In CA 419, Chris Catling reported on the history and development of kilns and oast houses used for drying the hops that help to preserve and give flavour to beer. This month, he reports on the buildings associated with the production of the malted grain used primarily in making beer and whisky, but also as an ingredient in a range of foods, from bagels to biscuits, and from vinegar to Ovaltine.
The websites of upmarket estate agents will typically feature a dozen or more properties for sale in Sussex or Kent converted from 19th-century oast houses. These desirable residences once served a humbler purpose, drying the resinous hop flowers that are an essential ingredient in the nation’s beer. Patrick Grattan recorded the last of these buildings in use for that purpose in the 1960s, and his knowledge has fermented into a detailed history of the oast, as Chris Catling now reports.
Which Old Testament figure is famed for his drunkenness?
Earlier this year, CA reported on excavations at a 2.3ha site called ‘Field 44’ near Tempsford in Central Bedfordshire, where archaeologists from Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) and the Cambridge Archaeological Unit found the remains of two Iron Age roundhouses…