, went out and found another who would write an order for the goat's release for him. So he got it back without paying Turner or the pound-keeper for their expenses. Not a classy move.

Still, things seemed to be going very well for him. A few months after the goat incident he was married to Mary Lord at St David's in Hobart. She was the oldest daughter of David Lord, an important and wealthy character from the 1820s through to the 1840s. At this point he's 24 years old and seems like he's becoming an important character in the colony.

Praise for Dudgeon & Bell's ale in:
The Sydney Gazette and NSW Advertiser,
July 20, 1827

Within the first five months of operation they were successfully exporting a limited quantity of their ale to Sydney and soon after had increased the strength of their beer in response to public feedback. In August 1827 Dudgeon and his new wife sailed to Sydney to secure their export business and to try and find a market for malt among the distillers in Sydney. Although it was small at the time, the prospect of having a successful and growing colonial brewery, one that could potentially challenge the London breweries' export to India was important to establishing a functioning economy in the colony as well as addressing the social problems associated with the consumption of spirits. The newspapers were very excited about the possibilities.

Not just favourably compared to London, but Scotch ale
as well. The Sydney Gazette and NSW Advertiser,
September 17, 1827

Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser,
October 12, 1827

In November of the same year, soon after returning from the trip to Sydney, his partnership with Bell was formally dissolved. What happened isn't clear but whatever the case was, Bell seemed to do alright for himself afterwards. In 1829 he was importing rum and brandy. In 1835 he'd been granted some land near Ouse and in 1839 he was making a claim for a grant of 2000 more acres of land in a similar part of central Tasmania. He was also made a justice of the peace in 1839. He had an estate in Sandy Bay and in 1840 he made Sandy Bay an attraction by building the Sandy Bay baths.

Dudgeon retained the brewery but after the excitement and acclaim of the first 18 months, the following years appear to have been relatively quiet. The brewery was never huge volume of beer but from 1828-1831 Dudgeon's and other Tasmanian breweries seem to have operated only sporadically. The exact cause is difficult to determine. Dudgeon upgraded the brewery early in 1828, presumably in preparation for a greater volume of exports, which caused a stoppage in brewing over what seems to have been a couple of months but that only explains the first few months of the period. A shortage of ingredients or a glut of imported spirits and British ales are other possibilities, it was probably a combination of both. It's a fascinating little puzzle that I'm trying to work out and I'll post about it when I reach some conclusions.

Colonial Times, 26 June, 1829

Whatever the cause of the stoppages, he was still working on building his business and exporting to the other colonies. At the time the brewery had a copper that could boil 40 barrels of wort along with mash tubs of suitable size, a pump, cooler and fermentation vats. Along with that was the malting floor and a 20 foot square kiln. By October 1830 Dudgeon had added a beer to his lineup and we've got a shipment of an unknown quantity of beer to the Swan River settlement which was just over a year old at the time.

Recorded in The Sydney Gazette and NSW Advertiser,
23 October, 1830

At this point Dudgeon seems to have changed course. He obtained a license to retail wine, spirits and beer at his brewery in 1830 and in 1832 he's operating Dudgeon's Cellars on Elizabeth St. It seems like he was attempting to diversify and insulate himself financially from the fluctuations of the brewery. Particularly as in 1832 he leased the brewery out to William Adams Brodribb.

This strategy doesn't seem to have worked, he was in fairly constant financial trouble throughout 1832-1836 which culminated in a court ordered sale of the brewery. A notice was put in the newspapers that the brewery was up for sale in September 1835 and while Dudgeon managed to stave it off at that time, when the matter was heard in March 1836 he was declared insolvent and the brewery was to be sold to cover his debts. At just about the same time there was a flood of the Hobart rivulet which ran through the brewery property. It took away a wall of the brewery and some of the brewing equipment and it's possible that this ended Brodribb's time running the brewery.

Hobart Town Courier, 4 March, 1836

Ads for the sale or leasing of the brewery appear in 1836 and it's still on offer into 1838 when it was under the operation of Reeves, Boreham and Co. That arrangement seems to have ended very quickly and an L. J. Prentis & Son were operating it in 1840 or earlier. Charles Bilton is the agent selling the lease in 1848 and through until 1850 when the whole property was auctioned off. The ad for the auction suggests that the brewery plant might be sold separately and since there's no more mention of the brewery, it appears to have ended its life at that point. A sad petering out of what seemed like such a promising brewery.

