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English beer has a long history, and has quite distinct traditions from most other beer brewing countries (see Beer and nationality).

England is one of the few countries (along with Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) where ales, beers brewed by warm fermentation rather than lagers, have remained dominant among domestic beers. In addition, cask conditioned beer, rather than bottled beer, is still normal, with the beer finishing its maturing in casks in the cellar of the pub rather than at the brewery.

Contents 1 History 2 English beer styles 2.1 Bitter 2.2 Brown ale 2.3 Mild 2.4 Old ale 2.5 Porter 3 Lager 4 Serving beer 4.1 Temperature 4.2 Cask ale 4.3 Keg ale 4.4 Bottled beer 5 Brewing 5.1 Breweries 5.2 The Tie 5.3 London 5.4 Burton upon Trent 6 Advocacy and organisations 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

[edit] History

In the 15th century, an unhopped beer would have been known as an ale, while the use of hops would make it a beer. Hopped beer was imported to England from the Netherlands as early as 1400 in Winchester, and hops were being planted on the island by 1428. The popularity of hops was at first mixed — the Brewers Company of London went so far as to state "no hops, herbs, or other like thing be put into any ale or liquore wherof ale shall be made — but only liquor (water), malt, and yeast." However, by the 16th century, "ale" had come to refer to any strong beer, and all ales and beers were hopped.

An ale-conner (sometimes aleconner) was an officer appointed yearly at the court-leet of ancient English communities to ensure the goodness and wholesomeness of bread, ale, and beer. There were many different names for this position which varied from place to place: "ale-tasters," gustatores cervisiae, "ale-founders," and "ale-conners". Ale-Conners were also often trusted to ensure that the beer was sold at a fair price. Historically, four ale-Conners were chosen annually by the common-hall of the city.

Ale-Conners were sworn "to examine and assay the beer and ale, and to take care that they were good and wholesome, and sold at proper prices according to the assize; and also to present all defaults of brewers to the next court-leet."

The tradition was maintained in London into the 20th century. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica reports:

In London, four ale-conners, whose duty it is to examine the measures used by beer and liquor sellers to guard against fraud, are still chosen annually by the liverymen in common hall assembled on Midsummer Day. Since ale and beer have become excisable commodities the custom of appointing ale-tasters has in most places fallen into disuse.

The title was also used of officers chosen by the liverymen in London to inspect the measures used in the public houses. The title is a sinecure.

It is sometimes said that:

The Ale Conner was a type of early tax-man whose job it was to test the quality and strength of beer, not by quaffing, but by sitting in a puddle of it! They travelled from pub to pub clad in sturdy leather britches. Beer was poured on a wooden bench and the Conner sat in it. Depending on how sticky they felt it to be when they stood up, they were able to assess it's alcoholic strength and impose the appropriate duty.^[1]

However, the accuracy of the colourful legend is doubtful.^[2]

[edit] English beer styles

[edit] Bitter

Bitter is a broad term applied to a well-hopped pale ale, from about 3.5% to 6% in strength and pale gold to dark mahogany in colour. British brewers have several loose names for variations in beer strength, such as best bitter, special bitter, extra special bitter, and premium bitter. There is no agreed and defined difference between an ordinary and a best bitter other than one particular brewery's best bitter will usually be stronger than its ordinary. Two groups of drinkers may mark differently the point at which a best bitter then becomes a premium bitter. Hop levels will vary within each sub group, though there is a tendency for the hops in the session bitter group to be more noticeable. Drinkers tend to loosely group the beers into:

Session or ordinary bitter Strength up to 4.1% abv. The majority of British beers with the name IPA will be found in this group, such as Greene King IPA, Deuchars IPA, Flowers IPA, Wadworth Henrys Original IPA, etc. These session bitters are not as strong and hoppy as an India Pale Ale would be in the USA although IPAs with modest gravities (below 1040º) have been brewed in Britain since at least the 1920s.^[3] This is the most common strength of bitter sold in British pubs. It accounts for 16.9% of pub sales.^[4]

Best bitter. Strength between 4.2% and 4.7% abv. In the United Kingdom, Bitter above 4.2% abv accounts for just 2.9% of pub sales.^[4] The disappearance of weaker bitters from some brewer's rosters means "best" bitter is actually the weakest in the range.

Premium bitter Strength of 4.8% abv and over. Also known as extra special bitter, or in the USA, ESB (ESB is a brand name in the UK).

[edit] Brown ale

English brown ales range from beers such as Manns Original Brown Ale, ^[5] which is quite sweet and low in alcohol, to North Eastern brown ale such as Newcastle Brown Ale, Double Maxim and Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale.

[edit] Mild

Mild ale is a low-gravity beer with a predominantly malty palate. Modern mild ales are mainly dark coloured with an abv of 3% to 3.6%, though there are lighter hued examples, as well as stronger examples reaching 6% abv and higher.

