indescribable something we used to fondly term
"the strawberry flavour," was composed ol
ginger, grains of paradise, orange-peel, long
pepper, opium, hartshorn shavings, marble
dust, egg-shells, and oyster-shells (to check
acidity), sub-carbonate of soda, magnesia, and
potassa. Such was the liquor prepared for
us, and called in brewers' advertisements,
healthy, bright, exhilarating ale, gently
stimulating the digestive organs of the dyspeptic and
gratefully nourishing the strength of the
robust."

Porter was invented in the year 1731, by a
London brewer, named Harwood, who combined
the flavours of "half-and-half," or "three
threads," as it was then called, in a beverage
which he was pleased to call " entire butt."
The new combination took, in the city, among
the "porters," and from its new patrons it
obtained its name. Those brawny men with
knots, all day resting their broad backs
against the church walls, or on the tramp
between Lombard-street and the Docks,
patronised the brown refreshing drink, and found
it gave them fresh heart to endure the curse of
Cain. The demagogues of the crowd, the hard
hitters from the shoulder, led the rabble to the
same brown fountain; they too drank, were
cheered, and smiled a gracious approval. The
fan-tailed hats and wearers of obscure white
stockings who took an interest in coals and the
Newcastle trade on the shore of the Thames,
very soon gave in their vote also, and a plumper
was for the same black-brown liquid, so gently
acid, so harmless, so invigorating.

But there are still vexatious antiquarians who
declare that the honest liquor (honest at least
in its youth) never derived its name from the
brawny porters of London, but, on the contrary,
derived it from Harwood's practice of having
his new beverage portered or carried round to
his customers' areas, in shining pewter pots
in long covered racks; his pot-boys shouting
"porter," to announce their auspicious
arrival, as they rat-tat-tatted at the door.
More than a century this brown, mantling
liquor—thin, slightly watery, but pleasant
and heartening—has gone frothing up in
the pewter pots of London; and may it go
frothing up for ever! Good porter should
have fulness, potency, and flavour; it should
not be thin and vinous, like good ale; for it is
of humbler origin, has no blue blood in its
veins, and is only a sort of cousin-german of
that fat, merry, laughing knight, old Sir John
Barleycorn. Good porter should be made from
black-scorched malt, made from good sound
barley, of a uniform chocolate colour. The burnt
sugar contained in the scorched malt and the
mucilage, imparts the odour to porter, and gives
it its fine flavour and tenacity. The gluten in
the wort is, however, destroyed by too long
boiling. An eminent brewer says, "the general
method of fermenting porter differs from the
cool and gradual process so essential to
preserve the flavour and richness of ale. Porter
owes much of its tart and astringent flavour to
a high rapid fermentation, which carries down
the density without diminishing the high
flavour drawn from the materials. The rapid
process also suits the brown malt, which being
less dense than that from pale, cannot support
a vigorous fermentation, and the yeast being
more rapidly thrown off, leaves the beer clear
and durable."

One misfortune of porter is, that brewers
often scorch their damaged malt, and so
disguised use it for porter making.

We much regret that we are unable to give
the exact date of the introduction of that
fat potent liquid, stout. Still we can go
pretty near the bull's eye, if we do not exactly
touch its centre. As Mr. Kirkman, the biographer
of Macklin, who died in 1797, at the age
of one hundred and seven, particularly records
the fact, that his hero drank only a sort of
beer called " stout"—it was evidently not long
instituted in 1767. Kirkman says:

"It had been his constant rule for a period
of thirty years or upwards to visit a public-
house called the Antelope, in White Hart-
yard, Covent Garden, where his usual beverage
was a pint of beer, called stout, which was made
hot and sweetened with moist sugar almost to a
syrup. This, he said, balmed his stomach and
kept him from having any inward pains."

Pale ale—originally manufactured for India
alone—has been an universal beverage for more
than twenty years. It has more hops than malt in
it, and was at first derided by stout drinkers, as a
nauseous, insipid medicine. Tonic it might
be, but more fit for people with no livers
than for your good livers and bons camarades.
Perhaps, however, even then, the busy age
was growing more dyspeptic, for it soon
woke up as it were from its tipsy dream of
the miserable three-bottle days, and like Sly,
stretched, yawned, and called for a pot of the
smallest ale. The doctors, always rather
valetudinarian in their notions, from being so shut
up with invalids, were in raptures at the pleasant
new tonic.

The new medicine was pronounced to be
a cordial, warm, aperitive, digestive, diuretic,
stomachic, and sudorific. It was an anti-
spasmodic—its aromatic bitter was to restore
the depraved appetite, and correct unwholesome
nutriment, to promote digestion, and
increase the nutritive value of all food.

The hops used for this light Indian beer, are
of the dryest and lightest possible colour. The
Farnhams, and Goldings, or the very best East
Kents, are to be preferred. The hops were the
chief ingredient, the brewers said, and they
were everything. The timid and not
unnatural question put by the public was—If
so little rnalt is wanted for this new beer, we
suppose it is going to be very cheap—say a
penny a glass? Not it; it rose to twopence
the half pint, fourpence the pint, eightpence the
quart, Heaven knows what the cask!—just as
if it were the strongest and most stalwart
beer possible. There was no appeal; the
trade persisted; and the public—poor patient