I went into an Ale House I used to frequent and I told the landlady my money was spent
- The Wild Rover
In the days when I was courtin' I was never tired resortin' from the Ale House and the play house and many's the house beside
- Mursheen Durkin
So if ever you go down to Cork by the sea, stay out of the Ale House and take it from me
If you want to stay sane don't you dare take a sup of that devil drink cider called Johnny Jump Up
- Johnny Jump Up
I'm just wondering at what point in our history did an Ale House turn into a Heineken Bar.
Was there something happened in Ireland at some point that tipped the tipplers favor towards mass produced 'mega-swill' or did it just happen gradually?
Sure there's loads of pubs that state that they serve stouts and ales ::)
Of course that means Guinness and smithwicks usually
I think the problem was the buying power of Guinness.
Sent using a complex system of semaphore and ninjas.
Taverns & Ale house & gin palace were different types of establishments. I'd say, off the top of my head, when licensing was brought in many became Public houses - Pub.
I've a book at home. I'll have a look.
Ale houses were hipster craft beer bars before they were cool! :D
Some history lessons
In Ireland, historically, only relatively wealthy people consumed Beer. Everyone else drank spirits, most distilled at home.
In England by contrast, everyone drank beer, even as a breakfast drink (prior to the widespread availability of tea). The original reason as to why Porter is called Porter is lost to history.
Guinness produced Ale as well as Stout originally, but closed down the ale production after a few years. Very few Irish pubs had cellars, that were important for regulating the temperature of cask ale, and that may have been a factor in its decline.
By contrast the UK saw the decline of stouts and porters from around the mid 1800s on. The scale of porter production in London was once epic - aging VATs were massive ~ 3-4000 BBL in size. It declined in favour of pale ales/bitters for various reasons (serving in glass is one, various malt taxes are another).
So despite the fact that beer brewing in Ireland and England has very common origins, they are almost poles apart now.
In the 60s and 70s UK, the rise in popularity of kegged lagers displaced ale consumption and production. The very last gasps of the cask ale business made for some really awful beers, and the closure of nearly all the famous breweries. But this period gave rise to microbreweries and CAMRA, which kept the tradition alive, and eventually grew it back to its present day.