Once sold in every pub, mild experienced a catastrophic fall in popularity after the 1960s and was in danger of completely disappearing from many parts of the United Kingdom. However, in recent years the explosion of microbreweries has led to a modest renaissance, and an increasing number of mild (sometimes labelled 'Dark') brands are now being brewed.

[edit] Old ale

Old ale is a term applied to dark, malty beers above 5% abv, also sometimes called Winter Warmers.^[6] Many brewers make high abv old ales for bottling, some of which are bottle-conditioned and can mature for several years.

[edit] Porter

Porter is a historically significant style, popular from the 18th century, which had almost disappeared by the mid-20th century. It is the ancestor of stout, a style which is now considered typically Irish, despite its origins in London Porter. Some kind of stout, usually from Guinness, Beamish or Murphy's is sold in almost every English pub.

[edit] Lager

Despite the traditional English beer being ale, more than half of the current English market is now lager in the Pilsener and Export styles. These lighter coloured, bottom fermented beers first started gaining real popularity in England in the latter part of the 20th Century.

Carling, which is owned by the American/Canadian brewing giant Molson Coors Brewing Company is the highest selling beer in England and is mainly brewed in Burton upon Trent. Meanwhile the largest brewery in Britain today, Scottish & Newcastle, which has three main breweries (Manchester, Reading and Tadcaster) brews Britain's second highest selling beer which is the lager Foster's.

Other lagers popular in England include Kronenbourg (which also belongs to Scottish & Newcastle) and Stella Artois (which belongs to the Belgian brewery InBev and in Britain is brewed in South Wales and Samlesbury near Preston).

Indian food is very popular in Britain, and special lagers such as Cobra Beer have been developed to accompany it.

[edit] Serving beer

[edit] Temperature

One common misconception of beer served in the United Kingdom concerns the serving temperature: it is believed that British beer is served warm. In reality, beer in the UK is usually served at cellar temperature (between 10–14 °C (50–57 °F), which is often carefully controlled in a modern-day pub, although the temperature can naturally fluctuate with the seasons. Proponents of British beer say that it relies on subtler flavours than that of other nations, and these are brought out by serving it at a temperature that would make other beers seem harsh. Where harsher flavours do exist in beer (most notably in those brewed in Yorkshire), these are traditionally mitigated by serving the beer through a hand pump fitted with a sparkler, a device that mixes air with the beer, oxidising it slightly and softening the flavour.

[edit] Cask ale

Cask ale is the traditional method of service, via a hand pump or by gravity straight from the cask on stillage. Other beers are sold in bottles or drawn from a carbon dioxide-driven tap. Cask ale and bottle conditioned beer are championed by the Campaign for Real Ale under the name real ale.

[edit] Keg ale

Keg beer is a term for beer which is served from a pressurized keg. Keg beer is often filtered and/or pasteurized, both of which are processes that render the yeast inactive, increasing the shelf life of the product at the expense of flavor.^{[citation needed]}

Keg ale has been criticised by real-ale aficionados and others since the 1960s when pasteurised draught beers started replacing traditional cask beers. The quality of the kegging process was not as good then as it is today, and sometimes the keg beers are referred to as Plastic Beer. Some people believed that chemicals (adjuncts) were used to create a foam head. These perceptions exist to this day.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Bottled beer

Whilst draught beer takes up the majority of the market, bottled beer has a firm place and is a growing sector.^[7] Some brands are sold almost entirely in the bottled format, such as Newcastle Brown Ale and Worthington White Shield. CAMRA promotes bottle-conditoned beer as "real ale in a bottle" (RAIB).^[8]

[edit] Brewing

[edit] Breweries

English brewing is often considered to have a three-tier structure.

• Large national and international megabreweries. InBev, Coors, Scottish Courage and Carlsberg between them manufacture 80% of beer drunk in Britain.^[9]
• Regional breweries, often owned and run by successive generations of a family.
• Microbreweries and brewpubs, a sector that has undergone considerable expansion in the past 30 years.^[10]

[edit] The Tie

After the development of the large London Porter breweries in the 18th century, the trend grew for pubs to become tied houses which could only sell beer from one brewery (a pub not tied in this way was called a Free house). The usual arrangement for a tied house was that the pub was owned by the brewery but rented out to a private individual (landlord) who ran it as a separate business (even though contracted to buy the beer from the brewery). Another very common arrangement was (and is) for the landlord to own the premises (whether freehold or leasehold) independently of the brewer, but then to take a mortgage loan from a brewery, either to finance the purchase of the pub initially, or to refurbish it, and be required as a term of the loan to observe the solus tie. A growing trend in the late 20th century was for the brewery to run their pubs directly, employing a salaried manager (who perhaps could make extra money by commission, or by selling food).

