"Thither we went, and found ourselves in a lofty and light chamber of similar dimensions to the cooling department, called the fermenting square room. It contains 117 square wooden vessels, each holding forty-five barrels, and all as clean as a new pin. In the middle of each is placed a tall mixing tunner or spreader, the shape of a doctor's stethescope, through which the added liquor is allowed to flow, so as to mix it well with the liquor which has first been run in. Here it is that the yeast is added, and the wonderful change of wort into beer takes place. This is a delicate process, as there are certain leading features to be distinguished by the watchful brewer, for, although he may have been successful in all the preceding stages, yet. should he fail in this, the advantage obtained will be of little avail. At the corner of this room, as usual, there is a capital office for the use of the Excise Officers, for it is here that their duties, as described in our first article, commence.
On returning to the staircase, we noticed on either side of the fermenting room a gas engine, which our guide informed us was used for hoisting yeast the union room below, and, on descending a few stairs we came to an intermediate low-pitched chamber, the floor of which is covered with asphalte and possesses side drains to run off the water that falls through the upper floor when the fermenting vessels placed therein are cleaned. In the centre, is the large receiving vessel, which acts as an intermediary between the fermenting squares and the union vessels, and the remainder of the floor is used for cleansing pipes and sundry other purposes. As there was nothing else that claimed our attention here, we proceeded to the floor below, which is another spacious and lofty apartment containing 640 union casks, each union holding 160 gallons, in which the fermentation of the liquor, now "beer," is completed. The ale from the fermenting squares is conducted to the union room through a series of pipes which discharge it into a long trough over the union casks, passing it from thence into the casks, by what are called union pipes ; and, fixed in the top of each cask is another pipe, called the swan neck, through which the barm passes or works itself from the cask to the top of the barm trough.
This, the process of cleansing, occupies from three to four days. Off this room, is the wing of the Old Brewery, before referred to, whose old walls are in some places nearly two feet thick. It is not quite so large a place as the room we had just left, nevertheless, it contains as many as 450 unions. The ground floor, underneath both union rooms, is appropriated to the racking department and contains some very large racking-squares with the usual running-off apparatus. It is here that the barrels are filled, hopped down, and then rolled into the railway trucks."
"Noted breweries of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. I" by Alfred Barnard, 1889, pages 66-68.
