Pubs and Beers

a view from a stranger

C o n t e n t:

photos by the Editor

Introduction

Beside the Royal Family with its history and buildings, Big Ben, the Tower and Tower Bridge and the House of Parliament, visitors to London may look for a red telephone box, the red double-decker bus and the black taxi.1)

All this is fine, but staying in London for a any time (short or long) and not having been in even one traditional Pub is just inconceivable. Especially because British beer is, as a result of climate, temperament, insularity and plain cussedness, different to the superb beverages on the continent. 
While lager now accounts for some four out of every ten pints drunk in Britain, most of English beer, stout, mild, bitter, old ale and barley wine, continues to be brewed in the centuries-old way known as top fermentation.

In Britain, there are 6 big companies, representing over 80% of the whole beer production in Great Britain, beside about 160 (independent) ale brewing breweries and ten per cent of Britain's seventy thousand pubs reside within the boundaries of the country of Greater London.    
To the latest figures Britain is the world's 6th largest producer of beer. Belonging to the consumption it takes the 9th place.

Life in a Pub

Remember:
In a British pub you can't just ask for "a beer", because every pub will have at least one bitter, plus stout and lager on the bar, with a wide range of bottled beers behind it. So go and order a pint or half a pint of your specific beer wish and pay right afterwards. In most pubs food is available, but it should not be compared to restaurant fare. It is not necessarily worse, just different, aimed at people who want a quick meal with a drink.2)

In London real ale is nearly always served by a handpump, a tall lever on the bar with a clip giving the name of each brand.

Since August 1988, pubs can open Monday to Saturday from 11am until 11pm; on Sundays standard hours are 12 noon to 3pm and 7pm to 10.30pm. Some pubs may also have close in the afternoons during the week.

Being below the age of 18, you cannot drink alcohol in a pub. Over 14, you can only order non-alcoholic products.

Children are not allowed in the licensed area except there is a beer garden or a "family room". Any way you better ask the staff for allowence.

Beer is the drink for the pub-goer. Beer drawn from a cask and served by the pint. The pint is derived from an ancient measure used for corn, and pint glasses have to be stamped to indicate the approval of the Weights and Measures Departement. Time has proved that the pint is just the right quantity to tickle the palate for an expectant moment, rush headlong at the thirst, and demand a courteous amount of time for drinking before the next round falls due. People who drink half-pints are apt to grasp the beer-glass awkwardly, with their little finger sticking out. Anyone who adopts this sort of effete mannerism might be expected to be a half-pint person. Beer-drinking is a robust activity, and fancy behaviour is not encouraged.

English beer is an acquired taste, or a series of acquired tastes, like oysters, steak tartare, or marron glac‚. Like sex, it is a pleasure which can better be appreciated with experience, in which variety is both endless and mandatory. The pleasure lies, too, in gaining the experience. Beer tastes best, most fully expresses its flavour, at the temperature at which it was fermented. That is why the rest of the world drinks its beer cool, while the English drink theirs warmer.5)

History of Beer

Ale in Britain has been of basic importance to its people probably from as far back as the Neolithic Period until the beginning of the twentieth century. For the greater part of this period ale and beer were the only liquid refreshments available  to everyone which were really safe to drink. They filled a dietetic gap for the many people who were unable to enjoy the benefits of a regular supply of nourishing food. Good ale and beer, sterilised in the process of brewing, may be contrasted with water which was often contaminated and contributed but little nutritional benefit. The supply of fresh milk taken for granted in Britain today, was by no means available to everyone and in any case was used mainly for the making of butter and cheese. Soft drinks are a product of relatively modern times and were not widely available until long after sugar was imported to Britain following her colonialisation of the West Indies. It was not until the nineteenth century that tea and coffee were available to the majority of people at a price which they could afford.
The amount of time and care devoted by legislators and those in authority down the ages to ensure that ale and beer of good quality were always available and within financial reach of most people is impressive. The only other food commodity to receive the same careful attention was bread.1)

There is conclusive evidence from Egyptian stone reliefs dating from about 5000 B.C. that the process of brewing ale from barley was well-understood. We also know that the cultivation of barley spread slowly northwards across Europe from the Middle East taking about two thousand years to reach the shores of Britain and southern Ireland. Amongst the earliest pictorial records is an ear of cultivated barley imprinted on one side of an early English coin struck in Colchester during the first century B.C. one of the earliest references to actual brewing from grain is to be found in the works of Pliny, Roman author and historian, who was writing in the first century A.D.

He said: The whole world is addicted to drunkenness. The preverted ingenuity of man has given to water the power of intoxicating where wine is not procurable. Western nations intoxicate themselves by means of moistened grain.

Dioscorides, a Greek physician, writing about the same time actually pins brewing down to the British Island.

He wrote: Kourmi, made from barley and often drunk instead of wine produces headaches, is a compound of bad juices and does harm to the muscles. A similar drink is produced in Britain.

These written evidence establihes beyond any doubt that the brewing of ale was very firmly established by the first century A.D.

In 597, Pope Gregory sent Augustinge to England. Shortley after being appointed the first Archbishop of Canterbury he not only converted the South East of Enland to Christianity but also created a number of ecclesiastical laws concerned with the subject of drink.

On gaining the throne of England, William I decided to take stock of his new possessions. This was completed in 1086 in the form of the well-known Domesday Book. Apart from a full account of the land and its population, there are also scattered references to brewers and to tenants whose dues were paid with a rent of ale amongst other items of food. Domesday also throws light upon what happened to a brewer caught making bad ale - malam cerevisiam faciens. In Chester the penalty was punishment by the ducking stool or a fine of four shillings.

During the period of Norman influence wine from France was shipped to England in increasing quantities. However, in 1158, there is an interesting account of English ale which was sent to France. The occasion was when Thomas … Beckett (not yet Archbishop) was sent to France to demand a princess in marriage for Prince Henry.

