Project P

[Rossa]

P for Porter.

I have been doing a lot of fascinating research over the last couple of months on the history of brewing in our island. My goal is to find out what people were drinking at various times over the last 200+ years. Not just to know what they were drinking but to brew this and drink it for myself. I have come across some great resources and hope to plan a whole load of articles documenting this journey.

If anyone has any family or friends who were in the brewing industry at any time and might be able to shine some light on Irish ales do let us know. I am very interested in the breweries that are no longer around. Especially, I am interested in the ones that remained independent such as The Mountjoy Brewery (Findlaters owned that one) The Anchor Brewery/Darcy's or any other of the lost breweries thought the country.

I have also been in touch with Guinness archive and I have been given access to the Murphy's Collection in Cork. So, by the end of the summer I hope to have some brewing information that we can use to recreate the ales, porters, stouts, brown stouts, double stouts, triple stouts & pale stouts (but mainly porters) of our forefathers.

If you have any info throw it down here or pm me.


Project P.

[Shane Phelan]

Sounds really interesting! I'm happy to limit my porter production exclusively to historical brews, its great fun. 

[delzep]

You might get some good info from here Rossa

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/

[Dr Jacoby]

What's wrong with that blog?

[Rossa]

I have bought some of Ron's books. It is his blog so he can express his opinion and it is for the readers to agree or not BUT he does have some very interesting tables and suggests some references which have led to some very interesting reading.

NOW back on topic and the exciting journey into our post 

[Bubbles]

Very interesting Rossa. What historical recipes have you brewed so far?

Any plans on brewing your own "three threads"? 

[Rossa]

I've done a couple of porters. I might try bring one to Capital meet up.

[Rossa]

could cause controversy by linking outside the site but ...

This census tells us in 1891 there were 7 breweries in Dublin City employing 3,250 men and 5 women.
Also there is 815 people listed with brewer as there occupation.

http://ireland1893.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/dublinjobs1891.jpg

[delzep]

1911 Census counts 72 people as brewers in Dublin

1901 Census counts 103 people as brewers in Dublin

[Dara]

Hi Rossa,
This sounds interesting. Done a few porters and getting a taste for them. Haven't done much yet in terms of research but am interested in Murphys from around 1900-1920.

Found a beer glass (may be a simple wine glass not sure yet) at home stamped with O'Reilly & Sons, Queenstown. I'd like to fill it with something of the era and not something that came from grapes. From googleing (the extent of my lazy research so far) it seems they were a wine merchant in existence in 1914. So the glass must be from 1914'ish to 1920 (when Queenstown changed to Cobh). Anyway, would be interested in following this as I often wondered what it would be like to have a pint back in the day and also now have a vested interested in anything from Murphy's around the time as O'Reilly & Sons seem to be associated with J J Murphy and Co ltd (I presume these are the same guys as todays Murphy's). I'll be dissappointed if someone tells me that O'Reilly and Sons where wine merchants only .

This looks like it has the answers but I doubt if I have the credentials to access the records I'll have to chance my arm and hope the curator likes porter:
http://booleweb.ucc.ie/documents/MurphysBrewery-list.pdf

As an aside (sorry for hijacking the thread) - apparently titanic had 20,000 bottles of beer (again a lazy google) on board. Some of these must have been brewed in Ireland. Anyone any info. on who had contracts, what companies supplied it? My dad is from Cobh so would be interested in all this. I was in the heritage centre down there a few weeks back but of course this brainchild came into my head afterwards at homewhile sipping a beer from the glass.

Dara

[beerfly]

Thought it was very interesting talking about it in the dark horse last time. And after listening to padraic and cara and there barrels, Would not mind giving some historical brews a go.

[Red Barrel]

Colin Rynne (The Industrial Archaeology of Cork City and its Environs) lists and discusses 5 main Breweries in Cork.

Lanes Southgate Brewery 1758 - 1901/2 when sold to Beamish & Crawford
Beamish & Crawford 1792 - Passed to Heineken 2008 on takeover1 of Scottish & Newcastle
The River Lee Porter Brewery - 1797 - 1813 when sold to Beamish & Crawford
St. Finn-Barres Brewery 1805 - 1909? Demolished
Murphys Ladys Well Brewery 1856 - Present, Currently owned and branded as Heineken

Smaller breweries Cowperthwaites and Drinans are also mentioned and there are allusions to other unamed small breweries.

Apparently, many breweries and distillerys in Cork catered specifically for the Naval Trade, as the Captains of ships were responsible for the cost of provisioning and they didn't always value quality, there was a booming trade in brewing/distilling gack that the locals had no meas in. What's changed?

[Dara]

Apparently, many breweries and distillerys in Cork catered specifically for the Naval Trade, as the Captains of ships were responsible for the cost of provisioning and they didn't always value quality, there was a booming trade in brewing/distilling gack that the locals had no meas in. What's changed?

There goes my notion that they may have been making something special back then. Although, in the Murphy's archive listing there are references to X, XX and XXX porters/stouts so they must have been putting out something half decent. I'm guessing XXX porter/stout. I suppose any of the punters on the titanic with a decent ticket were not going to be drinking beer.

Dara