Map of Hobart pinched from the Parliament of
 Tasmania website. Download the full size thing.

Back to Dudgeon, he and his wife moved to Launceston around 1837 and spent a number of years there, Dudgeon working as a constable in the George-Town district. Following the untimely death of Mary in 1842 at only 38 years old, he returned to Hobart and the pub trade. He took over the Britannia on Macquarie Street in February 1845 and the following year transferred his license and took over the Boar's Head on the corner of Harrington and Macquarie Street and only a month later is listed as the licensee of the Golden Gate on the corner of Harrington and Collins Street. He certainly threw himself back into things.

Unfortunately he didn't fare too well and he was back in insolvency court in 1847. The result of that episode is not clear but he turns up in 1850 as the licensee of The Palace which was later renamed Holyrood House and stood on the corner of Murray & Patrick Streets. He died there in 1852 after a 'protracted and painful illness'. The license of Holyrood House passed to his second wife, Elizabeth Dudgeon who continued to operate the pub throughout the 1850s and into the early 1860s.

In some ways Peter Dudgeon's experience matches the arc of the colony itself. While far from a failure, he never managed to make good on his early promise. The colony had so much going for it but somehow never managed to thrive the way it might have. Whatever else might be said about him, he was persistent and entrepreneurial through setbacks and loss and he brewed a very good ale.

Barclay Perkins in Sydney, 1820

Look what I found:

The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser,
30 September, 1820

When I posted about Barclay Perkins in the colonies I missed this reference. It puts the first mention of BP more than a year earlier than the December 1821 one I had. And it's parked next to Edinburgh ale!

It's also second earliest reference to imported beer I can find that carries the name of a brewery (Hodgson's pale ale is the first I've found with one mention in 1819). The previous mentions of imports are all generic like brown stout, porter, pale ale or Edinburgh ale. I've got also got Taylor's brown stout in 1823.

There's not much more to say about this, I just wanted to add it to the list for the sake of completeness.

A first look at Scottish ale in the colonies

One thing I hadn't realised in my searches so far was just how much Scottish ale was available throughout the colonies. Until the 1850s and 1860s it's often advertised with the generic place name rather than brewery but there are references to Younger's in the 1840s and following. I'd come across it of course but the number of references when I started searching for it blew me away. Scottish ale seems to have been quite popular in the colonies.


Edinburgh Ale
Edinburgh was a major brewing centre in the early days of the Australian colonies and it shows with both the number of references and in how early the first ones come. In the early 1820s there wasn't a great choice in beer and ale but there was as much Edinburgh ale as just about anything else.

The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser,
28 September 1820.

Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen's Land Advertiser,
28 September, 1822.

Hobart Town Gazette, 19 August, 1826

McEwans wasn't established until the mid-19th century but once they got going, plenty of their beer saw the colonies. The first mention I could find of them is in Melbourne from 1864, less than 10 years after the brewery was established. It's tricky to be sure that this is their first mention because there were several McEwans in the colonies importing all kinds of things including ale. Also, if you want to search for them on OCR'd newspapers, I recommend searching for "M'Ewans".

The Argus (Melbourne), 23 August, 1864

Your ale really is global if it's advertised in Zeehan!
Zeehan and Dundas Herald, 9 September, 1891.

Alloa Ale
As with Edinburgh ale, there are plenty of generic references to Alloa ale but they don't start until the late 1830s and hit their peak in 1880-1889. The first reference I've been able to find is in Hobart in 1837 and there's 'strong Alloa ale' in Sydney in 1839.

Southern Australian, 16 January, 1840

Probably the most significant Alloa brewery, Younger's, is first mentioned by name in Sydney, 1848 and then later throughout the colonies.

Sydney Morning Herald, 21 November 1848

That's quite a nice list in addition to the Younger's!
Launceston Examiner, 11 October, 1860

The Argus, 25 August, 1863

For those interested in brewing up a taste of history, Shut Up About Barclay Perkins has a recipe for Younger's No. 3 Export Ale from 1868, presumably not too different from the 1863 version above (I've actually got an Australian homebrew recipe from 1835 that is quite similar to the Younger's No. 3 as well. I'll post about that sometime). If you brew it, let me know how it goes!