A contemporary: Two of these chariots were laden solely with iron-bond barrels of ale, decoted from choice fat grain, as a gift to the French who wondered at such an invention - a drink most wholesome, clear of all dregs, rivalling wine in colour and surpassing it in savour.

The revolt in England against the despotic rule of King John culminated in 1215 with the signing of Magna Carta. Although this historc document was primarily concerned with the definition of liberties, ther was included a provision for the standardisation of measures. It required that there should be standard measures for ale, corn and wine - yet another indication of the importance attached to the national beverage.

In 1267, Henry III introduced 'The Assize of Bread and Ale' - an important landmark  - and the means by which the prices of these two vital commodities were to be controlled for the next three hundred years. In practice this enactment required that local authorities should issue a periodic announcement which would fix the price of these two products according to the prevailling price of corn and malt. in 1276 an Assize issued in London ordered that: 'a gallon of ale be sold for three farthings and another for a penny and no dearer.' The point to note here it that the Assize dealt with two varieties of ale and this is the first occasion we know of official recognition being given to two grades of ale.

In the following year, 1277, another Assize ordered that: 'no brewster henceforth sell except by true measures viz. the gallon, the pottle and the quart. And that they be marked by the seal of the Alderman.' This appears to be the earliest record which refers to specific and officially stamped measures. Towards the end of the thirteenth century a new civic post was created and known as the ale taster except in London where he was described as the ale conner. His main task was to assess the quality of ale offered for sale. Without the benefit of measuring instruments this was not an easy task and one which required some skill in addition, no doubt, to a strong head! His task was to visit brewers before the brew was allowed to be released to the consumer. He had to check that it was of the correct quality and matched the price permitted by the Assize.

The ale taster was vested with the authority to downgrade an ale in price if he was of the opinion that it did not represent correct value for money.

The growth of trade in the fifteenth century caused an expansion in business dealings which included overseas markets, particularly Spain, Germany and Flanders. Overseas trade became a two-way business which contributed to one of the great milestones in the evolution of the brewing trade - the introduction of beer to England from Flanders.  
This new beverage contained hops, an ingredient probably quite unknown to English brewers during this period. The first recorded import of beer appears to be in the year 1400 when a consignment was landed at the port of Winchelsea in Sussex. It was apparently for the consumption by Continental traders who were temporarily based in England and who had asked for supplies of their own preferred hopped drink. It is quite apparent that the English consumer also enjoyed the refreshing palate of this new product and as a result it was brewed locally at first and then more widely. This action caused a major problem because the rules of the game by which brewers had always been bound required that als should not be adulterated in any way - it could only be brewed from water, malt and yeast. The controversy was to rage for a hundred years and many local authorities prohibited the use of this pernicious weed, hop. The brewer, for his part, discovered that the introduction of hops to the brewing process lengthened the life of the product. It was, in short, a welcome technical advance. Hops do not appear to have been grown in England until the early part of the sixteenth century. By the end of the fifteenth century the unhopped beverage had almost disappeared. the word ale was reserved for lightly hopped products and beer for those which were more heavily hopped. Today the two descriptions are synonymous.

During the Tudor period in the 16th/17th century the Royals tried to introduce any tax on beer, malt or hops. They all failed until the Parliament itself issued an Ordinance in 1643 imposing a duty rate of two shillings a barrel for strong beer and sixpence a barrel for less strong beer whether it was brewed privately or by brewing victuallers. With this tax they financed the cost of the Civil War. Two years later the income of the Parliamentarians needed a further boost and amongst other measures, it was decided to impose a tax on hops equal to 5 % ot their value. Charles I stated that the same excise duties as those levied by the Parliamentarians upon brewers would be made by the Royalists. Ever since then duty on beer remained.

In the 17th century the chronics talk the first time about bottling beer and they had to admit that beer will keep longer than that in barrels which is caused by its being kept, as it were, in continued motion or fermentation

It is during the latter half of the seventeenth century that we get the first inkling of products which were later to become a threat to the unique position held by beer as the national beverage. It was in 1652 that the first coffee house was opened in London and in 1657 we find that chocoalte, as a beverage, was being advertised. Mum was another beverage, probably a strong beer brewed fron wheat. A recipe of 1682 describes the ingredients of mum of comprise wheat malt with smaller and equal quantities of oat malt an ground beans. During fermentation a long list of herbs were added and a small quantity of bayberries. The instruction to the brewer required that the cask should be stored for two years before tapping and that a sea voyage would greatly improve it!

It was in about 1720 that the brewers of London introduced a new product known as porter which was to dominate the drink trade for a hundred years and was produced by brewers on a massive scale. Porter was very dark in colour, heavily hopped and had a high alcoholic content. As it required long maturation - sometimes as long as a year - the practise was to store it in large vessels rather than tying up an enormous number of small casks. Common brewers in London competed wiht each other for the prestige of possessing the largest vessels for the storage of porter and one vessel, at least, was constructed wiht a capacity of 20'000 barrels. A barrel, incidentally, was a standard measure of thirty-six gallons.

Against the background of increasing industrial activity and a rising population some of the more forward-looking brewers raised the capital to build large breweries in order to take advantage of growing demand. They also installed the newly steam engines developped by James Watt. 

--> A History of English Ale and Beer by H.A. Monckton

Iron Age Celts in Britain drank a kind of ale called 'curmi'. That first rough and ready ale could have been made by acciden: corn, wheat or barley grains were crushed and made into a dough for bread, the dough was left to stand while wet and it fermented spontaneously with wild yeasts in the air. The origins of beer in Egypt and Mesopotamia are better documented. If that seems an unlikely region to give birth to beer, considering both its current climate and strong cultural and religious antipathy to alcohol, it must be remembered that North Africa and the Middle East in the third millenium BC, between 3000 and 2000 years BC, were quite different climatically and culturally. The world was warmer and it rained more. Cereals were grown and cultivated for food from about 6000 BC and the ability at malt those cereals and ferment them into alcohol was widespread in Mesopotamia by 3000 BC. Barley was the most popular grain and nearly half of all cereal production was devoted to brewing.

