. on a chevron between pair of barley garbs in saltier , tuns hooped of the . . A demi-moorish woman, couped at the knees, ; her hair dishevelled , habited frettee her arms extended, holding in each hand ears of barley of the . .

In God is all our trust.

The brewers' company, which is the among the city companies, was incorporated by king Henry VI., in the year , by the name of

The master, and keepers or wardens, and commonalty of the mystery or art of brewers of the city of London.

This corporation anciently bore the arms of St. Thomas Becket, impaled with their own; but that saint's bones being taken up and burnt, and unsainted, by the powers in being, Clarencieux, king at arms, in the year , separated them, and gave the brewers a crest in lieu thereof. Mr. Brayley says,

It seems probable, from various circumstances, that the use of beer was not generally introduced till about the reign of Henry VII., in whose time the breweries, which then stood on the banks of the Thames, at

St. Catherine's

(

Wapping

), and are distinguished by the name Bere-house, in the map given in the

Civitates Orbis

, were twice

spoiled by the king's officers, either for sending too much abroad unlicensed, or for brewing it too weak for home consumption.

In Rymer's

Foedera

, under the date

1492

, is a license granted to John le Merchant a Fleming, to export

fifty

tuns, or butts of beer, (

quinquaginta dolia servitae vocatae Bere

) and we find that

one

of the king's attendants into France, in the same year, was

Petrus Vanek, a beer-brewer, of Greenwich, in Kent.

Rym. Foed. vol. xii. p. 471, and 485. In 1504, the ale of London was sold at 11. 10s. per dolium, and the beer, per dolium, at 11. 3s. 4d. Dolium, says Fleetwood, (Chron. Pres.) "does here, I believe, signifie a pipe, or butt, which contains 126 gallons; so that the ale comes to near 3d. the gallon;--and the beer to rather more than 2 1/4d. for the same quantity. In the work generally called Arnold's Chronicle, printed by Pynson, about 1521, is the following Receipt for making beer, x quarters malte, ii quarters wheete, ii quarters ootes, x pound weight of hoppys, to make xi barrels of sengyll beer.

Twelve

years afterwards the price of ale had advanced to about

three-pence

the gallon, and that of beer was about

one

half-penny cheaper.

In the year of Henry VIII. the brewers were restrained by a statute from making

any more sorts, or kinds of beer, than

two

, the strong and the double,

that the same should be sold after the rate and price of

6s. 8d.

the barrel, of the best, and

3s. 4d.

the barrel of double beer, and ale, or not above.

There was an estimate made about this time as to what quantity of beer was exported yearly to the Low Countries and other places; from which it appeared that there were great brewhouses, or more, situated on the Thames side, from Milford stairs to below St. Katherines, which brewed yearly the quantity of or brewings of sweet beer or strong beer, that passed to Embden, the Low Countries, Calais, Dieppe, and thereabouts. And account but brewings at barrels the brewing, it makes barrels, which at to a tun, makes tuns.

The demand for beer from foreign countries increased greatly during the whole of the reign of Elizabeth, and the liberty of exporting it was only checked, by proclamation, during the occasional occurrence of dearth and scarcity. record states, that tuns were exported at once

for the queen's use;

During the succeeding reigns, to the present time, the prices of ale and beer have been highly augmented through the operation of the successive imposts that have been laid on malt and hops, the duties on which now form an important branch of the public revenue. So great, indeed, has the consumption become, that in the year ending on , the duties on malt alone, produced the vast sum of The most rapid increase in price took place in the course of the last reign, at the commencement of which, in , ale was sold at the quart, and strong beer, or porter (which had come into general use in the time of George I.) at the quart. Since then the prices have been progressively advanced, and ale is now retailed at eightpence the quart; and porter at the quart; the former price at a view appears to be equal to the sum for which gallons of ale could have been obtained in the reign of Henry III. yet, when the increase in the value of money is properly estimated, it will be found that the augmentation has not been greater than in the proportion of and a half to .

The hall of this company, which is a neat edifice of brick and stone, stands on the north side of .

[] Brayley's Hist. of Lond. ii. p. 40l.

[] Strype's Stow, ii. p. 204.

[] The quantity of porter brewed in London, by the ten principal houses from the 5th of July 1826, to the 5th of July 1827, was as follows: Barrels. Barclay, Perkins. and Co.341,330 Truman, Hanbury, and Co.203,532 Whitbread, and Co.191,328 Reid, and Co.174,476 Combe, Delfield, and Co.125.534 Calvert, Felix, and Co.100,339 Meux Henry, and Co.95,159 Taylor and Co.64,688 Hoare and Co.64,003 Elliott and Co.52,204 Total1,412,603