ents, the Legislature, apprehensive
from the mischief that might, and actually did, result from it, passed
an Act prohibiting the use of burnt sugar, in July 1817; and nothing but
malt and hops is now allowed to enter into the composition of beer: even
the use of isinglass for clarifying beer, is contrary to law.

No sooner had the beer-colouring Act been repealed, than other persons
obtained a patent for effecting the purpose of imparting an artificial
colour to porter, by means of brown malt, specifically prepared for that
purpose only. The beer, coloured by the new method, is more liable to
become spoiled, than when coloured by the process formerly practised.
The colouring malt does not contain any considerable portion of
saccharine matter. The grain is by mere torrefaction converted into a
gum-like substance, wholly soluble in water, which renders the beer
more liable to pass into the acetous fermentation than the common brown
malt is capable of doing; because the latter, if prepared from good
barley, contains a portion of saccharine matter, of which the patent
malt is destitute.

But as brown malt is generally prepared from the worst kind of barley,
and as the patent malt can only be made from good grain, it may become,
on that account, an useful article to the brewer (at least, it gives
colour and body to the beer;) but it cannot materially economise the
quantity of malt necessary to produce good porter. Some brewers of
eminence in this town have assured me, that the use of this mode of
colouring beer is wholly unnecessary; and that porter of the requisite
colour may be brewed better without it; hence this kind of malt is not
used in their establishments. The quantity of gum-like matter which it
contains, gives too much ferment to the beer, and renders it liable to
spoil. Repeated experiments, made on a large scale, have settled this
fact.

STRENGTH AND SPECIFIC DIFFERENCES OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF PORTER.

The strength of all kinds of beer, like that of wine, depends on the
quantity of spirit contained in a given bulk of the liquor.

The reader need scarcely be told, that of no article there are more
varieties than of porter. This, no doubt, arises from the different mode
of manufacturing the beer, although the ingredients are the same. This
difference is more striking in the porter manufactured among country
brewers, than it is in the beer brewed by the eminent London porter
brewers. The totality of the Lond