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Besides this way of making Mead, there is another which I have approved to be very good, which, in all particulars, except the Water, is the same with this; and instead of the Water, put the like Quantity of small Ale-Wort, brew'd with pale Malt: but this will require less Honey than the former, and will require more time in the Vessel before it is fine and fit to bottle; but it will last many Years good, and will drink like Cyprus Wine when it is a Year old.
He adds, that he has try'd the high-dry'd Malt to brew Beer with for keeping, and hopp'd it accordingly; and yet he could never brew it so as to drink soft and mellow, like that brew'd with Pale Malt. There is an acid Quality in the high-dry'd Malt, which occasions that Distemper commonly called the Heart-burn, in those that drink of the Ale or Beer made of it.
For strong brown Ale brew'd in any of the Winter Months, and boiled an Hour, one Pound is but barely sufficient for a Hogshead, if it be Tapp'd in three Weeks or a Month. If for pale Ale brewed at that time and for that Age, one Pound and a quarter of Hops; but if these Ales are brewed in any of the Summer Months, there should be more Hops allowed.
There is one thing which has long puzzled the best Brewers, which I shall here endeavour to explain; and that is, where several Gentlemen in the same Town have employ'd the same Brewer, have had the same Malt, the same Hops, and the same Water too, and brew'd all in the same Month, and broach'd their Drink at the same time; and yet one has had Beer which has been extremely fine, strong, and well tasted, while the others have hardly had any worth drinking.
While I am writing this, a Gentleman of good Judgment in this Affair informs me, that the Brown Malt he finds makes the best Drink, when it is brew'd with a coarse River Water, such as that of the River Thames about London; and that likewise being brew'd with such Water, it makes very good Ale: but that it will not keep above six Months, without turning stale, and a little sharp, even tho' he allows fourteen Bushels to the Hogshead.
The unanimous votes of the two houses of parliament, and the names, as well as the number of those who pronounced Lord Strafford to be guilty, seem to put this beyond a doubt. Dryden, writing soon after the time, says, in his "Absalom and Achitophel," that the plot was "Bad in itself, but represented wore:" that "Some truth there was, but dash'd and brew'd with lies:" and that
The Dorchester Beer, which is esteem'd preferable to most of the Malt-Liquor in England, is for the most part brew'd of chalky Water, which is almost every where in that County; and as the Soil is generally Chalk there, I am of opinion, that the Cellars being dug in that dry Soil contributes to the good keeping of their Drink, it being of a close texture, and of a drying quality, so as to dissipate Damps; for damp Cellars, we find by experience, are injurious to keeping Liquors, as well as destructive to the Casks.
In the expression of the triumph and despair of love, not sicklied over with any thought as in most modern poets, only Catullus and Sappho can touch Burns. "Willie brew'd a Peck o' Maut" in the same way rides sovereign at the head of a troop of Bacchanalian verses; and the touches of rhetoric and convention in "Scots wha hae" cannot spoil, can hardly even injure it.
But there must be such Cellars as I speak of, which inclose a temperate Air, to ripen Drink in; the constant temperate Air digests and softens these Malt Liquors, so that they drink smooth as Oil; but in the Cellars which are unequal, by letting in Heats and Colds, the Drink is subject to grow stale and sharp: For this reason it is, that Drink, which is brew'd for a long Voyage at Sea, should be perfectly ripe and fine before it is exported, for when it has had sufficient time to digest in the Cask, and is rack'd from the Bottom or Lee, it will bear carriage without injury.
His counsel was followed, and scarcely had the beer fermented when the child cried out from the cradle: "I am as old As Bohemian gold, Yet for the first time now I see Beer in an egg-shell brew'd to be." The parents determined to fling the babe into the river the following night; but when at midnight they rose for the purpose they found in the cradle a strong, blooming child.
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