MEDIEVAL BEER

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 379, 14 November 1932, Page 2

MEDIEVAL BEER

AN OXFORD BREW methods of days of king arthur reyived RARFST DRINK IN WORLD Beer such as nourished Henry Y and 'warmed the hearts of Englishmeii centuries ago was beifig brewed at Queen's College Oxford, recently. The brewery there is thought to be the only surviving mediaeval brewery in England. The beer-pump dates back from 1500 odd; the methods go back perhaps to King Alfred. Bu thos© who have drunk enough of the re-brown liquor that Queen's has been brewing since her Founder's statue in 1840 are apt to compare it to the ale that Chaucer and Shalcespeare doubtless quaff in Paradise. And brewers, forgeting every fetish of modern science and "hygene," pay tribute from afar to one of the rarest. drinks the world can offer — the "Chancellor" or liq-uer-beer of Queen's College, of which only two barre'ls exist at a time in the World- .

Yesterday morning, before sunrise, says a correspondent of the "Morning Post" London, I watched the Queen's College Brewer and his man begin their immemorial process to supply the needs of the new term. The brewhouse itself is so old that no one knows its date, but enormous beams and cross-beams still sturdily support the stone-tiled roof, above a barnlike maze of lofts, huge vats, mysterious wooden troughs, barrels, "paddles", rakes," tun-bowls, and all the apparatus of a mediaeval brewery. As I entered the old brick furnace in the corner was blowing steam in clouds through the rafters, and with occasional luck even up the chimney. Evidently, after heating all night, the water was on the boil, ready for the malt-vat. The malt-vat itself stood close by in the loft, overhung by eight huge sacks of malt, a sack of hops, and the barrel of indispensable yeast.

Operations Started All, then, was ready, for no other materials are used. The brewer and his mate rolled up their sleeves before a day's work that would leave them but shadows of their present substantial selves. Then the mate flung open the furnace door. As he poked the blazing fire a stream of burning embers crashed to the ground sparks flew round him like a swarm of infuriated bees, and the water in the boiler hissed into steam. With one hand he drenched the burning pile of embers, with the other he opened a tap. Volumes of billowing steam ross I suffocating from the embers and from the boiler and filled every corner of ! the brew-house, but through ° it all J came a noise of boiling water pouri ing into the waiting^vat. Brewing had begun. J All day long the magical opera1 tions continued, with pauses only for I the "liquor"- — i.e, water, a word of ill omen never employed in brewing at Queen's — to boil or cool. TRere was froth-blowing on a noble scale till the bibuous flag-stones were dark with greedy stains. There was "village pumping" for brewer and mate till their thirst could almost drain the boiler furious "liquor-raking" to keep the "wort" of boiling hops and malt, and a half-dozen other operations forgotten for centuries everywhere elseFirst they were "mashing" the floating malt into the liquor with sixfoot "toothbrushes" until it consented to be drowned into a yellow gruel smelling of hot grapenut porridge, and they stood panting beside it. Then : after it had cooled for two hours, they strained out the .husks and took . turns at pumping up the 500-gallons of gruel to the boiler with the 16th Century pump.

A Magic Scent ' The hops were thrown in, and as soon as the mixture began to boil a magic scent stole from brewhouse to garden, from garden to college, from college to much of Oxford, until dons and scouts from far and near were sniffing it and smiling the con1 tented smile of their predecessors. Then came the fermentation, while great volumes of froth rolled like Niagara from the f ermenting-vat. But early tomorrow the brewers will pitch the whole hissing mixture out with heavy tunbowls into 12 huge eleansing barrels. Now comes the strangest process of all. For a whole week these drunken barrels do nothing but blow froth ceaselessly through their bungholes into a beer-reeking trough beneath. And the brewers rest on their oars, and sample duly. . . And one day late next week ten other barrels newly) filled from their froth-blowing bretheren, are rolled heavily down the garden into the cellars. "Hygene" and "science" have been spurned. They hold the beer our fathers knew. Lastly, as the barrels are set up in the cellar, a strangely familiar smell drifts up through the grating at the college chapel door. Under their monumental brasses the Founder and his Fellows rejoice at this best and oldest of incense-