Aitkens in Falkirk
The first reference to Aitkens I've been able to find so far is in Melbourne, 1856. It appears again in the 1860s and the on and on into the First World War.

Why don't other breweries market their beers to invalids?
Evening News (Sydney), 3 February, 1875

Some of their beer was sold as Aitken's Life Belt (sometimes Life Bouy) Ale and came with this pretty terrible label.

Pic pinched from Shut Up About Barclay Perkins

Scotch Pale Ale and Porter

Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen's Land Advertiser,
18 May, 1822

Along with the reference in Hobart, there's also a reference to Scotch pale ale in Sydney in 1825 and again in 1837-8, 1842, 1846 and a few others throughout the remainder of the 19th century. I'm not sure what the Scotch pale ale was like and it's relation to the English pale ales. Whatever it was like, it's not imported in great quantities.

The Scotch porter appears in Hobart in 1826 (see the 1826 snippet in the Edinburgh ales section) and 1827 and in Sydney the year after. Like the pale ale it is only around sporadically. It also pops up in Geelong and Melbourne in 1850 and Launceston in 1852 and occasionally afterwards throughout the 19th century and into the 20th.

There's also strong Scotch ale from 1833 and occasionally double strong Scotch ale which follows much the same pattern as the pale ale and porter.

So there you have it, there was a lot of Scottish ale in the colonies and people seemed to like it.

The first reference to IPA. Just.

About this time last year, beer historian Martyn Cornell posted about the first occurrence of the term 'India Pale Ale', 29 August, 1829. It was 6.5 years before the previous known first usage and was notably from a Sydney newspaper. Australia was into IPA before it was cool. We're just a bunch of beard-wearing hipster convicts.

As I was ferreting around in the depths of Trove today I discovered a reference to IPA from 27 August of the same year, just two days earlier. It's the same ad, run in the same newspaper so it's not really moving the needle in terms of the history but I guess it's worth pointing out.

The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser,
27 August, 1829

The ad is a bit unclear as to whether it's advertising an IPA brewed by Taylor or whether it's referring to Taylor's pale ale and an East India pale ale. The former is a possibility with "Taylor's" referring to their stout or porter. Taylor's brown stout (or porter) and pale ale had been advertised together a number of times in the preceding years. Their stout in particular appears so often in colonial advertising that it's conceivable that it could be referred to simple as "Taylor's". However, the latter seems to make more sense grammatically. Check out the post by Cornell for more discussion about it.

This is the kind of ad I'm talking about. From:
The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser,
25 July, 1828

So there you go, a tiny discovery that doesn't change things at all! That's what I'm all about.

On trial for the crime of spilling beer. Hobart, 1835

I actually do still brew and have several beers I need to do tasting notes for but in the meantime, more Tasmanian beer history.

This is an odd little story about something that pains brewers to think about: the loss of a batch of beer. It happened in Hobart but was somehow deemed important enough to be reported in the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, November 26, 1835.

IMPORTANT TRIAL.-We understand that an eminent brewer, in the neighbourhood of the Church, has had the misfortune to lose a whole "batch" of strong ale, under the following circumstances :-It was under the operation of fermentation on Sunday last, when, about eleven o'clock, the 21st Regiment arrived at Church, and the "earthquakers" let fly such a tremendous volley at the door while the men were entering the Church, that it had exactly the effect of a thunder-storm, and totally discharged a large batch of XXX ale! We understand that an action is commenced against Mr. Young, the adjutant, who, having looked at the drum-major, indicative of a "point of War" that great functionary gave three extra flourishes of his mace, and the big drummer-the middle drummer, and the little drummers let fly accordingly.

I'm finding it hard to picture exactly how drumming, even loudly, would have caused the strong ale to have leaked out. And even if the vibrations were somehow able to upset the fermenter then the brewer should have had things secured better. Regardless, it's good to see they were out for blood in the name of the spilled ale.

The Mr Young in the article seems to have been Wharton Thomas Young. His dad was the Sir Aretus Young, Governor of Prince Edward Island in Canada. Wharton was a lieutenant and adjutant in the 21st Regiment of Royal Scots' Fusileers and got married in 1835 to Amy Kemp. In August and September of the following year he was made an assistant police magistrate for Great Swan Port and coroner and then justice of the peace for Van Diemen's Land. He died suddenly in 1837 when a boat he and 5 soldiers were in capsized.