Most such breweries, such as the regional brewery Shepherd Neame in Kent and Young's in London, control hundreds of pubs in a particular region of the UK, whilst a few, such as Greene King, are spread nationally. The landlord of a tied pub may be an employee of the brewery—in which case he would be a manager of a managed house, or a self-employed tenant who has entered into a lease agreement with a brewery, a condition of which is the legal obligation (trade tie) only to purchase that brewery's beer. This tied agreement provides tenants with trade premises at a below market rent providing people with a low-cost entry into self-employment. The beer selection is mainly limited to beers brewed by that particular company. A Supply of Beer law, passed in 1989, was aimed at getting tied houses to offer at least one alternative beer, known as a guest beer, from another brewery.This law has now been repealed but while in force it dramatically altered the industry.

The period since the 1980s saw many breweries absorbed by, or becoming by take-overs, larger companies in the food, hotel or property sectors. The low returns of a pub-owning business led to many breweries selling their pub estates, especially those in cities, often to a new generation of small chains, many of which have now grown considerably and have a national presence. Other pub chains, such as All Bar One and Slug and Lettuce offer youth-oriented atmospheres, often in premises larger than traditional pubs.

A free house is a pub that is free of the control of any one particular brewery. "Free" in this context does not necessarily mean "independent", and the view that "free house" on a pub sign is a guarantee of a quality, range or type of beer available is a mistake. Many free houses are not independent family businesses but are owned by large pub companies. In fact, these days there are very few truly free houses, either because a private pub owner has had to come to a financial arrangement with a brewer or other company in order to fund the purchase of the pub, or simply because the pub is owned by one of the large pub chains and pub companies (PubCos) which have sprung up in recent years. Some chains have rather uniform pubs and products, some allow managers some freedom.

[edit] London

London was where porter, a dark beer, was developed. England's first large commercial breweries were founded in London. Fuller, Smith and Turner are the only remaining large brewery in London.

[edit] Burton upon Trent

For centuries, Burton upon Trent has been associated with the brewing industry due to the quality of the local water (from boreholes, not from the River Trent). This comes from the high proportion of dissolved salts in the water, predominantly caused by the gypsum in the surrounding hills. Much of the open land within and around the town is protected from chemical treatment to help preserve this water quality.

The town is still home to five brewers:

• Coors, a brewery from the USA which produces Carling.
• Marston, Thompson and Evershed, now Marston's PLC. Marston's also brew Bass beer and Stones Bitter under licence from Interbrew
• Burton Bridge Brewery, founded in 1982 by Geoff Mumford and Bruce Wilkinson.
• Tower Brewery, a new microbrewery
• Cottage Brewery, based in the Old Cottage Inn

The Bass Museum of Brewing - renamed the Coors Visitor Centre after Coors took over the brewery - continued until June 2008.^[11] The associated White shield micro-brewery continues to brew its own beer,such as Worthington's separate from Coors.

A by-product of the brewing industry, figuratively and literally, is the presence of the Marmite factory in the town. This in turn generated the production of Bovril. Together with the breweries this can give the area a distinctive smell.

The development of rail links to Liverpool enabled brewers to export their beer throughout the British Empire. The accidental shipwreck of a cargo boat carrying India Pale Ale (an ale specially brewed to keep during the long sea voyage to India) resulted in barrels being washed ashore. The popularity of these fortuitous samples resulted in the domestic marketing of such ale, and began the gradual transformation of English drinking tastes.

Previously, Englishmen had drunk mainly stout and porter - dark beers flavoured with roasted barley and similar to Guinness - but bitter (a development of pale ale) came to predominate. This extensively hopped, lighter beer was easier to store and transport, and so favoured the growth of larger breweries.

Burton came to dominate this trade, and at its height one quarter of all beer sold in Britain was produced here. Although over 30 breweries are recorded in 1880, a process of mergers and buy-outs resulted in three main breweries remaining by 1980: Bass, Ind Coopes and Marston's. Only Burton Bridge brewery remains as an independent brewer today.

The fame of Burton ales gave rise to the English euphemism "gone for a Burton" meaning to die — a World War II humorous suggestion that a missing comrade had merely nipped out for a beer.

The town's connection with the brewing industry is celebrated by a sculpture of the Burton Cooper, which is now housed in the shopping centre.

Burton upon Trent is also known in beer technology circles for the Burton Union recirculating fermenter system, now used only by Marston's Brewery (all other Burton brewers have switched to stainless steel).

[edit] Advocacy and organisations

• Fair Pint are an organisation of publicans campaigning against the tie.^[12]
• The Society of Independent Brewers represents small brewers.^[13]
• The British Beer and Pub Association represents large brewers.^[14]
• The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) represents consumers

[edit] See also

• Welsh beer
• Scottish beer
• Irish beer
• Pub

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• This article incorporates content from the 1728 Cyclopaedia, a publication in the public domain.
• G. Long, ed. "Ale". The penny cyclopædia. Society for the diffusion of useful knowledge. 1833. p 285.

[edit] External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Ale-conner.

• Information On English Brewing

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