The Leeuwarden Beer Riots

In the Middle Ages, beer was the drink of the people. ‘Ordinary’ rain and canal water was not safe to drink. Because the drink had to be heated during the production process, the barley juice contained fewer harmful bacteria than water and was therefore healthier. It is estimated that the average Frisian drank as much as 275 to 300 litres per year by the end of the Middle Ages, an average of just under a litre per day. This beer was often brewed at home and contained only a very low alcohol percentage.

The reason why I mentioned Frisian in the previous paragraph is because Leeuwarden is the Frisian capital. Friesland is a Northwestern province in the Netherlands.

In keeping with the divided nature between their external rulers and their internal governance, the provinces of the Netherlands developed from traditional tribal areas, maintaining their own customs and often their own languages. Even today, the Netherlands recognizes Dutch, Frisian, and Limburgish as official and distinct languages.

On 21 January 1435, the city of Leeuwarden became one of the villages of Aldehou and Hoek. Before that time, Leeuwarden consisted only of Nijehou, which lay on the terp of the Middelzee. This amalgamation was subject to a few conditions:

• No citizen of Holland should ever be allowed
  civil rights in the new city.

This condition was probably directed against the powerful lord of Hoek, Pieter van Cammingha. Previously, Pieter had negotiated with the Holland count. The Camminghas had a lot of money and power. They owned no less than six stinzen (the first stone houses were called stone houses and later shortened to stinzen).

• In the city of Leeuwarden, no beer other than
  Leeuwarden beer was allowed to be served,
  so only beer was brewed in the city.

The mighty beer brewers’ guild must have tried everything to make this obligation valid for the whole year, but they never quite succeeded. Because much more beer was drunk in the summer than in the winter, it was agreed that other beer could also be sold in Leeuwarden in the summer. For a few years, this rule was deviated from and it was therefore also forbidden to drink ‘beer from outside’ in Leeuwarden in the summer.

Thus it came to pass in the early summer of 1487 that the town leaders of Leeufwarden determined that to protect the business interest of the local brewers (and the city’s tax revenue from brewing), it would be necessary to ban the importation of all beers not brewed within the city. They further banned the selling of any existing stocks of foreign beers — a move that did not sit well with the local tavern owners.

Matters came to a head on July 24, a market day, when a large number of farmers were in the city to sell their produce who desired to quench their thirst before heading home, prevailed upon a local tavernkeeper to open his stock of Haarlem Beer. When the incident was reported to the authorities, an attempt was made to arrest the tavernkeeper and expel his patrons, who were now well fortified with the strong brew. A general riot ensued, and in the following days, citizens from neighbouring towns, estimated to number more than 8,000, besieged the city hall demanding that the ban on imported beer end.

On Monday 25 July, the army of 8,000 set out for Leeuwarden. At three o’clock in the afternoon, an attack was launched in the vicinity of the Gardens with explosive violence. However, the Leeuwarders were on edge and braced themselves. They fought back, but soon a second attack followed. The Leeuwarders also managed to repel that attack. Then there was a third wave of attacks. With deafening noise, a hurricane of violence pounds on the Leeuwarden defence line, which was weakened at this stage. The people of Leeuwarden were forced to withdraw, and the attackers entered the city en masse. There were many deaths.

While today, the Netherlands is recognized as a unified country, through much of its history the country has been more often divided than not.

sources

https://www.dekroonopleeuwarden.frl/het-bloedstollende-liwwadder-bieroproer-uit-1487/?age-verified=9b0011ed6b

https://www.thecenterforruleoflaw.org/rule-of-law-blog/july-24-1487-the-leeuwarden-beer-strike-begins

The kIdnapping and murder of Adolph Coors III

We have all heard of Coors beer and some of us probably drink it every once in a while. I do.

But not so many of us know the story and the drama behind the name.Adolph Coors stowed away to America at the age of 21 with a dream of brewing great beers. He realized that dream in 1873 on the banks of Clear Creek in Golden, Colorado.

On February 9th 1960 the Grandson of Adolph Coors and heir, Adolph Coors III,disappeared while driving to work from his Morrison, Colorado, home.  the then chairman of the Golden, Colorado, brewery was kidnapped and held for ransom before being shot to death. Surrounding evidence launched one of the FBI’s largest manhunts: the search for Joe Corbett.

On February 9, 1960, a milkman sounded his horn several times in an attempt to get the attention of the driver of a station wagon that was blocking the middle of the bridge over Turkey Creek, near Morrison, Colorado. When there was no response, he got out of his truck and walked to the vehicle—it was empty, but its engine was running and the radio playing. A few more beeps on the horn didn’t bring the driver back, so the milkman moved the car himself to the side of the road, noticing a reddish-brown stain on the bridge and a hat on the edge of the river bank below.

