THE RED LION

Evening Star, Issue 21881, 19 November 1934, Page 1

THE RED LION

FAMOUS LONDON BREWERY Waterloo Bridge is being demolished, which ineana'the passing of a landmark, even as landmarks go in London. Almost on the same day the bridge was closed there was a ceremony two miles further clown the Thames which marked the passing of an establishment which was some centuries old when the bridge was built. The Red Lion Brewery, hard by the Tower of London, will be there no longer. Thames water was making a name for London ale about the time the Red Lion began operations, nearly 500 years ago. That was close to the period when the ale-conners were first appointed, in 1419, and ale-conners took part, for form’s sake, in the last ceremonies at the old brew house, though they had to borrow robes for the event, since the office became a sinecure generations backhand the duties of market inspection and testing the quality of beer was taken over by Excise officers. The Red Lion arose among the waterside taverns which were doing business when Chaucer, who praised tne ale of London, was alive. In the beginning each tavern brewed its own, and it took some hundreds of years to' evolve the big plant of later days from which the product went out in lorries. The last brew at tho old establishment was no trifle; it amounted to 600 barrels. THE RED LION’S HOME. The brewery has stood in St. Katherine’s way, close to where that thoroughfare runs on to Tower Bridge between the Tower and St. Katherine Docks. Whitechaped and Limehouse lie close by in one direction, and in the other, not far off, once stood the Roar’s Head Tavern, where Prince Hal laughed at Falstaff for taking an obolus’ worth of bread with an intolerable deal of sack. 1 Such memories as this, associated with the Red Lion by contiguity and the smell of malt, may seem fabulous to the dweller in a town, where remembrance of swinging doors comes as from the faint, far-distant past and to mention a Raines law sandwich sets one down, for a good second Zaro Agha. Quite likely they were drinking Red Lion ale when someone hustled in with tidings of the discovery of America; to which they doubtless said : “ Sirrah, what tokenth that? ” and rapped for another tankard.

The brewery was one of several with histories. The dust of years was on it when Dr Samuel Johnson took to resorting in the gardens of another of the same sort, close by on the other side ot the river; his Mistress Thrale was the wife of Homy Thrale of the Anchor Brewery, on the site of the Globe Theatre. In the eighteen thirties the curious were still shown, near the Anchor gateway, a room where Johnson wrote for years. LONDON’S BREWERIES.

•"‘vrEven in his day fhe.se breweries were structures; in 1760 Loinh a had fifty-two breweries, which produced 975,217 barrels, and uSien George 111. visited Whitebread’s brewery lie stepped with delight into a stone cistern (empty) with a capacity of 4,000 barrels. A hundred years before that England’s 5,000,000 inhabitants drank 13,000,000 barrels of beer a year. The old brewery, when it was young, saw the popular drink change from ale to beer, by the use of. hops. The ale-conners were first appointed when Dick Whittington was L'bru Mayor, to see that ale was up to standard. If a brewer bred three times instead of one, and failed to notify them, he was chastised for exposing the public to a drink “ not sufficiently mighty of the corn or wholesome for man’s body.” The ale-conners, with slashed sleeves, who lent ceremony to the last brewing of the Red Lion on its old site, were them officially to act under this oath, which was written down in the Liber Albus in 1419, when Prince Hal became Henry Y.:—

“ You shall swear that .you shall knpw of no brewer or hrewster, cook or pie baker in your ward, who sells the gallon of best ale for more than, one pennyhalfpenny, or the gallon of second for more than one penny, or otherwise than by measures sealed and full of clear ale. ...

“ And that yon, so soon as you shall be required to taste any ale of a brewer or hrewster, shall be ready to do the same; and in case that it be less good than it used to-be before this cry,' you, by assent of your Alderman, sliall set a reasonable price thereon, according to your discretion; and if anyone shall afterwards sell the same above the said price, unto your said Alderman you shall certify the same.”