As the Egyptians and Babylonians showed by the technical expertise they brought to brewing, beer making is a far more demanding skill than wine making.

The starches in the barley have first to be converted by malting into a solude fermentable material. While the first beer was almost certainly brewed by accident, its pleasures were quickly appreciated and brewers became recognised craftsmen, distinct from bakers. The Ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for a brewer was 'fty' and showed a man straining a cereal mash into a pot through a type of sieve. In Mesopotamia the tradtition was to drink beer through straws from a communal pot to stop the husks of the malted barley getting into the drinkers' mouth. The Babylonians clearly did not strain their mash as the Egyptians did, but they were more advanced in other ways. They heated their malts at different temperatures to produce light and dark drinks, rather as modern brewers kiln their malts for shorter or longer periods depending on whether they are producing lager, bitter, mild or stout.

The Egyptians drank their beer as soon as fermentation was complete. The better-off were prepared to pay more for mature zythum, as the fermented drink was called. It was kept in sealed pots until it was clear and more ptable. The Pharaoh Ramses gave 10'000 hectolitres of zythum to the temple priests every day. This flourishing business was stamped out when the Arabs conquered the land in the 8th century AD. They arrived sword in one hand and Koran in the other and ruled that the sale and consumption of alcohol was a sin.

Barley and other cereals reached Northern Europe with the sea-going Phoenicians. As the world's climate changed, a boundary was drawn across Europe, dividing the grape from the grain. In the Mediterranean lands, wine was the staple drink, while the tribes of the north in Germany, Britain and Scandinavia, largely deprived of hot sun and wines, brewed from cereals. In 21 AD Strabo recorded seeing 'wooden pithoi' (vats) in Northern Europe. 'The Celts are fine coopers,' he wrote, 'for their casks are lager than houses.'

Ale no doubt did vaste vile to the refined tastes of a Roman emperor. But it a was vital element in the diet of the peoples of Britain and all of Northern Europe and Scandinavia. These were harsh times and the diet of the average inhabitant of the British Isles must have been appalling. Typhoid and cholera abounded. Water was foul and polluted and was safe to drink only when boiled and made sterile during the process of brewing. Bread and beer, both rich in vitamin B, were crucial parts of the early  British diet and helped keep at bay some of the more scrofulous diseases. Beer was drunk by men, momen and children. When the first strong brew was finished, the grains would be mashed again to produce a weaker 'small' beer. Small beer survived for centuries. It was used for everyday drinking and was enjoyed at breakfast by all members of the family.

'Beer' and 'ale' may be synonymous today but their roots are different. Historically ale was a strong, sweetish brew, while beer was a lighter drink made bitter by the use of hops. Hops did not reach Britain until the 15th century. Like the Ancient Egyptians, brewers in Britain used plants to take the sweetness off their ale. The plants included bog myrtle, rosemary and yarrow. The Germans added a mixture of plants known as 'gruit' to their ales, a habit that may have influenced the early distilleries of gin in the Low Countries.

When the Romans left Britain, taking their wine casks and viniculture withe them, the Danes and Saxons came roistering after them. They brought an enormous appetite for '”l'. '™l' or 'ealu' became the national drink. The Anglo-Saxon religion was heavy with ale drinking. Ale or malt were used to pay fines, toll, rents and debts. All brewing was done in the home and it was the responsibility of the woman or 'ale wife' to ensure that the men were well supplied. Alreck, King of Hordoland, choose Geirhild to be his queen because she brewed good ale. From this period come the expression wassail (a boozy celebration) and the habit of marking drinking goblets with pegs to see who could drink the most ale (hence, 'taking a man down a peg or two'). Another Saxon word for ale was 'woet', which survives to this day in the brewing industry as 'wort'. It is the name given to the sweet liquid produced by mixing the malt grist with hot water berfore fermentation.

When a new brew was ready, the ale wife or her husband would place a pole above the door and tie a branch or part of a bush to it. The ale house had arrived. The Domesday Book records 43 'cerevisiarii' (brewers) and shows that the quality of ale was taken sufficiently seriously to impose fines on those who did not brew to an acceptable standard. In Chester, for example, brewers of inferior ales were ducked in the pound or fined four shillings for making bad ale - 'malam cerevisiam faciens'.

The support for ale from a leading member of the priesthood marks another major departure in the history of brewing in Britain. The church not only attempted to regulate drinkin but also to corner the market in its production. Monasteries offerd accomodation to travellers and set up their own brewhouses to supply them with ale. Ecbright, Archbishop of York, instructed his bishops and priests in the 8th century to provide their own hospices for pilgrims and travellers and to supply them with home-produced ale and food. The normal ration of beer, approved by the bishop, in a monastery was a gallon a day of small beer for each monk. Ninth-century documents show that monasteries and their breweries reflected the growin gstratification of society. The monks brewed the strongest and finest ale, 'prima melior', for distinguished visitors, a second brew, 'secunda', for lay brothers and employees, and a weak 'tertia' for the hordes of pilgrims in search of bed and sustenance. 