I'd like some more details about the trial and the church and brewery involved but I haven't been able to ferret that info out.

Ummm... maybe we will take some porter after all?

It seems that the pendulum swung back towards London porter after the heady days of 1826-7 when colonial beer and ale was selling so well that merchants were telling their London agents to slow down on sending porter. For some reason, the local breweries had slowed or even ceased their brewing between 1828-9.

The North-South comparison I posted the other day noted that Dudgeon & Bell and William Barnes had gotten their respective breweries churning out the good stuff in 1826 after something of a lull in beer production in the colony. I speculated that a shortage of ingredients was the problem but it looks like I was probably wrong about that. So now I have no idea what caused it, or this:

Originally from the Colonial Times but
reproduced in The Sydney Gazette,
January 16, 1829

They had the equipment, ingredient and environment on their side so why were they not brewing?Dudgeon's was successful and widely praised, what would make him reduce production? It's doesn't seem to be a financial problem. Dudgeon was paying 10 shillings per pound for colonial hops when he started up in 1826 so 3 shillings per pound is a brilliant price. Whatever the reason, colonists who could afford to were paying £2-3 more per hogshead for imported porter and those who couldn't drank spirits or whatever they could make themselves.

I guess this is just part of the disorganised and chaotic life of the early colony but it's bugging me. Need more details!

Thanks, but no thanks to London porter

Ha! My speculation about the long absence of Barclay Perkins from Launceston - that the local beer was too popular - now has some evidence to support it.

Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser,
October 12, 1827

It wasn't just Launceston, the whole state seemed pick local brews based on their evaluation of the cost/quality/availability equation. It doesn't necessarily mean that the local beer was always better but it does indicate that the imported stuff wasn't worth the extra cost. I feel a bit proud.

The 'this we are happy to hear' is significant. Imported beer was expensive and more importantly, it saw the money sail away as the boat the beer came on left port. In the absence of actual coin, rum became the de facto currency to pretty disastrous social consequences. As if a colony that was 75% male and had a high proportion of ex criminals wasn't bad enough. Anyway, the solution as many saw it was to promote local breweries and the growing of barley and hops. Keep money circulating in the colony and reduce the problems associated with excessive consumption of spirits. Good solution, it's probably worth a try now, too.

Hobart vs Launceston: beer quality in 1826

The Hobart vs Launceston rivalry is a Tasmanian tradition. I assume it goes all the way back to an insignificant incident around the time of the founding of Launceston in 1804. It's pretty ridiculous really, the smaller the population, the more important the dividing lines seem to be. There's a great little article in the Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser that suggests this rivalry was in play by 1826 at least. It keeps things polite though, the main purpose is to be comment on the resumption of work at the local breweries and distilleries though it moves from there to talk about the quality of the beer as well.

This excerpt and the ones that follow are from:
Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser,
December 15, 1826

The article gives no explanation for the cessation of brewing, presumably it's well enough known in the colony to not be worth mentioning. My hunch is that it's related to a lack of ingredients, I can't think of another reason why they'd actually stop brewing beer and distilling spirits. Even then though, it's surprising given the extensive use of various sugars among NSW and even some Tasmanian breweries at the time. I'll try to find out more about it another time.

Quick! Someone in Launceston start a faux craft brewery
built around the history of Barnes!

The comparison between the North and South is fascinating (I'm using that word way too much in these history posts). Actually, it's really a comparison between two breweries, the Derwent Brewery under the management of Dudgeon and Bell and the Port Dalrymple Brewery under the management of Barnes. There were several other breweries in Hobart at least but the article hints that these two are the only ones to have resumed operations at that stage. The good news is that in contrast to beer brewed in NSW at the time, both breweries were producing high quality brews.

Very good but not the best. C'mon Hobart, lift
your game!

To the enduring shame of my people the Launceston beer is said to be superior to the Hobart ale. The main factor seems to be the alcohol content and age of the beer, the punters preferring something with a bit more strength than the Derwent Brewery was providing. I've come across a number of references that seem to connect strength and quality and sometimes even treat them as synonymous. That puts the 19th century beer drinking public in a similar place to the Ratebeer top 50 list which features DIPAs, strong Belgians and imperial stouts prominently. Despite a vocal session beer contingent strength and quality still seem to be pretty tightly connected in the minds of most.

