Let friends who go fishing for salmon or wrasse, Take a hint from the story of Allsop and Bass; When you hook a fine fish, of your brother keep clear, Or your salmon, when caught, may _embitter your beer_ (bier). {347} One of the most ancient and important brewing centres in the kingdom is the city of Dublin. With one exception, all its breweries are exclusively devoted to the manufacture of stout, that sturdy beverage the fame of which has gone forth into all lands; and just as Burton has acquired the right to be termed the Pale Ale Metropolis, so does Ireland’s chief town contend with London for the honour of being called the Capital of Black Beer. It is remarkable that so early as the commencement of the seventeenth century, Dublin was already a notable brewing centre, producing a description of brown ale. Barnaby Ryche, writing about that time, gives a quaint account of the manners and customs of the people, and calls attention to the great number of alehouses in Dublin during the reign of James I. “I am now,” he says, “to speake of a certaine kind of commodity, that outstretcheth all that I have hitherto spoken of, and that is the selling of ale in Dublin, a quotidian commodity that hath vent in every house in the towne, every day in the weeke, at every houre in the day, and in every minute in the houre: There is no merchandise so vendible, it is the very marrow of the commonwealth in Dublin: the whole profit of the towne stands upon ale-houses, and selling of ale, but yet the cittizens, a little to dignifie the title, as they use to call every pedlar a merchant, so they use to call every ale-house a taverne, whereof there are such plentie, that there are streates of tavernes. “. . . . This free mart of ale selling in Dublyne is prohibited to none, but that it is lawfull for every woman (be she better or be she worse) either to brewe or else to sell ale.” About the time of the Restoration there were ninety-one public brewhouses in Dublin, and in the early part of the eighteenth century the trade, though on the decrease, was evidently thriving, the brewhouses being seventy in number. It seems, however, that, as the century wore on, the trade died away, for in 1773 there were only thirty-five Breweries surviving. The decay of so important an industry was chiefly due to three causes: In the first place, the Irish brewers were saddled with a heavy tax, and, secondly, English Porter was taking the place of old Irish brown ale in the popular fancy. An old song on the Tavern of the Cross Keys, in Dublin, composed about the middle of the century, opens with the lines— When London Porter was not known in town And Irish ale or beer went glibly down. {348}