Types of beer

Ale   A type of beer fermented with top-fermentation ale yeast, "Saccharomyces cerevisiae". In Anglo-Saxon times, the words 'boer' (beer) and 'ealu' (ale). Divergence in meaning occured in the late 16th century, when 'ale' came to imply an alcoholic drink made from malt without hops, and 'beer' implied the hopped average. This distinction is still implicit incurrent phrases such as 'mild ale' (not 'mild beer') but 'ale' does not now imply that the drink is unhopped.1)

Real Ale:      A name for draught (or bottled) beer brewed from traditional ingredients; matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide.1)

      Its natural carbonation meant that the beer could be drawn to the bar by a simple handpump, electric pump  or an air pressure pump, arriving there with its own gentle effervescence: And it is comfortably cool and refreshing, full of rich flavour.2)

      Real ale continuous to ferment and mature in the cask when it leaves the brewery. Either in the conditionary tanks or in the cask, finings, made from the swim bladders of fish, are added to drag the yeast slowly to the bottom of the beer to leave it clear. Extra priming sugar is often added to encourage a strong secondary fermentation. Some brewers add dry hops to the cask to improve the aroma of the beer.3)

Keg beer      Pasteurised, chilled and filterd beer at the brewery to make them easy to manage and transport, and the chilled once more at the pub to annual their stale metallic flavour, at the same time injected with a surfeit of gas to give them some life.

      Pressurised brewery-conditioned or precessed beer, usually pasteurised
Keg beer was first developed by Watney's in the 1930s for export and sale in clubs or hotels, which could not handle cask.1)

Light Ale      A low gravity (hence light in body, not necessarily light in colour) bottled ale, usually of less strength than 'ordinary' bitter, though higher condition and lower hoppiness. A Scottish "light" or 60/- ale is normally a dark-coloured draught beer of about 1030-1035 OG, not unlike an English mild.

Lager Beer fermented with the 'bottom-fermentation' yeast Saccharomyces uvarum (formerly S. carlsbergensis). Production of Lager differs from ale in several other respects: lower modified malts are used in the dection rather than the finfusion mash system; the liquor generally soft and low in mineral salts; continental, seedless, low alpha acid hops are used (eg Saaz or Hallertau); primery fermentation is at a lower temperature than for ale, and secondary fermentation in closed conditioning tanks takes place at around 0 §C for a lenghty perio, often exceeding four weeks. Few British-brewed Lagers conform to European practices, despite their European names. They are of lower gravity than their European equivalents. European Lagers are often not pasteurised of filtered, but merely racked bright off the dormant yeast at the end of fermentation, and are then dispensed from the cask under the pressure generated by their natural conditioning. British Lagers are normally filterd, pasteurised, recarbonated, and dispensed under CO2.pressure from kegs via flash coolers. Because it is normally served a low temperatures (around 46 §F), Lager needs to be higher gravity and body to have any flavour; weak British Lagers tend to be low in gravity, body, and flavour.

No-alcohol Beer

Low-alcoholic Beer

'Winter Warmer'

Stout One of the classic types of ale, a successor in fashion to 'porter'. Usually a very dark, heavy, wellhopped bitter ale, with a dry palate, thick creamy head, and good grainy taste contributed by a proportion of dark roasted barley in the mash. Guinness it the best-known bitter 'extra stout', of 1042 OG. The earliest uses of the word 'stout' indicate that it was applied to beers which were 'stout' in terms of strength; later, the word came to be associated with the idea of 'stout' in body, and was hence applied to the dark, full-bodied beer which was stronger and hoppier than porter. Ordinary stout in Ireland was comparable to 'plain porter'.

      Russion stout: Remarkable, powerful bottle-conditioned stout, reputedly made popular by Empress Catherine the Great, and originally produced by London brewers for export to the Baltic. Courage still produce an occasional batch of this 1100 beer which is matured for over a year in the brewery. The nip-size bottles are year-dated and will keep for many years.

Alt   German beer style

Draught      A general term for any drink that is dispensed from a bulk container into smaller measures for sale, i.e. as served over the bar from a tap in a pub. Thus Draught Beer can be either cask-conditioned or brewery-conditioned.

Bottle-conditioned: A bottled beer in which a secondary fermentation takes place in the bottle. Such beers have a sediment and must be stored and served with care. Nationally known examples are Guinness and White Shield Worthington.

Bitter      A generic term for highly hopped ales, ranging from 1030 to around 1055 OG; ...    
There are two types of Bitter: ordinary and best or special which are stronger

Bitter Ale      Popular name for low-grawity bitters, particularly in the southwest ons South Wales, such as Courage's cask Bitter Ale (1030) from Bristol.

Beer  The generic term for a non-distilled alcoholic drink produced by fermentation of a wort derived from mashed grain

Porter:      A dark, slightly sweetish but hoppy ale made with roasted barley; the sucessor of 'entire' and predecessor of stout. Porter originated in London around 1730, and by the end of the 18th century was probably the most popular beer in England. It was usually matured in vast vats, and in 1814, when a porter vat at Meux's London brewery in Tottenham Court Road burst ....

The beer market

- imported beer

Gravity      - A method of serving beer direct from a cask behind the bar  
- A measure of the density of beer 
- Original Gravity: The British brewing industry's method of expressing the strength of beer. Pure water is defined as a gravity of 1000. Wort that is ready to start fermentation is denser than water, owing to the dissolved sugars. This density is measured by the Customs Officer to assess the Excise Duty. Most bitter beers have 'OG's' in the range 1035 to 1045, ie about 4% more dense than water. Fermentation converts the sugars inot alcohol, reducing the density of the liquid; at the end of the fermentation period the beer reaches the Final Gravity. Final Gravities are normally in the region 1008 - 1015. The higher the figure, the sweeter the beer.

The following types of beer are based on those set out in the Report on th Supply of Beer by the Monopolies Commission in 1969, but updated to take account of the types of beer (however fermented), conditioned or packaged) that are now customary in the UK.

