Tag: 1900s

Categories
Beer history

What is a Twang?

Judge with beer.

Ever had a beer with a twang to it? A quality so subtle it transcends language?

The other week in Birmingham we ploughed through many issues of the highly entertaining and partisan Licensed Trade News. In the issue for 10 December 1904 we found this story taken from the Daily Telegraph with some added commentary, recounting events at Southwark Police Court on (we think) 6 December that year.

A publican who was sued at Southwark for beer supplied said he returned some of the stuff because it was very poor.

Judge Addison: How did you judge of that?

Defendant: I am a practical brewer.

Judge Addison: But did you judge it by its taste, because that is the way I should test it? (Laughter.)

Defendant: Yes, and there was a ‘twang’ about it.

Judge Addison: That is something we object to in people’s voices. (Laughter.) What do you mean by a ‘twang’ in beer?

Defendant: It left an unpleasant taste in the mouth.

Judge Addison: That is what good beer does if you take too much – at least, that is what I am told. (Laughter.)

Defendant: I thought it had a tendency to acidity.

Judge Addison: But what is this ‘twang’?

Defendant: Well, it did not go down easy. (Laughter.)

Judge Addison: I suppose beer does not go down easy if you do not like it. (Laughter.) It goes down easy enough if you do like it.

Defendant: If beer is palatable it goes down easy. (Laughter.)

Judge Addison: Yes, with most of us. (Laughter.)

Defendant: You can’t drink a lot of it when it has got a ‘twang’.

Judge Addison: But why; What is this ‘twang’? If I had some here I could sample it for myself. (Laughter.)

Defendant: Well, it has an unpleasant taste.

Counsel: The ‘twang’, your honour, is so subtle that it transcends language.

Whatever would [temperance campaigner] Sir Wilfrid Lawson say if the Judge put his very practical suggestion of testing the beer by taste into fact, and there and then quaffed some glorious or inglorious beer as the sequel might prove in the fierce light of a police court? One thing is certain, viz., that Judge Addison is perfectly satisfied that it should be known that in the words of the old ditty he

‘Likes a drop of good beer.’

A few observations:

  1. The publican is an advocate of easy-drinking session beer, evidently.
  2. Said publican could do to go on an off-flavour identification course.
  3. Judge Addison doesn’t believe in tasting with eyes alone. Wise.
  4. His Judginess was right to challenge the word twang: did the publican actually mean tang? That would chime with his mention of acidity.
  5. Look at tasting notes all over Untappd/Ratebeer — twang remains a popular word!
  6. Either His Judgeworthiness had funny bones or this audience was easily pleased. (Laughter.)
Categories
Generalisations about beer culture opinion pubs

Children in Pubs: Tangents

The debate about children in pubs (like sparklers, BrewDog, finings, &c.) only seems to get gristlier the more it’s chewed and so we’re staying out of it. Having said that…

When we thought aloud on Twitter last night suggesting there ought to be a guide to child-friendly pubs, we were reacting specifically to this Tweet…

We’ve seen variants on this question a good few times over the years from people on holiday in other countries, or other parts of this country. We’re not qualified to write a guide ourselves — we don’t have kids and, thinking about it, most of our favourite pubs aren’t terribly family friendly — but our general observation would be that small and/or historic pubs in city centres are a dead loss; chains tend to be more child-friendly; and pubs in the country or suburbs are usually a good bet. So, in summary, if you’ve got kids, get on a bus, train or tram and ride a few stops.

* * *

There is also this bit of historical info which we offer with perhaps a touch of mischief in mind: the idea that children shouldn’t be allowed in pubs only really arose at the end of the 19th century and was championed by… temperance campaigners. The author G.K. Chesterton wrote a series of snarky anti-temperance columns for the Illustrated London News in the Edwardian era; here’s a bit from 23 April 1910:

Take, for the sake of argument, the clause recently introduced by the Lords into the Children’s Act, by which no child is allowed into any inn or hostelry. I will not stop to argue about this; it is enough to say it was founded on the great primary temperance principle that everything about public-houses should be settled by the people who have never been inside them. It thus involved the absurd notion… that a public-house is a peculiarly secret sort of private house where awful things occur of which no whisper can reach the street. These people talk about a tavern as if it were some sort of sacred enclosure within which devils were worshipped… It never seems to occur to them that a public-house is very like a public street, because it is public. If an inn-parlour is quiet and kindly, it is because the village outside is quiet and kindly. If a public bar is squalid and noisy, it is because the street outside is squalid and noisy…

He goes on to conclude that if we stop children going into pubs, it’ll be bookshops next, then butchers’ shops, then the street, until we have them safely locked up in the coal cellar. So, if you fear creeping prohibition, it is your moral duty to lobby for more kids in pubs.

