The ale brewed was a very different product from what we understand by the term now, as malt liquor was not hopped in those days. Hops were not used in the making of beer until the early years of the sixteenth century. Mr. Riley says that the best ale was no better than sweet wort, and so thin that it might be drunk in potations 'pottle deep,' without danger to the head. The smallest measure mentioned in the _Liber Albus_ is the quart, so that it was evidently drunk in large quantities. It was used immediately after being made, as may be inferred from the fact that, according to the _Domesday of St. Paul's_, the brewings at the Cathedral brewery took place twice a week throughout the year. Immediately after a brewing was finished it was the duty of the brewer (or rather brewster, for the business was almost entirely in the hands of women until the beginning of the sixteenth century) to send for the ale-conner of the ward in order to taste the ale. If this officer was not satisfied with its quality, he, with the assent of his alderman, set a lower price upon it, which upon sale thereof was not to be exceeded. Fine, imprisonment, and even punishment by pillory was the result of reiterated breaches of the Assize. The Assize price of ale varied at different periods. At one time it was 3/4d. per gallon and no more, but later the price was 1-1/2d. for the best, and 3/4d. to 1d. for the second quality.[336] The vintners were an important body, and were mostly located in the Vintry, a district which has kept its name to the present time. The Vintners' Company consisted of _vinetarii_, or wine importers and merchants, and _tabernarii_, tavern keepers, or retailers of wine. The public taste in wine was not a very refined one in the Middle Ages, or possibly the liquor did not keep very well, as new wine was preferred to old. It was enacted that after the arrival of new wine at a tavern none of it should be sold before the old was disposed of. There is no allusion in the _Liber Albus_ to bottles or flasks, and all the wine seems to have been drawn from the wood. Taverners who sold sweet wines were forbidden to deal in other kinds. The sweet wines enumerated are Malvesie, the modern Malmsey, a Greek wine sold in the reign of Richard II. at 16d. per gallon; Vernage (Vernaccia), a red Tuscan wine, sold at 2s.; Crete, sold at 1s; and wine of Provence, sold at the same price, probably a kind of Roussillon. By royal writ of 39 Edw. III., only three taverns for the sale of sweet wines were in future to be permitted within the city,--in Cheap, Walbrook, and Lombard Street. In the class of non-sweet wines were Rhenish, sold in the reign of Richard II. at 8d. per gallon, and Red (Vermaille) at 6d. Other wines came from Gascony, Burgundy, Rochelle, and Spain.