“Intire Butt beer was brewed in good season. Not only did the respectable publican have his own cellar well filled, but every vault and cellar that could be appropriated, was hired for the purpose. The beer, young from the stillon, was conveyed in barrels, started in the jigger-tub, then pumped through the hose and each butt filled. The filling and attendance were left to the broad-cooper, whose duty it was to attend each cellar, to ascertain that all was right. Thus was beer apportioned to each publican, and it was seldom moved for twelve months.” vi

It quickly became apparent that the new beer benefited from keeping. In the early days this was done in casks. Much storage of stock clearly took place in the premises of publicans, as well as pretty much any available space, with the broad cooper being responsible for ensuring that cleansing (the act of removing the beer from the tun where it was first fermented into casks) had been properly achieved.

Part of the need for long period maturation was that the brewing methods and malt quality meant that the beer would not naturally fine – these were the days before isinglass finings – without considerable maturation, but also maturation imparted the necessary flavours demanded to the beer, as well as enabling better exploitation of materials.

“ Porter being delicate neither in colour nor taste, and eminently manageable in brewing, materials might be utilised more rigourously than in ale brewing. Successful brown malts could be made from barley less fine than could be made from barley less fine than that required for the best pale. Hops of the second grade did not prejudice the quality of porter as much as they might the finest ale.” vii

The importance of this must not be underestimated. These economies of scale were very quickly understood and were measurable. For example it was seen that spent grain from porter brewing was less nutritious as animal feed, as it had been sweated harder, and consequently fetched less as cattle food than other brewers grains.

Brown stout is brewed with brown malt, as amber is with pale. The overstrength of this drink has been the reason of its being discontinued, especially since porter or brown has been brought to a greater perfection.” viii

The new drink probably was not a wonderful approximation of the Three Threads, but rapidly found favour in its own right. It was clearly sufficiently different from ales brewed with traditional brown malts, and contemporary reports note that the new London Porter was ‘thicker, blacker, more bitter and stronger for its price’ than any other.

The new beer was initially called Entire or Intire, to signify that it was drawn from the one cask rather than two or three, but is seems that the name Porter quickly caught on, and it seems likely that the story that the name originated with its popularity with London’s unskilled labourers, many of whom were occupied in portering, is true.

This is just as well, as it seems likely that much of the story associated with Ralph Harwood is not. It is most unlikely that Harwood was actively experimenting with a means of getting ‘three into one’, more likely he made a beer with a unusual malt about which we know nothing; not even whether it was an accident of kilning or an intentional product. One is tempted to ask, if Harwood were such a visionary entrepreneur then why did he not exploit his discovery, but the fact remains that Harwood was not the one to maximise the benefits of the new beer, nor did he translate himself out of the generality of publican brewers into the ranks of the great capital houses.

A number of chance factors, therefore, contributed to the sudden and rapid growth of Porter. Firstly was the happy coincidence that the water of the metropolis was well suited to this style of beer. The water (London well water rather than Thames water for the most part) made a beer that was suited to mass production in a city that had a growing mass population. No other city had the population necessary for this advantage of the water to be exploited. No other city in the world ever became so closely associated with one particular beer style. Sure, Burton-on-Trent will forever be associated with pale ales, but the pale ales of Burton were actually invented in London (www.india-pale-ale.com), and the Burton population couldn’t consume sufficient quantities to make Burton a brewing centre. Burton was built on export. London drank itself to greatness.

Secondly the advantages of production derived were unique to Porter, other – or Country - brewers were just not able to exploit the economies of scale attendant on Porter brewing. Consequently they were unable to embark upon the virtuous circle of advantage that characterised the development of Porter brewing in the eighteenth century.

Chief amongst these was the benefit of vatting. It was not long before brewers realised that rather than filling myriad casks in countless premises for the necessary maturation period, quality and consistency (the holy grail of brewing) could better be ensured by bulk maturation in giant vats in the brewery. From thence it was rapidly realised that the bigger the vat the better the beer shook off infection. This in turn meant that the Porter brewers could extend the brewing year. Whereas the traditional brewing year ran from October to May the Porter brewers could start brewing in September and carry on to mid-June, further increasing their return on capital.

The move to vatting was partly a consequence of the fact that the attractiveness of Porter brewing prompted a spate of brewery building. Given the cost of renting out every available cellar to fill with butts of maturing beer – Whitbread was paying nearly £100 in rent for 48 cellars around Chiswell St in 1747 (a considerable amount for a firm that had only been founded in 1742) - investment in vats in these new breweries was common sense. As early as 1736 Alderman Parsons was installing 1500 barrel capacity vats in his St Katherine’s brewery. These were still in use in 1774 meaning that, even with repairs, they were much more cost effective than the equivalent capacity in butts and casks, which had a life of 15 years at most. Vatting also produced better, and brighter, beer.

Vatting gradually but slowly replaced butts in cellars as space allowed, and clearly many brewers employed both, though reduced losses from vats were a further and significant saving. In 1775 Thrale’s vatting capacity was some 23,400 barrels, but in 1795 Barclays were still paying rent on sixty one cellars.

Significantly, therefore, having embarked on a virtuous circle of ever greater economies the large brewers created effective barriers to entry, by means of the increasing amounts of capital required to maintain those economies. Not in jest was it commented that no other activity save banking required such a large amount of initial capital before it could be embarked upon than porter brewing.

