We haunten not tavernes, ne hobelen abouten At merketes and miracles we medeley us never.
The frequent directions to the monks and clergy to abstain from taverns, from drinking bouts and revels, all point to the necessity then felt of tightening the bonds of church discipline, and show the laxity that had prevailed.
John Taylor, the Water Poet, frequently selected ale as his theme, and, when once mounted on his favourite hobby, soon travelled into such realms of marvellous history and miraculous philology, that it almost takes away one’s breath to follow him. The chief work in which he glorifies our English Ale has for its full title,
DRINKE AND WELCOME OR THE FAMOUS HISTORIE OF THE MOST PART OF DRINKS IN USE NOW IN THE KINGDOMES OF GREAT BRITTAINE AND IRELAND, WITH AN ESPECIALL DECLARATION OF THE POTENCY, VERTUE AND OPERATION OF OUR ENGLISH ALE, WITH A DESCRIPTION OF ALL SORTS OF WATERS, FROM THE OCEAN SEA, TO THE TEARES OF A WOMAN. AS ALSO, THE CAUSES OF ALL SORTES OF WEATHER, FAIRE OR FOULE, SLEET, RAINE, HAILE, FROST, SNOWE, FOGGES, MISTS, VAPOURS, CLOUDS, STORMES, WINDES, THUNDER AND LIGHTNING COMPILED FIRST IN THE HIGH DUTCH TONGUE BY THE PAINEFULL AND INDUSTRIOUS “HULDRICKE VAN SPEAGLE, A GRAMMATICALL BREWER OF LUBECK, AND NOW MOST LEARNEDLY ENLARGED, AMPLIFIED, AND TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH PROSE AND VERSE By JOHN TAYLOR. LONDON PRINTED BY ANNE GRIFFIN 1637.
After speaking of cider, perry, &c., the author goes on to speak of ale, which “hath been and now is used by the English, as well since the Conquest as in the times of the Brittains, Saxons, and Danes (for the former-recited drinks are to this day confined to the Principality) so as we enjoy them onely by a Statute called the courtesie of Wales. And to perfect any discourse in this I shall onely induce them into two heads, viz., the unparalleled liquor called Ale with his abstract Beere; whose antiquity amongst a sort of Northerne pated fellowes, is, if not altogether contemptible, of very little esteeme; this humour served the scurrilous pen of a shamelesse writer[16] in the raigne of King Henry the third; detractingly to inveigh against this unequal’d liquor. Thus
‘For muddy, foggy, fulsome, puddle, stinking, For all of these, Ale is the onely drinking.’