The Port Dalrymple beer is so good that the author says people in Launceston and the surrounding area are mostly drinking the beer produced by Barnes. They're even choosing his beer over London porter! I wonder if that's a factor in the absence of Barclay Perkins from Launceston until the 1840s?

A useful little detail in the mix is a comparison of the price of the Derwent beer to that of the London porters. At less than a third of the cost of London porter, it's not hard to see why people would be drinking it if the quality was there. The author praises the customer service of the Derwent Brewery as well as their provision of cheap but good table beer, an important social issue at the time. He'd just like them to brew something a bit stronger as well.

While Barnes was focussed on supplying the North of the state, Dudgeon and Bell were exporting their Derwent ales to NSW. It's pretty early on for that kind of thing to be happening but given the struggles they were having in Sydney to brew palatable beer, I guess it made sense for the Tasmanian breweries with enough capacity to be exporting. I've found a few other references to Tasmanian beer being exported but that's for another post.

So Launceston won the battle but the big thing to note is that the overall beer quality in Tasmania, even in the early days of the colony, was very high. Chalk that up to the favourable climate. The other thing worth comment is that the resumption of brewing and distilling in the state was news worth reporting. Newspapers from the time are such good resources and we get little insights into the scene like this one because alcohol was such an important issue at the time. Without this, the beer history of 19th century Australia would be virtually non-existent. Granted that's not quite on par with the burning of the Library of Alexandria, but it'd be a shame to be missing these fun little stories.

All this ties in nicely with our new homebrew club. We're planning on having a state competition and because of our state rivalry, having a North-South derby incorporated into the comp. Maybe the competition should be for the 'Dudgeon-Barnes Trophy'?

Colonial homebrew again - Hobart 1823

I keep posting homebrew recipes from the 1800s and this isn't the last one. I find it fascinating that there's so much written evidence of the recipes and methods people were using to brew their own beer from nearly 200 years ago. It gives insight into the ways people tried to deal with the climate and the shortage or high costs of normal beer ingredients. This one is the earliest colonial homebrew recipe I've been able to find; from Hobart this time. It's similar to the NSW one I posted the other day so I won't comment on it too much.

From the Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen's Land Journal,
March 1823

The climate wasn't so much a problem for brewing in Tasmania so I'm assuming that this recipe was born of a desire to minimise costs or deal with shortages of malt. The treacle or molasses would have made the brew very dark and also very dry. I'm not sure what the wheat bran would contribute if anything in terms of fermentables. Sounds like the kind of beer you brew and drink because it's got alcohol in it rather than for taste. Actually, it's probably not too far off a kit & kilo brew with all added sugar would be like.

Also, I'm glad we've moved past the technique of straining with a hair sieve.

Barclay Perkins in Australia 1821-1840

This time I've got a story about a couple of guys visiting Parramatta from Sydney in 1827 and some details about the availability of Barclay Perkins in Sydney, Hobart and Launceston.

First, the story. A couple of mates set out on horseback for a daytrip from Sydney to Parramatta. I'm not sure why it was worth including in the newspaper but for history's sake I'm glad they did. The part that's relevant to this blog is in the bar at their destination:

A little after 2 p. m. I found myself with my friend

Oddfish in a snug parlour at Walker's Hotel, admiring

the excellence and enjoying the luxury of a glass of

Barclay and Perkins'-ordered corn for the horses

-at 3 p. m. dinner on table-- roast beef, pigeon pye,  

custard, and good madeira. No disagreeable matters

to discuss by two cockneys after a journey of 15 or 16

miles.

The story is relatively long and not very well told but that reference to the 'luxury of a glass of Barclay and Perkins' is interesting. I've reproduced the whole thing at the end of the post for those who are interested and don't begrudge the extra reading.

The particular beer isn't identified. It's likely to have been the Porter although it could also have been the double brown stout that is referenced a number of times in newspapers. I really like the image of these cockney blokes having the chance to sit down after their journey with a beer from home. The luxury might refer to the taste of home but it's likely a comment on the rarity and cost of drinking a London Porter in the colony. There's a sequence following the above quote where they have to find someone to lend them money so they could pay for their beer and meal which suggests it cost them a bit more than they were expecting.