Light, Pale or Bitter Ale  
Pale ales are made of the highest quality malt and are the driest and most hopped of the beers. They are sometimes referred to as Seventy Shilling Ales or Scotch Ale. They vary in strength. The now nearly obsolete term India Pale Ale was a name given to a fine pale ale made for export to India.The term 'light' refers to alcoholic strength, not colour. So we find light ales and family ales at the cheaper end of the prize range. Pale ales are often only lightly hopped and slightly sweet.

Export or Premium Ale
These are sometimes referred to as Eighty Shilling Ales of Heavy Ales. These are pale ales, but all brewers have at least one 'premium' ales: clearer than their lieght ales and heavier alcoholically.

Mild Ales      Mild ales are the old X or XX of the public bar. The monks used to mark X to denote the quality. This practice was later followed by Excise Officers to show that a cask had been examined and graded for duty. Nowadays it is used by th brewer as a mark to identify the variety of the beer cask; the more X's the greater the strength.              

      'Mild' refers to alcohilic strength, and it may be either dark or light in colour. Most mild ale is dark in colour, but should none the less be crystal clear and not muddy lokking. Its dark colour is derived from a dark malt. Primings are usually added to the cask, which not only promots a secondary fermentation to give life to the beer, but olaso gives it the sweet palate demanded by drinkers of this beer. 
In recent and more affluent times the sale of mild has dropped in favour of bitter, although it is very popular in some areas as part of a mixed-beer drink. An interesting development by some brewers is the progress being made with light-coloured mild, often drunk on its own. They are sometimes referred to as Sixty Shilling Ales.

Brown Ales      These are usually bottled mild ales, which have been filtered and carbonated.

Strong Ales      Also sometimes known as Ninety Shilling Ales, these include all the barely wines and other very heavy, usually dark, and well-matured ales.4)

Bitter Stout and Porter 
These stouts are brewed from highly dried, full-flavoured malts. The addtionof a high proportion of raosted malts give them a dark colour and characteristic flavour. They are among the stronger beers and also have a high hop rate.

Sweet Stout      These are smooth, sweet and creamy stouts, some of which used to be called 'milk stout' until this was legally forbidden as a false description.

Lager Lager is a relatively recent type of mass-produced beer, prompted by scientific work i n the mid-19th century on yeasts and refrigeration. Lager has been brewed in the UK for almost 100 years, but it is only quite recently that it has gained appreciably in popularity. The enormous spread of lager brewing in Europe, longely replacing ale-brewing, has not, however been repeated here. In Germany there is a resurgence of ale, as something 'different'. For example, altbier is gaining in popularity. It is brewed in the same way as ale and its name literally means 'old beer' because it is beer brewed by the old process. The Munich-style Bavarian lages were originally dark in colour, but these, in common with other lagers, are now mostly easily distinguished by their pale colour. The other two main styles of lager are Pilsener and Dortmunder.
Pilsener refers to a style which origianted in Pilsen, a town in Bohemia. (Another famous Czechoslovakian town is Cesk‚ Bud‚jovice or Budweis in German). The original Budvar Budweiser beer has nothing to do with the American Budweiser, which name the Czechs believe to have been 'stolen' from them. Its well as being pale, Lagers have a distinctive, if not very full, flavour which is different from that of ales and is best appreciated if the beer is served cold.  

      The previse reason for this is still not clearly understood, but it is probably due to a combination of flavours involving basic raw materials, particularly the malt and yeast. Recent experience has shown that both lager and ale can be produced equally well in similar plant but the process still differ in some important aspects.   
Ideally a much softer water is required to produce lager and the malt differs in certain important respects from English ale malt

History of the Pub

Of the 75'000 fully licensed pubs in Britain today many owe their origin to the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries, and some to the seventeenth century. Only a few can genuinely claim earlier decent but none can go back more than a comparatively short way towards the earliest wooden wayside alehouses of the Anglo-Saxon period.

Throughout history the design of pubs and their standards of comfort and service habe been gradually improving as the requirements of the society they serve have become progressively more demanding.

For most of recorded time the pub has been a rough and ready institution as judged by twentieth century standards. But generally speaking relaxation and good companionship habe been the hallmarks of its evolutionary progress.

Types of Pubs

Finding a pub is easy. Their outside view is a point of attraction and a feast for the eyes with all the flowers and the lightnings.

A pub can be a thatched cottage, a blach-and-white timbered Tudor inn, a spectacular Victorian gin-palace, or an unassuming local.1)

The pub of today has evolved over many centuries, from the Saxon alehouse, the medieval tavern and inn, to the Victorian concept of the "public house".    
Do not expect to find history in every pub. In London, there are few old Elizabethan inns like the George of Southwark still surviving. Most inns of that period were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.2)

Pub   a tied house:      it is owned directly by the brewery and may sell only that brewery's products (guest beers from other companies are sometimes allowed)

            As long ago as 1319 James Beaufleur was granted the lease of a tavern in Southwark known as the 'Bear' by one Thames Drinkwater. Beaufleur promised to buy all his wines from his landlord and so the 'Bear' became one of the earliest known tied houses and it stood until London bridge was widened in the middle of the last century.3)

      a free house:      it is run by someone independent of the brewery groups and serves a wide range of beer

      A number of free houses are actually owned by subsidiaries of large breweries, but they do offer a wider range than a normal tied pub.4)

      Types of Pubs:

      - haunted riverside pubs with a grisly past
      - literary pubs
      - theatrical pubs
      - sporting pubs
      - pubs with real ale bias
      - pubs which go for food in a big way
      - entertainment pubs

      - serious-traditional pub
      - circuit pub
      - family pub
      - estate pub
      - student pub
      - yuppie pub

Inn:      Traditionally a licensed hostelry catering for travellers or wayfarers.

Brasseries:      offering food, coffee and soft drinks during those hours, when alcohol is off limits.