The milkman reported the matter to the local police, who quickly determined that the car belonged to Adolph Coors, III. Heir to the Coors Brewing Company fortune, Coors had left his house—not far from the bridge—that morning, but had not been seen since. Searchers soon spread out over the area looking for the missing 45-year-old father of four. In addition to the hat, a few objects belonging Coors were found below the bridge, but no other trace was found during the wider search.

Twenty-four hours later, the FBI’s Denver Division entered the case to help Colorado authorities—with the passage of a day since Coors’ disappearance, the federal kidnapping statute could be invoked and the full investigative resources of the Bureau could be called upon. Coors’ wife, Mary, received a typewritten note that day demanding a ransom for the return of her husband. Under the guidance of law enforcement, she followed the instructions regarding contacting the kidnapper but heard nothing back.

 

The FBI Laboratory began analyzing the available evidence, especially the ransom note, which had a distinct typeface and was written on paper with an uncommon watermark.

Meanwhile, state and local police pursued leads closer to the scene of the crime, conducting extensive interviews and other investigative activities. They soon focused on a canary yellow Mercury that had been seen in the area on several occasions and tried to track down its driver, a man who called himself Walter Osborne. The FBI learned that Osborne had disappeared around the time of Coors’ abduction, but before doing so had obtained a gun, handcuffs, and a typewriter. And the Bureau also learned that Osborne had obtained an insurance policy at a previous job, and that policy designated a man named Joseph Corbett as his beneficiary.

Corbett, in turn, had a son—Joseph Corbett, Jr.—who had previously been convicted of murder but had escaped from a California prison. Now a chief suspect in the Coors case, the FBI obtained a fugitive warrant for him and placed him on the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list soon after.

Throughout the summer of 1960, Corbett, Jr.’s trail remained cold. But tragically, the trail leading to Adolph Coors ended on September 11, 1960, when some hikers came across a pair of trousers in the woods about 12 miles southwest of Sedalia, a town south of Denver. The pants had a key ring bearing the initials ACIII. The trousers, other items of clothing, and skeletal remains found there were determined to belong to Coors. A jacket and shirt had bullet holes that showed he had been shot in the back, and an analysis of a shoulder bone confirmed this.

The story of Coors’ disappearance remained in the public eye and was featured in various publications, including Reader’s Digest. Corbett, Jr.’s wanted photo sparked interest and leads across America, but it was the magazine’s readers in Canada who would break the case. One reader pointed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and their FBI allies to an apartment rented by a man who resembled Corbett, Jr., but the man had recently moved on. The next day, the manager of a rooming house in Winnipeg called local police to report that a man who looked like the fugitive had recently stayed at her flophouse. She also noted that the suspect had been driving a fire engine red Pontiac.

That new information went out across Canada, and on October 29, 1960, a Vancouver police officer reported a similar vehicle parked outside of local motor inn. Soon, police—with the assistance of the FBI’s Toronto legal attaché office—were knocking on the door of the hotel room. The man who answered said, “I give up. I’m the man you want.”

Corbett, Jr. was returned to Colorado, where he was tried by the state for Coors’ murder (because Coors’ remains were found within the state, he wasn’t tried on federal kidnapping charges). During the trial, the FBI offered 23 agents, five lab examiners, and a fingerprint expert to help put forward an iron-clad case. Especially compelling was the ransom note believed to have been typed on Corbett, Jr.’s typewriter, and damning evidence taken from his burned-out canary yellow Mercury, which was recovered by law enforcement in New Jersey shortly after Coors’ disappearance. On March 19, 1961, Joseph Corbett, Jr. was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Corbett never testified at his trial and never made any statement, but the evidence was enough to convince the jury who convicted him in 1961. He was released in 1978.

In 1996 Corbett gave his only interview following his release from prison; in it, he maintained his innocence.On August 24, 2009, Corbett, who was 80 and had been suffering from cancer, was found dead in his apartment of a single self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Adolph Coors III was not the only beer ‘brewer’ to have been kidnapped.Edward Bremer of the Schmidt Brewery and Freddie Heineken of the Heineken beer company also had been kidnapped, however they were both released.

 

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I’ll drink to that-Lets open a can.The history of canned beer.

This is a subject that is close to my heart, it makes me emotional. In fact after having had a few of these it makes me very emotional.

It is beer! And not just any beer, but canned beer.

Having a can of beer is not just having a drink, it is an adventure. You put them in the fridge to get them to the right temperature. You then open the can, not knowing in what velocity the beer will vacate the can. Then the most important thing the pour.

Determine the right angle to approach the glass and the correct speed of pouring the beer to get the correct level of foam to top of the class, It’s not just a drink but a piece of art.

But how did it all start?

