A mighty local reputation had "Dorchester Ale," and it still commands a local influence, for this summer I was advised by the waiter of the Phoenix Hotel to try a bottle of "Grove's Stingo" made in the town. It is a potent beverage--and needs to be treated with respect, to be drunk slowly and in judicious moderation. Thomas Hardy thus describes this wonderful stuff, the "pale-hued Dorchester" in his novel, _The Trumpet Major_: "In the liquor line Loveday laid in an ample barrel of Dorchester strong beer.... It was of the most beautiful colour that the eye of an artist in beer could desire; full in body, yet brisk as a volcano; piquant, yet without a twang; luminous as an autumn sunset; free from streakiness of taste; but, finally, rather heady." Francis Fawkes, in his song of the Brown Jug (1720-1777), mentions the "Dorchester Butt," and perhaps the Dorset reader, with, it may be, some tender memories of his own, will fancifully identify "sweet Nan of the Vale" with another maid down Blackmore Vale way. "Dear Tom, this brown jug that now foams with mild ale (In which I will drink to sweet Nan of the Vale), Was once Toby Fillpot, a thirsty old soul As e'er drank a bottle or fathom'd a bowl; In boosing about 'twas his praise to excel, And among jolly topers he bore off the bell. It chanced as in dog-days he sat at his ease In his flow'r-woven arbour as gay as you please, With a friend and a pipe puffing sorrows away, And with honest old stingo was soaking his clay, His breath-doors of life on a sudden were shut, And he died full as big as a Dorchester butt. His body, when long in the ground it had lain, And time into clay had resolved it again, A potter found out in its covert so snug, And with part of fat Toby he form'd this brown jug: Now sacred to friendship and mirth and mild ale,-- So here's to my lovely sweet Nan of the Vale!"