Wine bar:      older British counterpart to the Brasserie

Bar

Tavern:      A hostelry traditionally catering for local customs; as opposed to Inn.

Arms

public houses      open at all, regardless of age, class or income

ale houses

Act 1552/1553 to licence Ale Houses, Inns, and Taverns:   
- An Ale House was licensed to sell just beer or ale
- An Inn provided food and accomodation as well as
- the Tavern, a superior institution, was able to sell
  wine and spirits.1)

Signs

->  Inns and their Signs by Eric Delderfield, 1976

80 per cent of the UK's regular pub-goers believe that a real coal fire is an important part of the great British pub.     
70 per cent of regular pub-goers agree that a real coal fire is preferable to any other focal point in a traditional pub.

Games

Gaming may be devided into two classes: 

1     Game of pure skill, such as billards, bowls, chess, draughts, quoits, skittles, shove-ha'penny, snooker, and snap and (darts)

2     Game of chance  
- Games partly of skill and partly of chance, such as   
  dominoes, bridge, whist and cribbage   
- Games of pure chance, such as roulette and bingo, in  
  which the player has no opportunity of affecting the  
  outcome by the exercise of his skill or judgement.

Gaming machines   
A gaming machine in a machine constructed or adapted for playing a game of chance by means of the machine and which has an apertune for the insertion of money or money's worth (tokens). Such machines may not, generally speaking, be sited in a room to which the public has acces. Therefore 'jackpot' or 'fruit' machines or 'one-armed bandits' may not be sited in a bar.

Amusements machines   
Where a successfull player can get no more from a machine than a return of his stake or a further free 'go', the machine is an amusement (not gaming) machine.1)

Darts

Snooker

Pool

Cards

Horse nights (racing - betting)

 ->  Pub Games of England by Timothy Finn, 1975

Guided walks in London

The range of this walks goe from historic over literary and social to pub walks.

All of them are very interesting if you want to know more avout the history of London, the hidden and unknown London. There are places you never would see on your stay in London or on a sightseeing tour. Even Londoners dodn't know all these places and their history.

But in what we are interested in are the Pub Walks.

Don't expect a pub crawl where you jump from one pub to the other. Pub walks contain substantial information about the specific area, its history, its people, its architecture. Usually you visit about 3 pubs on one tour. Most of them are in their way special or typical.

Below you find some listed tour and the contacts.

The Fleet Street Pub Walk 
This walk starts at Blackfriars Underground Station with a visual feast at a pub designed in the Art Nouveau Style. Then continues on to a traditional pub built by Christopher Wren, the great architect, for his workmen whilst they rebuilt the City after the Great Fire of 1666. Finally your guide will lead you into a picturesque courtyard where lies a pub so hidden that only the fortunate few are able to enjoy the charms of its Elizabethan interior and tradtional atmosphere.

Along the Thames Pub Walk 
This walk starts again at Blackfriars Underground Station and is the one to go on. It takes in London's last remaining galleried coaching inn, its best riverside walkwy, its oldest market, the finest art nouveau pub in England, the newly discovered remains of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (and its sister playhouse, The Rose), the church where Harvard University's founder was baptised, the last three-masted schooner to ply the high sea, and an 18th-century pub that brews its own beer - plus lashings of Shakespeare, a jot of Dickens, lots of pub lore, and London's best skyline panorama.

A Hampstead Pub Walk / Hampstead  
These walks start at Hampstead Underground Station - one in the Evening, the other in the morning/lunchtime. Leafy Hampstead is London's most picturesque neighbourhood. Among its glories are the capital's most elegant promenade and cobble-stoned lanes; a cast of characters ranging from pump room rowdies to the painter Constable, from highwayman Tick Turpin to the poet Keats, and from Freud to gender-bender pop star Boy George. For good measure, there's Hamstead Heath - London's best loved park - and superb pubs where you really can meet the locals.
While not a pub walk, as such, the second tour ends at a pub which serves delicious Sunday lunches.

A Chelsea Pub Walk   
The village of Palace has it all - trendy Sloane Rangers and scarlet coated Chelsea Pensioners - Oscar Wilde's Tower of Ivory and James Bond's 'pad' - Christopher Wren's Royal Hospital and J. Paul Getty's stately mansion - Mick Jagger's house and an ancient Physic Garden that changed the course American History. It takes it all in, punctuated with visits to three delightful inns, including the most traditional pub in London and a centuires-old riverside tavern.

There are several companies but also independent guides who organise walks through London.

Look for booklets at the Tourist Information Offices.

City Walks
City Walks, Historic & Theatrical Walks, 147c Offord Road, London N1 1LR, tel 207 / 700 6931

The original London Walks
PO Box 1708, London NW6 1PQ, tel 207 / 624 3978

Historical Walks of London
John Muffty B.A. (Hons.), Historical Tours, 3 Florence Road, South Croydon  CR2 0PQ, tel 081/760 9664

Guided Walks of London
Streets of London, 16 the Grove, London N3 1QL
tel 081/346 9255

These Walks are nowhere listed in Magazines or Advertisments. And there isn't a fixed program - it changes or takes its way among desires of the audience. These also are the most unique 'Pub Walks' and start every Friday at Temple Underground Station at 7.30 pm.   
Historic Pub Walks
Peter Westbrook, 3 Springfield Avenue, London N10 3SU  
tel 081/883 2656

The East End Tourism Trust
Judy Goldsmith, tel 207 / 377 8795

recommended pubs by the editor

All recommended pubs have been visited by the editor and I think they all are special.

As you see, not only in London you may find good and interesting pubs but also throughout the whole country.

Pubs of London are listed with Underground and British Rail stations.

