Auß Gerſten ſied ich gutes Bier, Feißt und ſüß, auch bitter monier, In ein Breuwfeſſel weit und groß Darein ich denn den Hopſſen ſtoß, Laß den ich denn in Brennten fühlen daß Damit ſüll ich darnach die Faß, Wohl gebunden und wohl gebicht, Denn giert er und iſt zugericht.
The old German lines under the engraving of the Beer-brewer may be thus rendered into English: From barley I boil good beer, rich and sweet and bitter fashion. In a wide and big copper I then cast the hops. Then [after boiling the wort] I leave it to cool, and therewith I straightway fill the well-hooped and well-pitched [fermenting] vat; then it [the wort] ferments, and [the beer] is ready.
There is no doubt that the brewers’ trade was originally held in little esteem, and was considered as mean and sordid (_de vile juggement_). The ignominious punishments and restrictions (some of which have been already mentioned) to which the old London brewers were subjected, prove that their status only slowly improved. In the time of Henry VIII., however, their position had so far advanced in repute that in the grant of arms then made to them, they are specified as “the Worshipful Occupation of the Brewars of the City.”
The Records of the City of London are particularly full of details concerning the brewers and the brewing trade, and it will probably give the best idea of the conditions under which the business was carried on in former days to mention a few of the principal regulations gathered from that valuable body of information, and to supplement them by extracts from the records of the Brewers’ Company. Truth to say, the brewers and the City authorities were never the best of friends, and long accounts are to be found from time to time of disputes between them as to the legal price and quality of the liquor with which the lieges were to be supplied—struggles in which the action of the authorities seems, according to our modern notions, to have been arbitrary in the extreme. An instance of this tyranny over a trade is given in the _Liber Aldus_, from which it appears that not only was a brewer compelled to brew ale of a specified price and quality, but he was not even allowed to leave off brewing in case he found it did not pay him to continue. The regulation runs thus: “If any shall refuse to brew, or shall brew a less quantity than he or she used to brew, in consequence of this ordinance, he or she shall be held to be a withdrawer of victual from this city and shall be punished by imprisonment, and shall forswear his trade as a brewer within the liberties of the City for ever.”