Dray Dreamer
Horses have played a key role in the development of the brewing industries in both Europe and America. Could they have an important future role too? Dominic Roskrow reports.
It never fails to impress; the sight of two mammoth dray horses, liveried and resplendent, pulling a dray stacked with beer casks, the drayman be-suited in period costume. It is at once a page ripped from our history, a demonstration of endeavour and strength, a bridge between the land and industry, and a manifestation of class and standards.
Whenever a brewery parades its horses – and an increasing number are doing so on a growing number of occasions – we are reminded of our heritage and of the provenance of cask ale.
Perfect grooming and spotless harnesses reflect the pride that our brewers take in the ale.
And there is something reassuring and permanent about a horse-drawn dray. Powerful, stately and immense, dray horses represent a continuity and permanence.
The relationship between beer and horses stretches back hundreds of years and manifested itself most visibly on the streets, where drays delivered beer to tight-knit pub estates within a few miles of the brewery gates. But in the brewery, too, the horse played an essential task.
Big workhorses were used to drive the newly-mechanised mills, walking in endless circles and powering originally just the mills but later the pumps that would transfer the brewing liquor and worts through the brewery.
The horses – from various breeds and the product of the sort of breeding experimentation that drove farming in the Middle Ages – probably arrived in Britain with William the Conqueror in 1066. They were used primarily as we.....
To read the rest of this article you can buy this issue
or subscribe to Beers of the World to have every issue delivered direct to your door.
By Dominic Roskrow
Section : Beer history
Page number : 62