The early colonial newspapers are really useful sources of information. Aside from the occasional narrative like that one, the classifieds list the availability of just about anything that was imported. The first reference I can find to Barclay Perkins in Australia is in the snippet below, in 1821 Sydney. It's certainly possible that Barclay Perkins was available in the 20 years prior to this but at least we know for certain that it was sporadically available in the 1820s.

The Sydney Gazette & NSW Advertiser, December 1, 1821

Looking through the records it seems that ships arrived in November 1821, December 1823, August 1825, April 1828 and then a bit more regularly between 1829 and the 1830s. Mostly the ads are for their double brown stout and porter but in 1832 we get mention of their East India ale and in 1834 their pale ale, and in 1836, their export stout, 1837 their strong ale and 1839 their super strong ale.

The Sydney Gazette and NSW Advertiser, October 30, 1832

The first reference to Barclay Perkins in Hobart is from 1822. There are occasional references to brown stout in advertising prior to that which could be BP in disguise. There's more in 1823 (superior brown stout) and 1828 but like Sydney, the supply wasn't very regular. The fire that destroyed the London Brewery did get a mention in The Hobart Town Courier in 1832.

Imperial Double Stout Porter?!! Barclay & Perkins know
how to sell beer to beer geeks in 2014. Hobart Town 
Gazette and Van Dieman's Land Enquirer,
December 21, 1822

One of the suspicious brown stouts I was referring to.
Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter,
August 21, 1820

Weirdly, I can't find any references to Barclay Perkins being available in Launceston until 1849. I'm not sure why it should be any different to the other colonial outposts of Hobart and Sydney. It's not hard to find references to Taylor's double brown stout in the 1820s and Truman's in the 1830s among others but no Barclay Perkins. Why was that?


Full reproduction of AN EXCURSION TO PARRAMATTA after the jump:

Western Australian Homebrew Recipe - 1834

A second colonial homebrew recipe. This time on the other side of the country but still using a fairly large percentage of sugar. Found in The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, 11 January, 1834, less than 5 years after the colony on the Swan River was established.

DOMESTIC BREWING. 

The following is a very valuable recipe especially for farmers who have many house-servants, and for labourers who would have a cheap and nourishing beer. It may be done by boiling the water in a washing copper, or even a large tea kettle, and drawing out the virtue of the malt in any clean pans or tubs about the house. Either large or small quantities may be brewed, only observing the same proportions :-put one peck of barley or of oats into an oven just after baking, or a frying pan, just to steam off the moisture, and dry it well, but on no account to burn the grain; then grind or bruise it roughly. Boil 2 1/4 gallons of water, and when it has stood ten minutes (or so hot as to pain the finger sharply), put in the grain-mash it well, and let it stand three hours; then drain it off. Boil two gallons more water, which pour on the grains (rather hotter than before, but not boiling), and mash them well, let it stand two hours and drain it off: mash the grains again well with two gallons more water, and in one hour and a half draw it off. The three worts will be about five gallons. Then mix 7 lbs. of treacle in 5 gallons of water, and boil the whole ten gallons with 4 ounces of hops, for one hour and a half, taking care to stir it so long as the hops float on the top; let it cool, and when about milk warm take a good tea cupful of yeast, and stir it well together, beginning with about a gallon of wort at a time; let it ferment for l8 hours in a tub covered with a sack; put it into a nine gallon cask, and keep it well filled; bung it up in three days, and in 14 days it will be good sound fine beer, equal in strength to London Porter. If you cannot get treacle, take 5 lbs. of the cheapest and darkest sugar you can get.

This one is significantly different to the first recipe I found. It actually uses barley for a start (or oats). It also uses less hops but boils them for much longer, around 2.5g/L boiled for 90 minutes.

It also calls for an addition of yeast, the other one left that out so I'm assuming it was working on spontaneous fermentation. This one calls for a tea cup full of yeast, drastic underpitching in this day and age but probably good enough for then.

