ALETASTER
of Ewell

A German Brewmaster c1437
Image source Wikimedia

Merton Historical Society records that Ewell was a royal manor until granted to Merton Priory in 1121 for ‘tenants of these Ewell properties [to form] a separate tithing [a group of ten householders who lived close together and were collectively responsible for each other’s behaviour] within Morden manor, with its own head tithingman [capitalis decennarius] and ale-taster [cervisie tastator] and, according to a survey of Ewell undertaken in 1408 by Merton Priory, Westminster Abbey’s holding there was called Morden fee.

At that time John (le) Herner atte Welle was both a tithingman and Ewell’s aletaster occupying a plot near ‘Cakeswell’, one of the sources of the Hogsmill River .

Bread and ale were staples of medieval village life and their quality was regulated through assizes that set appropriate standards for their weight, measure, quality or quantity. The assize for bread, for example, fixed price and weight according to the current price of wheat. The assize for ale worked in a similar way and set the price of a gallon in relation to the price of grain. The assize had to be determined and enforced locally because of local price variations. In order to test the quality and quantity of ale and bread local aletasters were elected from among villagers and their appointment confirmed at manorial Leet courts.

Central to the operation of the manor court was its monitoring of communal behaviour in the tithing , known as the ‘View of Frankpledge‘. Prosecutions for breach of the assize of ale involved charges which commonly amounted to a licence fee to sell alcohol rather than punishment for any actual offence. In 1408, John Herner, ‘having done his office well’, represented that five brewers including himself had brewed and broke the assize. Therefore they are severally in mercy’ [Amercement (financial penalty) 16 d. – two pence for each brew undertaken by the several individuals.]. Meaning that between them they were fined 16d. (or 2d for each brew).

Courts of Leet appointed various officials on an annual basis. An oath known to have been administered elsewhere, and at a later date, read as follows:-

“You shall swear that you shall well and truly serve the King’s Majesty and the Lord of this Leet in the office of aletaster; you shall have diligent care during the time of being in office to all the brewers and tiplers [dispensers rather than consumers of ale] wthin your office, that they and every one of them do make and sell wholesome ale and beer for man’s body, and that it be not sold until it is assayed by you and then to be sold according to the prices limited and appointed by the King’s Justices of the Peace; and all faults comitted by the brewers and tiplers, or by any of them you shall make known and present the same at this court, whereby due punishment may be inflicted upon them for their offences accordingly, and in every other thing you shall well and truly behave yourself in the said office for the year to come. So help you God.”

At Guildford a number of Quaker aletasters were distrained for refusing to swear on election to the role.

In the medieval period an ‘ale pole’ or ‘ale stake’ was a rudimentary sign used in England to indicate that a household had brewed a fresh batch of ale. Brewers were required to display an ale stake as a sign that there was ale open to inspection by the aletaster before sale. This is usually found depicted sticking out of a window or hanging from a house like a flagpole with with a mass of furze, or garland of flowers, or ivy-wreath, dangling at the end. The latter led to led to an old proverb, “Good wine needs no bush.”

Brewhouse from the Smithfield Decretals

In 1558, an example is found of an Order that ‘Every brewer and tippler that breweth ale to sale shall send and give sufficient warning to the aletaster, at every time of their brewing, to taste their ale under payne of forfeyting iiis ivd (3s 4d or 17p)’. 

According to traditional stories, an official aletaster wore leather breeches to test for the quality of the product. He was said to draw a tankard of ale , pour it on to a wooden bench and then sit in the pool he had made . If his breeches stuck to the place whereon he sat , the ale was not considered to be of the highest quality as it revealed that it had a high sugar content .

Punishments for brewing and vending bad ale could be fines or humiliating display in in a cucking, otherwise dung, stool with a hole cut into the seat to be used as a commode. Similiter malam cervisiam faciens, aut in Cathedra ponebatur stercoris, has been interpreted as ‘for making bad beer a brewster was put in the muck-cart’. A ‘cuck stool’ could also be used for ducking an offender. If declared ‘undrinkable’, presumably meaning below merchantable quality, the ale could nevertheless be donated for use by the poor and needy! Sometimes a producer might be compelled to drink his own sub-standard brew.

The customs of Epsom as recorded in the survey of 1680 include the annual appointment of ‘Two Constables the One for the Towne the other for Woodcott; Two Headboroughs One for the Towne the other for Woodcott and also one Aletaster’.

In London the inspector was called an ale-conner. The City still retains four ale-conners whose duty it is to examine the measures used by beer and liquor sellers to guard against fraud, chosen annually by the liverymen.

Brian Bouchard 2022