[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-422739-105":59,"doc-detail-422739-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","brewers-english-beer-and-the-english-language","Brewers’ English - Beer and the English language","","Brewers’ English explores the Mortlake Brewery’s history and its workplace traditions, then links brewing culture to specialized vocabulary and meaning. The text explains how brewing began in the Thames area as early as 1487, describes figures and business growth, and recounts superstitions about water and the “raven master.” It defines “brewers’ English” as jargon, surveys cask types and gallons, and analyzes how words like “barrel” shift meaning outside trade. It also contrasts beer and wine production and traces the word “beer” through historical languages.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/brewers-english-beer-and-the-english-language/422739/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/brewers-english-beer-and-the-english-language/422739.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Lucas Martin","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-02","2026-09-28",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":52},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What does the author mean by “Brewers’ English”?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It refers to brewers’ jargon, the specialized technical language used by people in the brewing trade, especially as heard at Mortlake Brewery in the 1960s.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"Why does the text say “barrel” means different things in and outside a brewery?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"In brewing, “barrel” is agreed to mean a specific 36-gallon cask, while in the wider world it commonly means a general cylindrical container; word meanings are conventional rather than fixed.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does the document distinguish beer from wine?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Wine comes from fermentation in fruits, while beer comes from an artificial fermentation process in grains, commonly barley, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide as described through yeast activity.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},422739,1791400838,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":52,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":34,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144},8796095360427,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_994ba38a5ba835b3df7d355c54d3ed8d","Brewers’ English: Beer and the English language  \nChristopher Mulvey  \nI want to start the story of Brewers'English with a particular brewery, the Mortlake Brewery. It is on the River Thames, and brewing began as early as 1487 when the site was owned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the mideighteenth century, two local breweries were amalgamated to form the beginnings of what became the famous Stag Brewery at Mortlake.1 The eighteenth was the century in which brewing became big business. By 1800, brewers had become such great men that we know their names today: James Watney, Sir Henry Meux, Spencer Charrington, Robert Courage, Samuel Whitbread -'each of them worth a million or close toit'.2 A million pounds in 1800 was not far off a billion pounds in modern purchasing power3 so those men had done well for themselves.  \nAt the end of the nineteenth century when brewing was becoming an even bigger business, Mortlake Brewery was sold to the Watney Company. Watney's still owned it when I went to work there in the summer of 1962. The thing about a brewery is that it is not like an ordinary factory or a workshop, and each of the old breweries had its own traditions and its own spirit. Mortlake Brewery had its own raven master whose job was to keep  \nthe ravens, if not happy, at least alive, and I was told that if the ravens died, the brewery would collapse - just like the Tower of London. Another superstition surrounded the word water. When I asked for a glass of it, I was told never to use that word in the brewery. 'It brings bad luck. You must call it \"liquor\"', I was told. That was my first lesson in Brewers'English.  \nEach division of the brewery had its own mess. I was in Cooperage, and I had to report for work at 8.15. In Cooperage, I thought that I was washing barrels. But I was not. Barrels, it turned out, were a species of cask that held thirty-six gallons of beer. The coopers' general name for a wooden beer container was 'cask', and each beer container had its own name. From smallest to largest, the names were: pin, firkin, kilderkin, barrel, puncheon, hogshead, butt, and tun. Actually, the only ones we saw at Mortlake were pins, firkins, barrels, and hogsheads. The smallest, the pin, holds four and a half gallons of beer and, the largest, the tun, holds 216 gallons. In Cooperage, we never saw butts and tuns because they are so big that they are only used for storing beer not for transporting it. Why we never saw kilderkins and puncheons, I do not know.  \nBrewery History Number 136 97  \nBrewers then have their own rich vocabulary. What I am calling Brewers' English is technically brewers' jargon. A jargon is'the specialized or technical language of a trade, profession, or similar group', asthe Oxford English Dictionary says. But, the word 'jargon' has negative overtones, so I am going to continue to speak of Brewers' English. It can be spoken in any accent, but it is worth noting that, as it was used in the Mortlake Brewery in the 1960s, the people speaking it were, by and large, South London working-class men.  \nPin, firkin, kilderkin, barrel, puncheon, and hogshead are beautiful words with precise meanings to everyone in the brewing trade, from coopers to publicans. But, it is not wrong for those of us outside the trade to call all of them barrels. It is only wrong in a brewery. In the big, wide world, the differences in size are not only unknown, they are unimportant. There is a linguistic lesson here. The lesson is that words do not have real meanings; they have conventional meanings. In the beer trade, people agree to make the word'barrel' mean a thirty-six gallon cask; in the outside world, the rest of us agree to make the word 'barrel' mean a 'large cylindrical container, usually made of staves bound together with hoops, with a flat top and bottom of equal diameter'.4 'Barrel' then means a 'large cylindrical container' unless we are looking at a gun, and then the word 'barrel' means something else again. Words ha","cbCail4FhldBrpzH","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCail4FhldBrpzH","pdf",93342,"English","# Brewers’ English\n## Mortlake Brewery origins and workplace traditions\n## Brewers’ vocabulary: casks and specialized jargon\n## Meaning and language conventions\n## Beer vs wine and fermentation basics\n## Etymology of the word “beer”","[{\"question\":\"What does the author mean by “Brewers’ English”?\",\"answer\":\"It refers to brewers’ jargon, the specialized technical language used by people in the brewing trade, especially as heard at Mortlake Brewery in the 1960s.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the text say “barrel” means different things in and outside a brewery?\",\"answer\":\"In brewing, “barrel” is agreed to mean a specific 36-gallon cask, while in the wider world it commonly means a general cylindrical container; word meanings are conventional rather than fixed.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the document distinguish beer from wine?\",\"answer\":\"Wine comes from fermentation in fruits, while beer comes from an artificial fermentation process in grains, commonly barley, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide as described through yeast activity.\"}]","Brewers’ English - Beer and the English language | PDF",1790628597,11]