Canned beer made its debut on January 24 1935. In partnership with the American Can Company, the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale to faithful Krueger drinkers in Richmond, Virginia. Ninety-one percent of the drinkers approved of the canned beer, driving Krueger to give the green light to further production.

The American Can Co. began experimenting with canned beer in 1909. But the cans couldn’t withstand the pressure from carbonation – up to 80 pounds per square inch – and exploded. Just before the end of the Prohibition in 1933, the company developed a “keg-lining” technique, coating the inside of the can the same as a keg.

Krueger had been brewing beer since the mid-1800s, but had suffered from the Prohibition and worker strikes. When American Can approached with the idea of canned beer, it was initially unpopular with Krueger execs. But American Can offered to install the equipment for free: If the beer flopped, Krueger wouldn’t have to pay.

So, in 1935 Krueger’s Cream Ale and Krueger’s Finest Beer were the first beers sold to the public in cans. Canned beer was an immediate success. The public loved it, giving it a 91 percent approval rating.

The response was overwhelming. Within three months, over 80 percent of distributors were handling Krueger’s canned beer, and Krueger’s was eating into the market share of the “big three” national brewers–Anheuser-Busch, Pabst and Schlitz. Competitors soon followed suit, and by the end of 1935, over 200 million cans had been produced and sold.

The purchase of cans, unlike bottles, did not require the consumer to pay a deposit. Cans were also easier to stack, more durable and took less time to chill. As a result, their popularity continued to grow throughout the 1930s, and then exploded during World War II, when U.S. brewers shipped millions of cans of beer to soldiers overseas.

After the war, national brewing companies began to take advantage of the mass distribution that cans made possible, and were able to consolidate their power over the once-dominant local breweries, which could not control costs and operations as efficiently as their national counterparts.

Historic Beer Birthday: Gottfried Krueger

Beer Cans

First Canned Beer Sold on January 24, 1935

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The London beer flood October 1814

No this is not a Carlsberg ad.”Carlsberg don’t do floods but if they did”

On Monday 17th October 1814, a terrible disaster claimed the lives of 8 people in St Giles, London. A bizarre industrial accident resulted in the release of a beer tsunami onto the streets around Tottenham Court Road.

The Horse Shoe Brewery stood at the corner of Great Russell Street and Tottenham Court Road. In 1810 the brewery, Meux and Company, had had a 22 foot high wooden fermentation tank installed on the premises. Held together with massive iron rings, this huge vat held the equivalent of over 3,500 barrels of brown porter ale, a beer not unlike stout.

On the afternoon of October 17th 1814 one of the iron rings around the tank snapped. About an hour later the whole tank ruptured, releasing the hot fermenting ale with such force that the back wall of the brewery collapsed. The force also blasted open several more vats, adding their contents to the flood which now burst forth onto the street. More than 320,000 gallons of beer were released into the area. This was St Giles Rookery, a densely populated London slum of cheap housing and tenements inhabited by the poor, the destitute, prostitutes and criminals.

The flood reached George Street and New Street within minutes, swamping them with a tide of alcohol. The 15 foot high wave of beer and debris inundated the basements of two houses, causing them to collapse. In one of the houses, Mary Banfield and her daughter Hannah were taking tea when the flood hit; both were killed.

In the basement of the other house, an Irish wake was being held for a 2 year old boy who had died the previous day. The four mourners were all killed. The wave also took out the wall of the Tavistock Arms pub, trapping the teenage barmaid Eleanor Cooper in the rubble. In all, eight people were killed. Three brewery workers were rescued from the waist-high flood and another was pulled alive from the rubble.

All this ‘free’ beer led to hundreds of people scooping up the liquid in whatever containers they could. Some resorted to just drinking it, leading to reports of the death of a ninth victim some days later from alcoholic poisoning.

‘The bursting of the brew-house walls, and the fall of heavy timber, materially contributed to aggravate the mischief, by forcing the roofs and walls of the adjoining houses.‘ The Times, 19th October 1814.

Some relatives exhibited the corpses of the victims for money. In one house, the macabre exhibition resulted in the collapse of the floor under the weight of all the visitors, plunging everyone waist-high into a beer-flooded cellar.

The stench of beer in the area persisted for months afterwards.

The brewery was taken to court over the accident but the disaster was ruled to be an Act of God, leaving no one responsible.

The flood cost the brewery around £23000 (approx. £1.25 million today). However the company were able to reclaim the excise duty paid on the beer, which saved them from bankruptcy. They were also granted ₤7,250 (₤400,000 today) as compensation for the barrels of lost beer.

Eventually, Meux’s Horse Shoe Brewery went to court over the incident where they were found innocent. The brewery’s flood, the judge said, was nothing more than an “Act of God.

This unique disaster was responsible for the gradual phasing out of wooden fermentation casks to be replaced by lined concrete vats. The Horse Shoe Brewery was demolished in 1922; the Dominion Theatre now sits partly on its site.