PS. Tandleman — ‘gawd bless ‘im’? — has a post prompted by the same Twitter discussion.

Categories
Beer history pubs

The First Pub Gambling Machine?

A line of vintage slot machines.
Adapted from ‘Bryans Museum of Penny Slot Machines‘ by Russell Davies on Flickr, under Creative Commons.

Gambling machines are part of the furniture in many pubs, though less popular today than in the 1980s, but who first had the bright idea of combining coin-slot gambling with boozing?

Here’s a good candidate for the first in Britain, from a story that appeared in the Daily News for 18 June 1907 under the headline PUBLIC HOUSE SLOT MACHINES:

What was described as a test case was heard at Welwyn (Herts) Petty Sessions yesterday, when a publican named Titmus was fined 10s and costs for permitting gambling on his licensed premises by allowing a customer to use a “test your skill” penny-in-the-slot machine. The customer had to place a penny in the slot and pull down on a spring. There were two channels the penny could be dropped into and returned, two in which it was lost, and one from which a ticket was obtainable from a drawer exchangeable at the bar. The magistrates asked the superintendent to warn householders in the division that the use of the machines was illegal.

We think we can recall playing on similar machines during childhood holidays in places like Southend, Fleetwood and Weston-super-Mare, where they’d either been adapted to take modern coins or where old coins could be bought as tokens. They were very tactile with lashings of instant gratification.

In fact, with their wooden cases and vintage style, they’re just the kind of thing that would fit into a modern bar. Someone must already have done this, surely?

Categories
Beer history Beer styles

Heather Ale, 1900: ‘…the brewery caught fire…’

Digging through copies of Brewing Trade Review looking for information on pubs last week we couldn’t help but get distracted by, for example, a 1900 article that offers an intriguing footnote to our long piece on Williams Bros from last year.

It’s entitled ‘Heather Ale’, the author isn’t named, and it almost has about it the bones of an H.P. Lovecraft or Arthur Machen story — why did the brewery catch fire? To conceal the diabolical secrets unearthed by Dr. Maclagan who has since gone quite mad? (No.)

And, 116 years on, the practical information might even still be useful to anyone keen to brewer heather ale themselves this summer.

Here’s the article in full:


As there are many legends about the abnormal virtues of heather ale, Dr. Maclagan has been at great pains to investigate the whole subject, and his results quite fail to support the wonderful reputation which centuries have woven around this beverage. So far as documents go it appears to have been brewed with great success by the Picts, who, however, refused at all times to tell the Scots how to brew it, and the secret was supposed to have died with them. There are one or two recipes in existence, but all require a good deal of malt or sugar. Dr. Maclagan had some heather bloom analysed, and found that it yielded 17 per cent of a substance which reduced Fehling’s solution and appeared to be a sugar, but every attempt to ferment it was was unsuccessful. Recourse was then had to a practical brewer, Mr A. Melvin of Edinburgh, who made an extract from 4 lbs of pure heather bloom with 6 gallons of water in a steam jacketed copper. Yeast was added to extract (Sp. Gr. 1001.5) in a cask which was kept well-rolled, but no fermentation took place. Wort and heather flowers alone when mouldy in a short time, so the following experiment was tried: Four gallons of wort, Sp. Gr. 1100, with four gallons of water, were boiled with heather flowers, the total quantity used being 2½ lbs. The mixture was strained and the filtrate boiled for another half-hour. The fluid smelt strongly of heather and had an agreeable taste. It was next rapidly cooled, and, when at a temperature of 69º F, was poured into a six gallon cask, topped up with boiled wort, and a pint of yeast well roused in. As it fermented the cask was kept topped up and the beer properly cleansed. The beer thus produced was bottled, and the result was a fairly palatable liquid with a rough woody flavour. A further experiment was made with more heather, and a highly satisfactory sample was obtained, but unfortunately the brewery caught fire, and the heather ale was destroyed. The result of the inquiry, however, was precised, though disappointing; heather may be all right as a flavouring for those who like it, but it is useless for producing beer by itself. As two ounces of bloom measures about a pint and a-half, and take over an hour to collect, it would be an expensive ingredient, and its loss is therefore not to be regretted.

We forgot to note in which month this article appeared (probably April) but it’s certainly on p.373 of the collected volume for this year if you want to look it up.