Interesting article[/url:2fm75pbq] on the Zythophile blog last week. In the mid-19th century biochemists were still debating whether fermentation was caused by living organisms? Who knew?
That's pretty cool. It'd be interesting to know if Beamish had recipe records going back then. I'm sure it'd be nothing like those ads for the Guinness Brewhouse series where the lads are like Indiana Jones in tunnels under the brewery <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->
Before germ theory scientists hypothosised 'spontaneous generation'. It took the work of Pasteur, I think, to shed light on the whole microbial world at work.