Now I don’t have a choice but if I did this would be the way to go.

source

https://www.thefactsite.com/london-beer-flood-facts/

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-London-Beer-Flood-of-1814/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1814-beer-flood-killed-eight-people-180964256/

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I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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Michael Jackson-What’s in a name?

I am deviating a bit from my regular blogs for this more quirky and lighthearted blog.Living in an English speaking country my name is quite unique so my name is automatically associated to only me(at least where I live) , but the name Michael Jackson is fairly common and yet it is only associated with one man.

However there are several men who carry the same name and are famous(sometimes infamous) in their respective professions.

Starting off with that one man, the most famous of them all.

Michael Jackson: American singer-songwriter, dancer and record producer.

Called the “King of Pop”,his contributions to music, dance, and fashion along with his publicized personal life made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades.

The eighth child of the Jackson family (one of whom died in infancy), Michael made his professional debut in 1964 with his elder brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon as a member of the Jackson 5.

He began his solo career in 1971. In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. His music videos, including those of “Beat It”, “Billie Jean”, and “Thriller” from his 1982 album Thriller, are credited with breaking racial barriers and transforming the medium into an art form and promotional tool. The popularity of these videos helped bring the television channel MTV to fame. Jackson’s 1987 album Bad spawned the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You”, “Bad”, “The Way You Make Me Feel”, “Man in the Mirror”, and “Dirty Diana”, becoming the first album to have five number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100.

He continued to innovate with videos such as “Black or White” and “Scream” throughout the 1990s, and forged a reputation as a touring solo artist. Through stage and video performances, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive sound and style has influenced numerous artists of various music genres.Sadly he died on June 25 ,2009.

Michael Jackson is a UK male singer who was lead vocalist with the heavy metal band Satan/Pariah

This is Michael Jackson is also a singer but from the complete opposite spectrum of the music industry. As the name of his band suggests it is not as clean cut as the other singer with the same name.

Michael was born in Lancaster, Lancashire in 1964 to Estelle & Michael Jackson. He was brought up by his mother in Morecambe, Lancashire from an early age. A fanatical Queen fan Michael Jackson dreamed of being a rock singer like his idol Freddie Mercury.

Entering the Merchant Navy straight from school Michael spent 5 years sailing all over the world while singing with the band Rough Edge between assignments. Eventually he decided to answer an advertisement, learned the required songs and traveled to London for his audition with the band Satan. After a successful interview at Clink Studios, Tower Bridge, London Michael moved there to join Satan.

General Sir Michael  Jackson,GCB, CBE, DSO, DL (born 21 March 1944)

A retired British Army officer and one of its most high-profile generals since the Second World War. Originally commissioned into the Intelligence Corps in 1963, he transferred to the Parachute Regiment in 1970, with which he served two of his three tours of duty in Northern Ireland. On his first, he was present as an adjutant at the events of Bloody Sunday (1972), when soldiers opened fire on protesters, killing 13 people.

On his second, he was a company commander in the aftermath of the Warrenpoint ambush (1979), the British Army’s heaviest single loss of life during the Troubles. He was assigned to a staff post at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1982 before assuming command of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment, in 1984. Jackson was posted to Northern Ireland for the third time, as a brigade commander, in the early 1990s.

Michael  Jackson (born 24 May 1956) is the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin and Bishop of Glendalough since 2011.

Jackson was born in Lurgan, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, the son of Church of Ireland rector (latterly appointed Archdeacon of Elphin & Ardagh), and educated at Ballinamallard Primary School and Portora Royal School, Enniskillen. Trinity College, Dublin, before going on to do postgraduate studies at Cambridge University. He is married to Inez Cooke, a medical doctor who was born in County Fermanagh, and they have one daughter, Camilla.

Michael  Jackson (27 March 1942 – 30 August 2007) was an English writer and journalist.

He was the author of many influential books about beer and whiskey. He was a regular contributor to a number of British broadsheets, particularly The Independent and The Observer.

Jackson’s books have sold over three million copies worldwide and have been translated into eighteen different languages.He is credited with helping to start a renaissance of interest in beer and breweries worldwide in the 1970s, particularly in the United States.He is also widely credited with popularising the idea of beer styles.His influential television series The Beer Hunter was shown in fifteen different countries.

He was as equally versed in the world of malt whisky as well as beer, and his book, Michael Jackson’s Malt Whisky Companion (1989) is the best-selling book on the subject in the world.

At the time of his death Jackson had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for at least a decade. He did not declare his illness until his symptoms caused some to think he was drunk.Any beer enthusiast, like me will know his books on beer.

 

Finishing up with a song from the most famous of all Michael Jacksons, Michael Jackson.