“ The price of casks, horses, labour, corn, taxes and every appurtenance to a brewery, having of late years so much increased, there is no longer a chance of success to the laborious and industrious little brewer. All is swallowed up in capital.” x

Once more the Porter/London association produced benefits that could not be enjoyed elsewhere. Brewing was ideally suited for industrialisation as the economies of scale were largely independent of labour. However so large a vessel may be, it only takes one man to open the tap. During production the only labour intensive activity, the cost of which varied with volumes produced was mashing in, and with the introduction of steam, in which the Porter brewers were pioneers, this was eliminated. Whitbread, for example, installed a James Watt engine in 1785.

Labour was only a significantly proportionate cost when it came to distribution. In London however, the population was rising and the distances were small. Increasing volumes did not mean greater distances travelled. For brewers in other towns increased volumes meant shipping beer further afield. For Burton in particular it meant expensive inland shipping of beer to either Liverpool, Hull or London, for on shipment elsewhere. Brewers in general, therefore, and London brewers in particular, were conspicuous amongst industrial enterprises for relatively low levels of employment. This meant a concentration of expertise in the hands of a relatively few individuals, which is why brewers clerks enjoyed very great opportunities for upward social mobility. Management teams were small and tight; hierarchies were very flat. Consequently Whitbread engaged Gainsbourgh to paint portraits of his clerks. Not a practice that was widely replicated in the potteries, foundries and mills that were learning the new managerialism from the London Porter brewers elsewhere as the new industrial map of Britain was taking shape.

This was just as well because the stability of the brewing trade was a matter of considerable national security. A comparative statement of the size of the industry in 1875 estimated that:-

The total amount of capital invested in the liquor trades of the United Kingdom amounts to about one hundred and seventeen million pounds stirling. This sum is equal to more than half the total value of our exports, and is more than double the annual receipts of all the railways. About one-third of the whole National Revenue is drawn from this source.” xii

In the eighteenth century the lions share of this contribution came from London. By comparison, the brewers of Burton-on-Trent, busy developing their lucrative Baltic trade, could collectively only export a volume equal to a quarter of the output of one of the ‘London capital houses’.

It is here worth mentioning that the wider economic effects of the by products of brewing were significant too (distilling was a net consumer not a producer of surplus yeast).

“ The London brewing trade provided important constituents for the production of Londoners’ bread, beef, milk and even their gin – quite apart from that central item of diet which the industry ostensibly existed to supply.” xiii

Another notable fact about Porter was its absolute dominance of the London market and its relative absence from the rest of the country, save a few early industrial centres. In London everyone drank Porter, and many people rarely drank anything else, save small beer from the Porter brewers.

“ The most prevailing kind of malt liquor in the country is strong beer, called in some places ale, and small or table beer: that of the metropolis and all large manufacturing towns such as Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, with many of the seaport towns, Liverpool, Chester, Hull, Bristol etc, is porter.” xiv

Porter brewed outside London was (with the notable exception of Dublin) almost certainly slightly inferior, as a result of the water, and, without the ability to ride the virtuous circle, other brewers attempts at Porter brewing seemed destined to fail.

“ It has been well remarked that out of the innumerable tribe of home brewers, there is not one that knows any thing of brewing porter, and hence they conclude there is some impenetrable secret; and although these brewers do sometimes produce a good gyle of beer, yet it is from strength and chance they succeed, and not by any settled rule, either as to strength and length.” xv

There was an secret though it was by no means impenetrable. Good Porter needed good London water.
The introduction of vatting was probably the single most important impetus that allowed the allowed the large brewers to outstrip the pack, in which Ralph Harwood was destined to remain.

The critical minimum barrelage necessary to be producing at the most economical scale rose quickly, leaving those brewers below it in as vicious a circle of diseconomies and costs as the same circle was advantageous for those above the critical point.” xvi

In 1748 Sir William Calvert became the first London brewer to produce more than 50,000 barrels of beer. The premier league brewers in that year were:-

Sir William Calvert 55,700 bbls Felix Calvert 53,699 Benjamin Truman 39,400 Humphrey Parsons 39,000 Hope 34,400

In 1748 the top 12 ‘capital houses’, as the big brewers became known, produced a little over a third of all London beers; some 383,000 bbls out of a total of 915,000.

In 1758, by which time Whitbread had joined the big boys and was producing between 55,000 and 60,000 barrels per annum, Ralph Harwood was languishing at a ‘mere’ 21,000 barrels. Growth was rapid and a certain amount of leapfrogging occurred. As stated, in 1748 Sir William Calvert was the first to breast the 50,000 mark, but it was Whitbread who in 1796 burst through the 200,000 barrier.

The sheer scale of the benefits of capital investment is hard to comprehend. In 1769 a gyle of Truman porter took 126 quarters of malt to brew at a cost of £382 (or £3.03 per quarter if we metricate our old money) and returned receipts of £501 (or £3.97). By 1775 the length of a Truman gyle had risen to 176 quarters for which the costs were £511 (£2.90) and the returns £701 (£3.98). Truman brewed around 180 gyles in each of those two years, and increased profits by around £12,750 per annum as a result of investment in increased output.

Whilst the market underwent its usual starts and reverses, there was not, as Table II illustrates, a period when one firm or another was not making considerable headway, right up until Barclays passed 300,000 barrels in 1815, the highwater mark of Porter brewing after which it went into decline.

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