_An enquiry into what may be, at all times, a proper stock of Beer, and the management of it in the cellars._ The business of a brewer is not confined to the mere manufacture of his commodity; his concerns, as a trader, deserve no less regard, and, in a treatise like this, should not be entirely omitted. As it is a fault not to have a sufficient stock of beers it the cellars, to serve the customers, it is one also to have more than is needful. By the first of these errors, the beers would be generally new and ill disposed for precipitation; by the other, quantities of stale beer must remain, which, becoming hard, will at last turn stale, and be unfit for use, unless blended with new brewed beers, to their detriment. These faults, if continued, may in time affect a whole trade, and ought therefore carefully to be avoided. For these reasons, the whole quantity to be moved, or expected to be supplied from the brewer’s store cellars, during the space of one twelvemonth, should be calculated, as near as possible; half this quantity ought to be the stock kept up from November to May inclusive, and nearly one third part thereof be remaining in September. From hence a table may be formed, by which it will be easy, at one view, to know the quantity that should be maintained at every season of the year, and to avoid almost every inconveniency, which otherwise must arise. Suppose, for example, the number of casks expected to be moved in a year, to be 320 butts, and 248 puncheons, the store cellars ought to be supplied, as to time and quantity, in the following proportion. Butts. Puncheons. January 160 124 February 160 124 March 160 124 April 160 124 May 160 124 June 146 113 July 133 103 August 120 93 September 107 82 October 133 103 November 160 124 December 160 124 After beers have been started in the cellars, the casks should be well and carefully stopped down, as soon as the repelling force of fermentation is so much lessened, as not to be able to oppose this design. Otherwise the elastic air, which is the vivifying principle of the drink, being lost, it would become vapid, and flat; and if left a long time in this condition, perhaps grow sour.