It is advisable to build your cellars for keeping liquors after such a manner, that no external air can get into them; for the variation of the air abroad, were there free admission of it into the cellars, would cause as many altercations in the liquor, and would thereby keep them in so unsettled a state, as to render them unfit for drinking. Some people, curious in these matters, have double doors to their cellars with a view that none of the external air may find a way into them, and are amply repaid for their care and expense by the goodness of their liquor. The intent of the double door is, to keep one shut while the other is open, that the external air may be excluded. Such cellars, if they lie dry as they ought to do, are said to be cold in summer, and warm in winter; though, in reality, they are constantly the same in point of tempera-ture. They seem, indeed, cold in hot weather, but that is only because we go into them from a hotter air abroad; and the same mode of reasoning will hold good, with respect to their appearing warmer in winter. Hence it is evident, that they are only cold or warm comparatively, as the air we come out of is colder or warmer. This should be the peculiar pro-perty of a cellar, if we expect to have good liquor out of it. As for the brewing part itself, we have already considered that matter; what we shall therefore further principally touch upon, besides speaking of cellaring, will relate to water, malt, hops, and the proper keeping of liquors.

To speak in general, the best water is river-water, such as is soft, and has partaken of the air and sun; for this easily insinuates itself into the malt, and extracts its virtues. On the contrary, hard waters astringe and bind the pores of the malt, so that its virtue is not freely communicated to the liquor. It is a rule with some, that all water that will mix with soap is fit for brewing, and they will by no means allow of any other; and it has been more than once experienced, that where the same quantity of malt has been used to a barrel of river-water, as to a barrel of spring-water, the river-water brewing has excelled the other in strength about five degrees in twelve months. It must be observed likewise, that the malt was not only the same in quantity for one barrel as for the other, but was the same quality, having been all measured from the same heap. The hops were also the same, both in quality and quantity, and the time and boiling equal to each. They were worked in the same manner, and tunned and kept in the same cellar. Here it was evident, that the only difference was in the water, and yet one barrel was worth two of the other.

One thing has long puzzled the ablest brewers, and that is, when several gentlemen in the same town have employed the same brewer, have had the same malt, the same hops, and the same water, and brewed it in the same month, and broached their drink at the same time, yet one has had beer extremely fine, strong, and well tasted, while the others have had hardly any worth drinking. There may be three reasons for this difference: One might be the difference of weather, which might happen at the several brewings in this month, and make an alteration in the working of the liquors. Secondly, that the yeast or barm might be of different sorts, or in different states, wherewith these liquors were worked ; and thirdly, the cellars were not equally good. The goodness of such drink as is brewed for keeping, in a great measure depends on the goodness of the cellar in which it is kept.

The Dorchester beer, which is so much admired, is for the most part brewed of chalky water, which is almost every where in that county ; and as the soil is generally chalk, the cellars, being dug in that dry soil, contribute to the good keeping of their drink, it being of a close texture, and of a drying quality, so as to dissipate damps; for damp cellars, we find by experience, are injurious to the keeping of liquors, as well as destructive to the casks. A constant temperate air digests and softens malt liquors, so that they taste quite smooth on the palate; but in cellars which are unequal, by letting in heats and colds, the liquor is subject to grow stale and sharp. For this reason it is that liquor brewed for long voyages at sea should be perfectly ripe and fine before it be exported ; for when it has had sufficient time to digest in the cask, and is racked from the bottom, or lee, it will bear carnage without injury.

It has been observed, that in proportion to the quantity of liquor which is enclosed in one cask, so will it be to a longer or shorter time in ripening. A vessel, containing two hogsheads of beer, will require twice as much time to perfect itself as one of a hogshead ; and it is found by experience, that no vessel should be used for strong beer, which is intended to be kept, less than a hogshead, as one of that quantity, if it be fit to draw it in a year, has body enough to support it two, three or four years, if it have strength of malt and hops in it, as the Dorchester beer has.

One great piece of economy is the good management of small beer; for if that be not good, the drinkers of it will be feeble in summer-time, incapable of strong work, and will be very subject to distempers. Besides,When the beer is not good, a great deal will be thrown away. The use of drink, as well as meat, is to nourish the body; and the more labour there is upon any one, the more substantial should be the diet. In harvest-time, the ill effects of bad beer among the workmen are visible ; and in great families, where that article has not been attended to, the apothecaries bills have amounted to twice as much as the malt would have come to, that would have kept the servants in strength and good health. Besides, good wholesome drink is seldom thrown away by servants, and thus the sparing of a little malt ends in the loss of the master. Where there is good cellaring, therefore, it is advisable to brew a stock of small beer in March or October, or in both .months, to keep in hogsheads, if possible. The beer brewed in March should not be tapped till October, nor that brewed in October, till the March following ; having this regard to the quantity, that a family, of the same number of working persons, will drink a third more in summer than in winter.