The way it goes about the mash is a little odd and I'm not actually sure that the barley or oats it describes were malted. The roasting in the oven could potentially destroy the enzymes and make conversion either slow or impossible. The mashing instructions also seem problematic. 10 minutes off the boil is way too hot for the probably non existent enzymes to function. I guess if the grain isn't malted but gets browned, it might just be contributing colour and flavour rather than a significant amount of fermentables. From what I can tell, we're talking about 4-5kg of grain in about 40 litres of beer.

Overall the instructions are for something more recognisably like beer than the last one but it's still not something I'd be in a rush to go out and brew. I guess what both these recipes are doing is showing what people were trying to do in response to the climate and with the limited ingredients at their disposal. Homebrew wasn't a luxury or a hobby like it is for us, it was about providing for yourself and your family or being thrifty in much the same way that growing veggies or having chooks would be.

All is not lost though! I've got a couple more colonial homebrew recipes up my sleeve and one of them actually seems like it'd be really good.

Colonial Style Homebrew & James Squire

I've found some fun stuff as I've been working my way through references to beer and brewing in the early years of the colonies. Lately I've discovered a few home brew recipes which I'll post up here over the next week or two. This first recipe was published in The Australian in Sydney, 1832. From the description, it sounds like it would make something almost, but not quite entirely, unlike beer.

DOMESTIC BREWING.

[We give the following approved recipe, for the convenience of families residing in the country.] 

To make Ale and Porter for a Half-sum— Take ten pounds of small sifted bran, one pound and a quarter of hops, twenty-five pounds of brown sugar. Boil the bran in twenty-five gallons of water for two hours, then strain, dissolve the sugar in four or five gallons of the bran water, and skim it while any impurities arise, then add the hops, and boil, for five minutes more, not longer; then strain and press it well through the cloth; then put it into the cask, and fill it up with the hot bran water; then mash it for half an hour, letting it flow out at the bottom, and pouring it in at the top of the cask. — N. B. The addition of ten ounces of bruised liquorice, with half an ounce of sliced gentian root, and two tea spoonsful of salt of steel to the above, will make good porter. The cask should be placed on its end, with a cock about three inches from the bottom and a hole of about one inch in diameter in the centre of the top. 

The fermentation will commence almost immediately and continue briskly till all the sugar is decomposed. During this period the hole at the top of the cask should be left open, but at the expiration of this time, generally about a fortnight,the cask should be bunged up, but the bung re-moved for a minute or two every second day, for another fortnight, when the whites and shells often eggs should be added as in fining wine, after which it should be finally closed up for about three weeks, when it will be fit to bottle or drink.The sugar and bran afford a most excellent substitute for malt, six pounds of sugar being equal to a bushel of malt. The greater or lesser degree of strength of the liquor will depend on the quantity of sugar used; the above gives a tolerably strong, and pleasant beverage.— South African Advertiser.

4.5kg of bran, 11.5kg of brown sugar and 550g hops @ 5 minutes with a brew length of about 130 litres, how could that go wrong? It's hard to imagine that this recipe would produce beer that was even close to pleasant. Add some bruised liquorice, gentian root and salt of steel and I'm sure you've got some kind of incredible not-really-porter on your hands.

One of the problems for early settlers was that malt and hops had to be imported from the UK, were expensive and not always available and imported beer was relatively expensive. The other, for those in NSW where this recipe came from, was that the hot climate and lack of pure yeast cultures meant that all malt beers went sour super quickly.

To deal with these problems, lots of beer was brewed with most or all of the fermentables coming from sugar. The sugar was cheap and would ferment out nearly completely, robbing any bacteria present of the chance to sour the beer too much. The image below is part of an account of colonial beer and gives a picture of brewing practice and drinking habits as well as calling out James Squire who had died 10 years before it was written.

The Sydney Monitor, 29 Feb, 1832

(It's a bit unfortunate for the modern James Squire brand that they chose to name themselves after someone who was more about marketing than brewing good beer. Not that they let history get in the way of their stories.)

In Sydney at this stage, about 73 000 litres of this 'beer' was brewed each week, more in summer. It was brewed one day and began to be served in pubs the next, long before it had fully fermented. The sweetness of the unfermented sugar made it more palatable for consumers and the beer didn't have time to get sour.

So in that light I guess the homebrew recipe makes some sense, especially for those living outside of Sydney, even if it doesn't sounds like a great drink.