Yankee Brew News Archive

Boston: A Great Place to Stop for a Drink

Originally Published: 04/96

By: Dann Paquette

In December of 1622 the passengers of the Mayflower set ashore just south of Boston with intentions of building a simple society based on God and community.

While these settlers endeavored for a pure and simple existence they brought with them a few traditions of their English heritage. The most important for our purposes is of course brewing beer.

It's pretty well known that the Pilgrims weren't quite prepared to thrive in the new world and the fact that they neglected to bring along anyone with a serious knowledge of agriculture seems completely irresponsible today. It's ironic then that someone the likes of ship worker John Alden, a cooper by trade was convinced to join the other 100 or so colonists to live on shore.

When the Pilgrims decided that they would not sail beyond Cape Cod and settled for a sheltered harbor that they named "Plymouth" they did so partly because their "victuals" were spent, "especially Beere." However William Bradford wasn't quite convinced of that and whined in a journal entry that they were "hasted ashore and made to drink water that the seamen might have more beer." Perhaps the coaxing of John Alden was merely a failed attempt by the pilgrims to secure some of those remaining barrels.

Being of an era when water was synonymous with disease the Pilgrims really believed that drinking New England's fresh water, possibly the best drinking water on earth at the time, was hazardous. Fermented beverage (i.e. growing the raw materials) was most definitely high on their list of priorities when they landed.

Despite the fact that the colonists came without such simple farming instruments as a plow, with the help of the English-speaking native Squanto, they planted peas, corn, and English barley.

There's reason to believe that these beer drinkers preferred the hopped beverage that they came to know while exiled in Holland over the hopless English drink of the time--"ale."

Hops, which were growing wild in New England by the time the settlers arrived, would later become an industry in Massachusetts before it was driven west by disease. By the eighteenth century Massachusetts hops, which were strictly inspected for quality by law, were favored across the nation. Late in the period from 1806 to 1837 Middlesex county farmers (in the towns of Woburn, Shirley, Tewksbury) shipped 16,467,162 pounds of hops through Boston's Charlestown Shipyard. Surprisingly, much of that crop was shipped across the Atlantic to Europe.

Barley however enjoyed much less success than did hops. The plant failed to thrive as it did in England. The lack of barley turned the colonial drinkers to a much more convenient fermented beverage they were also familiar with from England; cider.

Apple trees, unlike barley, took little expertise to plant. Difficult grafting techniques which were becoming popular across the Atlantic weren't necessary to achieve the apples that were preferred at the time by the colonists for cider making. In fact apple trees grown from seed were already thriving to some extent when the colonists arrived.

The new world's first orchard was most likely on what is now Beacon Hill in Boston and was owned by the eccentric man of the cloth, Reverend William Blaxton; Boston's only resident from 1625 through 1630. Blaxton cultivated the "Blaxton's Yellow Sweeting" variety of apple from seeds he brought with him from Europe, and gave them away to his Beacon Hill neighbors while riding atop his tamed bull. After inviting the Puritans to come join him on his peninsula (they rejected the hospitality of Salem and objected to the "briny" drinking water of Charlestown) he soon became disgusted by their overbearing laws, sold the Boston Common to them for mere pocket change, dug up his seedlings and rode his bull to Providence. There he established the new world's second orchard and cultivated the "Rhode Island Greening".

Another early settler, Thomas Morton, known in the 1620s and 1630s on the South Shore as "Mine host of Merrymount" hosted infamous parties atop Mount Wollaston in what is today the city of Quincy. After erecting a fifty foot Maypole and dubbing his seaside home "Merrymount," Morton and his friends horrified locals like Pilgrim fathers William Bradford and Captain Myles Standish, by celebrating Christmas, drinking, carousing and trading weapons with Indians. He and his bacchanalian buddies were rebuked regularly for fostering what the Pilgrims generally called "a school of atheism".

When Morton's closest neighbor died his widow put up some of her inheritance to have Morton shipped back to England. Standish, known to Morton as "Captain Shrimpe," surprised a groggish if not drunk Morton, arrested him and off he went.

Standish, who took a bullet that winter morning, would never rid himself of the pesky Morton, who as fate would have it would come back to Merrymount--then get shipped back to Britain--then come back once again.

Later that century in Boston, rum, also called "rumbullion" and "kill-devil" at the time, was being made from molasses acquired through the West India trade. It was an industry that was widely complained about because it so cheaply got people drunk (about three shillings a gallon). This widely complained about low quality rum being produced by New England distillers would soon find a new market that would cast a shadow over the industry here forever. Shiploads of rum were sent down to the coast of Africa and were traded for human slaves.

Many other drinks including mead, metheglin, sillabub, mumm, sack, claret and sack-posset were also popular drinks here at that time. As good as we might think the present day bar scene is in Boston there was an even better time in our bar culture of impossible importance. Pre-revolutionary taverns served as cauldrons of ferment where people the likes of Sam Adams argued over British rule. Several taverns of that era claimed that the Boston Tea Party was planned within their walls.Daniel Webster once called Boston's "Green Dragon Tavern" the "Headquarters of the American Revolution." So alcoholic beverages were both a necessity and a nuisance, inspired both great acts and loathsome crimes in colonial and pre-revolutionary Massachusetts.

Whatever the reason for drinking there was surely a lot consumed. According to historian Sanborn C. Brown, who wrote the bible on colonial beverages;: Wines and Beers of Old New England, cider consumption by 1767 was reported at about five gallons per person during the course of a day.

Presently, while consumption is down in New England from 1767, Boston boasts ten microbreweries-eight of which are brewpubs. Massachusetts is also home to three commercial cider makers.

We're proud that as our brewing industry approaches adolescence the nation's brewers are here to see just how we're doing.

Pull quote:

Several taverns of the colonial era claimed that the Boston Tea Party was planned within their walls.