->  see File: PUB.DOC

breweries / PUB CHAINS

->  see File: BREWERY.DOC

museums / visiting breweries

Visitors to the Heritage Brewery Museum, which opened its doors to the public in 1989, not only discover a typical Victorian brewery, complete with steam engine, but can also 'see, suift and sample' the magic art of brewing, whith free glass of beer poured in for those over 18.
........

Specialities

DAB   The largest German brewery.

Danish Light

Decotion

Dortmund

Donnington

Drink-up time

Birell

Black and Tan

Black Velvet      Stout and champagne. The poor man's version is stout and cider.

Blitz-Weinhard

Bock

Boure House

bottle-conditioned

Bottom Fermentation

Brau AG

Braye

Bar

Bass      Britain's biggest brewers, based in Burton, now controlling 20% of the industry. Merged with Burton rivals Worthington, in 1927; with Midland rivals Mitchell & Butlers in 1961; and with Charrington in 1967. Run 13 Breweries in Burton, Brimingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Rurann(?), Alton, Sheffield (2), Tadcaster, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Belfast, and 7500 pubs. Also have major stakes in Higsons, Castletown, and Maclays.
...

Beck  The largest exporter of German beer

Beermat

Beer Garden

Belhaven      Scotland's oldest and most colourful independent brewery.  ....

Yuengling of Pennsylvania
The USA's oldest brewers.

Prince's Ale      One of Britain's strongest beers (1100) from St Austell, Cornwall, originally bottled to celebrate Prince Charles's 21st birthday. Reputedly inflamable !

Prize Old Ale      Britain's only naturally-conditioned beer sold in a corked bottle. Gales of Hondean(?), Hampshire, mature this powerful, rich ale (1095) for many months before bottling in conventional nip-size bottles or by hand in splendid half-pint corkers.

Augustiner      The oldest brewery in Munich, noted for its adjoining beer garden. .....

Abt   The strongest Belgian ale (12 per cent alcohol) produced in the Trappiest style by the abbey of St Sixtus at Westvleteren.

Anchor Steam      This small San Francisco company is the only brewery in the world producing two classics, Anchor Steam beer and porter

Anheuser-Busch

Brewers' Droop

Brewery Tap

Brewster

Budvar

Budweiser

Burt

Burton-upon-Trent

Cantillon

Cask condition

Carlsberg

Clausthaler

Coors

Coopers

Russian Stout

Eisbock

EKU

Thomas Hardy Ale

Entire

Ex-Beer 

CAMRA

(Campaign for Real Ale) 
It is located in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, where it runs an office.

This organisation was founded in 1971 by a group of drinkers in the North-West. It's original name was Campaign for the Revitalisation of Ale. That was at a time when the brewing giants took over small breweries or merged with others. The concentration on the beermarket grew and the 'Big Six' controlled, together with Guinness, over 80 % of the beer brewed in Britain.

This domination, the declining quality of the beer and its overpricing was the reason/incidential event for the foundation of CAMRA.

At the moment there are approx. 25'000 members.

Its main aims are:

- To protect the interests of all those who wish to drink real beer  

- To campaign for an improvement in the quality and variety of British beer      

- To improve the standards of food, drink, service, hygiene and facilities in all establishments, subject to the provisions of the Licensing Act 1963 or any subsequent similar legislation  

- To publish or sponsor the publication in any kind, to market them and dissemination of information  

CAMRA publishes What's Brewing, a monthly newspaper, what every member gets. It also publishes every year Britain's leading beer guide: Good Beer Guide, listing around 5'000 pubs that sell the finest real ale.

CAMRA presents annual Pub Design Awards to comment good new pubs and refurbishments, and to encourage higer standards. To get an award a good pub is one that people use and enjoy. It may be of historic interest, of great architectual merit or magnificant in its decoration.

Appendix

Act's

Licensing Act's

Pub names and signs

Guest beer

Pubs for families

May 2nd 1987: new Bill 
Pubs and other licensed establishments are allowed to dispense alcohol throughout the afternoon on condition that it is served to accompany a meal. A meal is defined as something which must be enter with a knife and fork - a toasted sandwich or cheese roll will not do

Keg   A container for brewery-conditioned beer

Cask-condition      The quintessence of Real Ale.
The beer put into cask must contain enough yeast for a slow secondary fermenation to take place. This fermentation produces the subtle matured flowers that distinguishes Real Ale from dead 'keg' beers.

      CAMRA dictionnary of beer

Cask  The general name for the containers used for traditional draught beer.

Gallon      The basis of the imperial system of liquid measure, a gallon is the volume of 10 lbs of distilled water. A gallon is eight pints, the metric equivalent is 4.54 litres. The US gallon is four-fifths of the British one.

Piggin      A two-gallon cask. Rarely used today

Pin   A 4«-gallon cask. Now uncommon, owing to the expense of breweries handling such samll quantities.

Firkin      A 9-gallon cask. Also the common name of a chain of home-brew pubs in London, eg. Goose & Firkin.

Anker A ten-gallon cask. Very rare, although ten gallons is a common size for kegs.

Kilderkin      An 18-gallon cask, known as a 'kil' or a 'kiln'.

Barrel      A 36-gallon cask. Not a general name for any other size; the general term is cask.

Hogshead      A 54-gallon cask, now fairly uncommon although some northern brewers still use them. A full wooden hogshead weighs more than a third of a ton!

