solemnize the wedding of a well-known son. One of the two
witnesses to the marriage was William Christmas, owner of
a small craft brewery near Haverhill and husband to
George’s sister Mary. A generation on, and their son
Frederick bought the Haverhill Brewery in Camps Road in
1894 from William Ward & Son, distant cousins to David; a
nice convoluted family connection.

malt; an under deck, another large wooden tub; a faucet and
taps; a beer-stool or wooden stand for holding the barrels; a

horsehair  sieve  for straining sometimes  called  the  hop-sieve
from  its  use  in  holding  the  small  hop-seeds  and  preventing
them from entering the finished beer; a rack or tongs on which

the  sieve  rested  during  the  straining  process;  a  funnel  for
pouring the beer in the casks; a hand-cup or jet, a scooped out
wooden ladle; a wilch (wilsh), a bottle shaped piece of wicker

In 1855, when the Ward’s together with their 4-year-old
daughter Amelia decided to accept the Rector’s business
proposition and supplement their brewing business, they
knew that hard work pervaded and influenced everything
they did and certainly George must have had great
confidence in his craft to take such a gamble.

which was used  to  filter  the  liquid  or wort  from the mash of
steeped malt and  a six or  ten  pail  copper, which would  be a
fixture in the house not far from the brick-oven.

The  ingredients  for  a  small  brew  were:  one  bushel  of  malt;
one pound of hops, and a pint of yeast.  

 After  lighting fire  under  the  copper,  the  brewer (usually  the
woman in the household), set the brewing tub on the stool and

What may have helped him turn away from agriculture,
was that right through the mid 1800s the home brewing of
ale and beer was declining fast - the high prices of raw
materials and the taxes imposed as a result of the
Napoleonic wars had made it expensive. Nevertheless, beer
was still the usual drink in most households for both adults
and children; tea was drunk as well but the tea-drinking
habit was largely the reserve of the rich as it was much too
expensive for an ordinary family.

placed the wilch over the tap on the inside of the tub. Then six
pails of cold water went  in  followed by three pails of boiling

water.  Into  the water went  the malt -  on  the side of  the  tub
away from the tap.

The brewer then drew the malt from one side of the tub to the
other. This was  done until  every kernel was wet. To  get  the

malt  grain  out  of  the  wilch  and  to  enable  the  wort  to  run
freely,  the  tap  was  opened  and  a  bucket  of  the  liquid  was

drawn  off  which  was  then  poured  back  into  the  tub.  Then
another bucket of hot water was used to rinse round the top of
the  tub  and  the wilch  to ensure  that not one particle  of malt
was left dry otherwise the brew would be spoilt.

East Suffolk village of Blaxhall, the English folklorist
George Ewart Evans who wrote Ask the Fellows Who Cut
the Hay gives a classic description of how beer was made in
rural households. It would be a heady brew, like a porter, a
characteristically dark brown beer, the bitterness of which
derives from the use of roasted, un-malted barley. It is
worth quoting in full, if only to understand what a labor-
ious process brewing could be:

A rack was placed over the tub and covered with a cloth and
sacks  to keep in  the spirit  of the malt. The steeped malt was
then left for fifteen minutes.

 Five pails of boiling water were taken out of the copper and
poured onto the malt. The resulting mash was stirred for about
ten minutes; covered up and allowed to stand for four hours -

The  utensils  used  in  the  brewing  were,  with  one  exception,
made of wood.  They were:  a  brewing tub or keeler, made of
wood  and  banded  with  iron,  for  steeping  and  mashing  the

no longer. The wilch was then cleared in the same manner as
before. All the liquid or wort would then be drawn off into the
under deck which as the name implies would be a lower level

up home for as long as possible and also confirmed the woman’s
child-bearing ability.