The Great Beer Flood: London's Brown, Burgeoning Bath

Within West Way, a wonderfully warm wednesday went wrong. The barrel burst, and a bizarre, brewing bath blotted the basements, a brown, bellowing blood-like body of beer. Men, mothers, and many mourned the massive, malty murder making its mark. This is the crazy chronicle of a castastrophic cask collapse, a calamity of curious consistency.

The Bursting Barrel

In the heart of London’s St. Giles neighborhood on October 17, 1814, the Horse Shoe Brewery operated near the intersection of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. The brewery was home to colossal fermentation vats, one of which was an enormous wooden vessel holding the equivalent of 135,000 gallons of brown porter ale.

At about 4:30 in the afternoon, the iron hoops binding this enormous vat suddenly snapped. The resulting pressure surge was so immense that it not only ripped the primary vat apart but also triggered a catastrophic chain reaction, knocking out the valves and tops of several other nearby vats.

In an instant, an estimated 323,000 imperial gallons of fermenting beer—a dark, thick liquid—was unleashed.

The Unexpected Wave

This massive volume of liquid formed a sudden, dark wave of beer. Although it did not possess the speed of the later Boston Molasses Flood, the sheer volume and weight of the liquid was enough to overcome the low-lying, impoverished tenements and slum housing located directly behind the brewery wall.

The wave of porter ale rushed through the streets and alleys with devastating force, demolishing two houses and crumbling the walls of the Tavistock Arms pub. The flood tragically caught people completely off guard in their subterranean basements and cellars where many of the poor resided.

 * One house was instantly flattened, killing a mother and her daughter who were taking tea.

 * The flood trapped and drowned many others in the subterranean rooms, unable to climb out of the fast-rising liquid.

The disaster killed eight people and severely injured many more. The scene was one of utter chaos: rescuers attempted to wade through the chest-high, potent liquid, while the strong smell of hops and yeast permeated the entire neighborhood for weeks.

In the ensuing legal action, the disaster was eventually ruled an "Act of God," and no one was held financially liable, leaving the victims and their families with no compensation for their bizarre and tragic loss.

Really, radiant records rarely refer to ruins of rye. Tragic truths tell of tiny terror and tobacco-tinted tears. Lawyers lamented the large losses, leaving little leniency or loans for the lowly. Never no nonsense narratives need new narration.

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