Beer Towels

London


CAMRA - Real Ale

Arkell's Brewery - Est. 1843

Bass - Bass ale on draught

Belhaven Beers

Border - The Prince of Ales

Burtonwood Beers

Cains - Bitter

Carling - Black Label

Double Maxim

Everyards - Old Original

Jones Forshaws Bitter

Foster's

Holstein - Pils

Hook Norton - Traditional Ales

Jennings - Bitter

Kaliber - Alcohol free lager

Lorimer's - Best Scotch

Marston's - Burton Best Bitter

McEwan's Export - Quality & Strength

McMullen - Original AK

Miller - Pilsner

Old Mill Brewery

Ridleys - IPA Bitter

Robinson's - Best Bitter

Zürich


Stella Artos

Carlsberg Export - classic strong lager

Stones - best Bitter

Whitbread - best Bitter

Tennent's - Pilsner

John Bull - Bitter

Abbot Ale - there's no better name

Flowers - best Bitter

John Jameson & Son - Irish Whiskey

Carling - Black Label Lager

Newquay - Steam beer

Webster's - Yorkshire Bitter

Canada Dry - Put your drink on the map

Flowers - IPA

Carlsberg - Dansk LA

Diamond - White

Heineken

Blackthorn - dry

John Smith's - Yorkshire Bitter

Samuel Smith - Independent Brewery
 (small + large)

Toby - Bitter

Vaux low alcohol Bitter - Maxim Light

Vaux - Samson, Special Premium Bitter

Wadworth - Henry's Original
           /Farmers Glory

Wadworth - 6X

Wards - Shefflied Best Bitter

William Younger - est 1749

Youngs

Glenfiddich - Pure Malt

Teacher's - Highland Cream

Beer Mat

Woddforde's - Fine Norfolk Ales

Holden's - Original Black Country Ales (with pubs on the back)

Titanic Brewery - Premium Bitter / Lifeboat (on the back)

Carlsberg - Dansk LA (from Vaux)

Lorimer's - Best Scotch (from Vaux)

Vaux - Double Maxim

Tuborg - Lager (from Vaux)

Vaux - Samson

Carlsberg - Special Brew (from Vaux)

Carlsberg - Export Lager (from Vaux)

Carlsberg - Lager (from Vaux)

Wards - Sheffield Best Bitter

Vaux - Maxim Light

Vaux - Pale Ale

Vaux - Samson, Special Premium Bitter

Labbat's - Canadian Lager (from Vaux)

Palmers - IPA (with History on the back)

Boddingtons Bitter

Everards - Tiger

Everards - Beacon Bitter (back different)

Everards - Old Original (with History on the back)

Arkell's Brewery (spring)

Arkell's Brewery (summer)

Arkell's Brewery (autumn)

Arkell's Brewery (winter)

Borders

Eldridge Pope - EP (with specification on the back)

Eldridge Pope - Dorchester Bitter (with specification on the back)

Eldridge Pope - Crystal LA (with specification on the back)

Eldridge Pope ? - Faust Lager (with specification on the back)

Eldridge Pope - Royal Oak (with specification on the back)

Eldridge Pope - Thomas Hardy Country Bitter
                (with specification on the back)

Eldridge Pope - Thomas Hardy's Ale (with specifications)

Bathams - Genuine Ales (with pubs on the back)

San Miguel - Premium Lager

Flowers - Fine Ales

Newquay Steam Beer

The Beer Engine (with explanation on the back)

Books / Leaflets

CAMRA Handbook

The Story of the British Pup - H.A. Monckton, 1989

London Drinker - frequently published booklet in London

Brewing and Breweries - Maurice Lovett, 1981

What's Brewing - monthly Newspaper of CAMRA

The Brewing Industry, a special report - The Brewer's Society, 1989

Where have all the Breweries gone ? - Norman Barber, Brewery History Society, after 1980

CAMRA Dicionary of Beer - Longman, 1985

Nicholson's Guide to real ales

London Pub Guide - Nicholson, 1987

Good Beer Guide 1992 - CAMRA, 1992

The Story of British Beer - H.A. Monckton, 1983

The Story of the Publican Brewer - H.A. Monckton, 1984

The Story of the Brewer's House - F.J. Monckton, 1984

The best Pubs in London, a CAMRA Guide - Roger Protz, 1989

English Pub, a unique social phenomenon - Michael Jackson, 1989

English Breweries, in old Photographs - Ian P. Peaty, 1988

In and around London, a History of Young's Pubs - Helen Osborn, 1991

Feldschlösschen, Geschäftsbericht 1990/91

The World Guide to Beer - M. Jackson, 1977

Innkeeping - A manual licensed victuallers - J.G. Miles, 1991

Charles McMaster of the Scottish Brewing Archive at Heriot-Watt Univeristy in Edingburgh

Frank Baillie's  The Beer Drinker's Companion
a head-scratching briefing for American serviceman stationed in England during the war.

Written      Answer
      Letter      Leaflets    Types      General      Beermats      Visit..
            History                 Beertowels

Everyards, Leicester         x      x      Good Pub   M + T
                        Guide

Big End Brewery, Harrogate                     Answer

George Gale, Horndean      x      x      x      'Passport'        x

Guernsey Brewery      x      x      x                 x

Bank's & Hanson's,      x      x
Wolverhampton

Arkell's Kingsdown      x      x      x      Good Pub   M + T
                        Guide

Burtonwood, Warrington      x           x                 T

Bathams, Birkley Hilll                   Answer            M

Eldridge Pope, Dorchester      x           x           M      x

Bunces, Netheravon        x      x      Answer                  x

Adnams, Southwold      x      x      x

Ash wine Frome       x      x                       x

Aston Manor, Birmingham        x      x

Greene King       x      x      Annual
                        Report

1)    The best Pubs in London, P 8

2)    The best Pubs in London, P 15/16

5)    The English Pub, P 48 ff

1)    The Story of British Beer, P 4

1)    CAMRA dictionary of Beer

2)    Good Beer Guide 1992, P 3

3)    CAMRA Handbook, P 13

4)      Innkeeping, P 22 ff

1)    The English Pub

2)    The best Pubs in London, P 7

3)      Innkeeping, P 6

4)    The best Pubs in London, P 15

1)    The great British Beerbook, P 24

1)      Innkeeping, P 204ff