The Development of Early Modern English Brewing, with Special Reference to the City of Bristol (1495-1714)

Abstract

Over the past two decades, the early modern period in England and Europe has come to be seen as an age of intoxication. Social historians have focused primarily on the consumption of inebriants, addressing the social, economic, and political ramifications of a growing taste for new products and the most popular intoxicants—ale and beer. Yet, the production and sale of these two inebriants has not been thoroughly scrutinised. While historians have produced landmark studies of the English brewing trade in the late medieval era and during the Industrial Revolution, respectively, the early modern period has been relatively neglected. This study aims to contribute to that knowledge base, employing the provincial urban centre of Bristol as a case study. The brewing centre that developed in the second-largest English port city achieved profitability between the late fifteenth and early eighteenth centuries, founded upon a surge in transatlantic exploration and the subsequent emergence of global cumulative economies. This thesis surveys the sustainable natural resources that contributed to the development of the Bristol brewing trade. The scope of national legislation that targeted the production and sales of ale and beer in early modern England and the subsequent taxation of the brewing trade is next presented to provide the broader context in which the trade developed. Then, a chapter is devoted to each of the three concurrently operating sectors of the Bristol brewing trade—private, alehouse, and common—individually identifying their presence and determining the perceived impact of national efforts to shape the trade when combined with additional local lawmaking. With this approach, the thesis argues that national legislation and taxation plus local laws contributed to rather than thwarted the specialisation, commercialisation, and eventual professionalisation of the rapidly evolving Bristol brewing trade prior to the Industrial Revolution.

Date of Award	30 Sept 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Evan T Jones (Supervisor) & Mark Hailwood (Supervisor)