Presentation about history of British brewing (brief) with detailed focus on classical British beer styles - Porter and Bitter.

1. Nova runda Craft Brewery and
UK friendship society
History of British brewing and British
beer styles - Bitter and Porter
Help us with our craft brewery project
on Indiegogo!

2. Brief history of brewing in UK
• 4500 BC – First traces of beer in UK
• 43 AD – Romans like beer!!!!
• 500 AD - Anglo-Saxons came to Great Britain
• 1200 – Polluted water
• 1400 – Brewing with hops in GB
• 1718 – Porter
• 1790 – IPA
• 1839 – “Bitter rail”

3. Beer
• Malt/Slad
• Yeast/kvasac
• Hops/hmelj
• Ale (top fermented), Lager (bottom
fermented) = Beer

4. Brewing

5. Cask ale

6. It was this day a twelvemonth since we left
England, in consequence of which a peice [sic]
of cheshire cheese was taken from a locker
where it had been reservd for this occasion
and a cask of Porter tappd which provd
excellently good, so that we livd like English
men and drank the hea[l]ths of our freinds in
England.
The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks,
August 25 1769

7. First version of Porter
• Need for a hoppy beer in London
• First written mention 1760 – Obadiah
Poundage (English brewer since 1690)
• Entire (4 mashings) – developed 1718
• Butts (longer maturing)
• Very dry brown malt (smoked with wooden
branches - cheaper) – 100% of grist
• Beer, Mild, Stale

8. Size of cacks

9. Myth: Mr. Ralph Harwood
-3 kinds of beverage: ale, beer, twopenny
-three threads
-entire butt
-small brewery, bancrupted 1747

10. Growth of popularity in lower class
-Fellowship porters
-Ticket porters

11. Second version of Porter
• Sir Humphrey Parsons (Red Lions Brewery)
• Huge wooden VATS (better durability, long-term
cost savers, safer???) – first used 1736
• Growth of big London Porter brewers
• 12 London brewers control 42% of London Porter
production
• Maturing for 1 year (Brett infected)
• 1750 - Opening of Porter brewhouses across UK
(1764 first Porter brewery in Dublin)

12. VATS for Porter maturing

13. October 1814 – London Beer Flood
• Henry Meux’s Horse Shoe brewery
• 571 tons VAT
• London “rookeries” (slum) – St. Giles
• “many were killed suffocated in the crush of hundreds
trying to get a free beer”
• “patients already there for illnesses unrelated to the
beer disaster smelled the ale and began a riot, accusing
doctors and nurses of holding out on the beer they
thought was being served elsewhere in the hospital”
• Act of God

14. Horse Shoe Brewery and The Rookery

15. Third version of Porter
• “Stout Porter” phrase emerges
• Invention of saccharometer
• Combining of pale malt and brown malt
• Tax duty – adding substitutes to Beer (Porter)
• Industrial revolution – cheaper production
costs

16. Famous Porters

17. Fourth version of Porter
• 1817 – patent by Daniel Wheeler
• Tax friendly malt 
• Combining pale malt and black malt (difference
between Irish Porter and London Porter)
• Vanishing of “The Porter”
• Common practice of mixing “different” styles of
Porter (fresh/mild, stale/old)
• Open letter of Charles Barclay
• Sales decrease after 1850, fall of London brewers

18. Black and Brown malt

19. Porter’s end ?
• Rise of Burton upon Trent
• The Biggest London brewers switches to ale
• Porter is being made from the same mash
• Stronger version of Porter is called Stout
• 1872 – no more of “Porter only” breweries
• World war 1
• World war 2 – killer of Britain’s beer styles

20. Alfred Barnard, 1889
“Our old Friend porter, with its sombre
hue and foaming head, is no longer
the pet of fashion, but a bright and
sparking bitter, the colour of sherry
and the condition of champagne,
carries off the palm”

21. Impact on other countries
• Ireland
• USA
• Canada
• South Africa
• Australia and New Zealand
• Russia
• India

22. Imperial Stout

23. Style revival

24. Bitter
“I’m getting rather hoarse, I fear,
After so much reciting:
So, if you don’t object, my dear,
We’ll try a glass of bitter beer”
Lewis Carroll, 1869

25. Symbol of UK

26. Thirst for paler and bitter beers
• 1830
• 1842 – first mention
• Decrease of porter sales
• Beer = Porter, Ale = mild
• 4 main styles
• Truman goes to Burton (PA1 and PA2)
• Pale ale = Bitter
• No clips

27. Hand pump clips

28. Thing of prestige
• 1852 – french affair
• Mid and higher classes
• Coke in malsters
• IPA (India Pale Ale)
• Rise of Burton
• “Bitter rail”
• 1860 – Bitter in every brewery
• 1875 – IPA, BA, LBA

29. Bitters today

30. Sources of this presentation
• Beer blogger and writer – Martyn Cornell
• Beer blogger and writer – Ron Pattinson
• Beer blogger and beer somALEair – Melissa
Cole
• Beer blogger and beer writer – Mark Dredge

31. NOVA RUNDA CRAFT BREWERY
Help us with our project on
Indiegogo!