The Great Beer Flood
I saw this via Gregory Frost and www.winedater.co.uk and had to share. It's an extract from the book Man Walks into a Pub by Pete Brown and is an account of the The Great Beer Flood of London, 1814.
In 1760 Sam Whitbread made his already impressive Chiswell Street Brewery even more fantastic with the addition of the Porter Tun room. The room was a feat in itself, with tourist guides at the time marvelling, 'the unsupported roof span… is exceeded in its majestic size only by that of Westminster Hall'. And it was dominated by a giant beer vat.
The gauntlet had been thrown down. Proving that phallic substitutes among powerful men predate the arrival of bright red sports cars, rival brewer Henry Thrale built a new porter vat and celebrated its completion by having a hundred people sit down to dinner inside it. 'Right then, you b@stard,' thought the Meux brewery, who went off and built one sixty feet wide and twenty-three feet high. They had two hundred guests to dinner in that one. Just to make sure everyone knew who was boss, they soon added a second one which was almost as large.
The contest reached its conclusion with the Meux's Horse Shoe Brewery tragedy in 1814. The brewery's vat, which stood on the junction of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, held over a million pints of porter. It was made of wood and held together by twenty-nine gigantic iron hoops. One day a workman noticed a crack in one of the hoops. As each hoop weighed over 500 pounds he thought a little crack was nothing to worry about, and he forgot about it. A few hours later there was an explosion so loud it was heard five miles away. The vat had burst, and the force of the jet stream of beer crushed the second vat. This meant the more beer than you can possibly imagine jetted out under very high pressure. The twenty-five-foot high, one-foot-thick, solid brick wall of the brewery stood no chance. It was flattened, and a tidal wave of beer raged into the surrounding streets.
The first to die were those drowned by the initial wave. Others were crushed to death in the stampede as they threw themselves into the gutter to drink as much free beer as they were physically able, hampering any hope of rescue for those trapped in the rubble. Some of those who survived the crush subsequently died of alcohol poisoning. The survivors were taken to hospital, but they weren't out of it yet. They reeked of beer, and those patients already on the wards rioted because they thought patients in other parts of the hospital were being served beer while their own doctors were holding out on them. Finally, there were still further casualties when the dead were taken to a nearby house and laid out for identification by grieving relatives. Everyone was curious to see what victims of death by beer looked like, so they crowded into the house for a look, and the owners even began charging admission. Soon there were so many people in the house that the floor collapsed, and several of those who had gone to look at the dead, ended up joining them!
The only thing I'd add to this excellent account is the fact that when the floor collapsed the paying customers, having discovered what victims of death by beer looked like, were given an unexpected role playing opportunity - as the cellar they fell into was flooded with beer.
I think Disney should be informed. Great Beer Flood sounds like a game brewed in heaven:)
In 1760 Sam Whitbread made his already impressive Chiswell Street Brewery even more fantastic with the addition of the Porter Tun room. The room was a feat in itself, with tourist guides at the time marvelling, 'the unsupported roof span… is exceeded in its majestic size only by that of Westminster Hall'. And it was dominated by a giant beer vat.
The gauntlet had been thrown down. Proving that phallic substitutes among powerful men predate the arrival of bright red sports cars, rival brewer Henry Thrale built a new porter vat and celebrated its completion by having a hundred people sit down to dinner inside it. 'Right then, you b@stard,' thought the Meux brewery, who went off and built one sixty feet wide and twenty-three feet high. They had two hundred guests to dinner in that one. Just to make sure everyone knew who was boss, they soon added a second one which was almost as large.
The contest reached its conclusion with the Meux's Horse Shoe Brewery tragedy in 1814. The brewery's vat, which stood on the junction of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, held over a million pints of porter. It was made of wood and held together by twenty-nine gigantic iron hoops. One day a workman noticed a crack in one of the hoops. As each hoop weighed over 500 pounds he thought a little crack was nothing to worry about, and he forgot about it. A few hours later there was an explosion so loud it was heard five miles away. The vat had burst, and the force of the jet stream of beer crushed the second vat. This meant the more beer than you can possibly imagine jetted out under very high pressure. The twenty-five-foot high, one-foot-thick, solid brick wall of the brewery stood no chance. It was flattened, and a tidal wave of beer raged into the surrounding streets.
The first to die were those drowned by the initial wave. Others were crushed to death in the stampede as they threw themselves into the gutter to drink as much free beer as they were physically able, hampering any hope of rescue for those trapped in the rubble. Some of those who survived the crush subsequently died of alcohol poisoning. The survivors were taken to hospital, but they weren't out of it yet. They reeked of beer, and those patients already on the wards rioted because they thought patients in other parts of the hospital were being served beer while their own doctors were holding out on them. Finally, there were still further casualties when the dead were taken to a nearby house and laid out for identification by grieving relatives. Everyone was curious to see what victims of death by beer looked like, so they crowded into the house for a look, and the owners even began charging admission. Soon there were so many people in the house that the floor collapsed, and several of those who had gone to look at the dead, ended up joining them!
The only thing I'd add to this excellent account is the fact that when the floor collapsed the paying customers, having discovered what victims of death by beer looked like, were given an unexpected role playing opportunity - as the cellar they fell into was flooded with beer.
I think Disney should be informed. Great Beer Flood sounds like a game brewed in heaven:)