One of the most interesting portions of a modern brewery is the cooperage. Coopers are highly-skilled workmen, and it is more or less of a marvel to see how without any measurement they plane down planks into staves for casks, and fit them together so closely that the {335} cask is perfectly sound and incapable of leaking. The length of the staves is measured, for the rest the Cooper trusts to his eye. Coopering is a most ancient trade, and appears from the illustration by Jost Ammon, in Schopper’s rare book, Πανοπλια, to be carried on in much the same way now as it was in Germany in the year 1568. [Illustration: Der Bender. A Sixteenth-century Cooperage.] Before giving any account of the firm known as Allsopp & Sons,[65] it is only fitting to devote a few lines to the Pale Ale Metropolis. [65] The following Sketches of certain of our great brewing firms are in alphabetical order. The task of placing the firms according to their importance or size was of a character too invidious to be attempted. The history of Burton has been so exhaustively treated by Mr. Molyneux that it is not an easy matter to add anything fresh on the subject. In the monastic establishments which were inaugurated at a very early date in the neighbourhood of the town, enormous quantities of ale were brewed. There is no record, however, of any public breweries at that date (1295), though there is little doubt that the trade of malting was largely carried on. By the sixteenth century a small local trade in brewing had been established. In a series of letters written by Walsingham, in 1584, to Sir Ralph Sadler, governor of Tutbury Castle, to the inquiry, “What place neere Tutbury beere may be provided for her Majestie’s use?” is the answer that “beere” may be had “at Burton three myles off.” Information of the progress of the Babbington conspiracy is said to have been conveyed to Mary Queen of Scots, while in Tutbury Castle, by a Burton brewer; and a load of beer on its way from Burton to Fotheringay was intercepted, and among the casks were found correspondence throwing fatal light on the plot. In 1630 the fame of the Burton ale had spread to London, and that excellent liquor was sold at “The Peacock” in Gray’s Inn Lane. In the _Spectator_ of May 20th, 1712, is recorded how the writer and Sir Roger de Coverley visit Vauxhall, where, after inspecting the garden, they concluded their walk “with a glass of Burton ale and a slice of hung beef.”