What was the London Beer Flood of 1814?

Tour the ancient world via beer

What did the people of yesterday make of beer, and how exactly did they make it? Explore the timeless beverage in this guide to ancient beers from around the world. Archaeological evidence suggests the rise of beer brewing may have coincided with humanity's shift from hunters to farmers. According to this article, beer was first enjoyed in ancient Mesopotamia, where paintings, poems, and myths glorified the porridge-like brew.

How beer became a part of medieval culture

This history of beer's evolution during the Middle Ages unpacks how the brewing process, which killed harmful bacteria, made beer a safe alternative to water. That fact, along with the Catholic church condoning (and, in some cases, producing) the beverage, helped it evolve into a major commodity.

The popular myth behind the India pale ale

Legend has it that the beer style earned its name in the late 1700s and early 1800s, when one brewer realized he had to add more alcohol and hops to his beers to survive the long boat ride to India. But as this essay by one beer historian makes clear, the facts don't line up with that myth.

More than 100 types of beer are produced around the world

Beer dates back to ancient times, and since then, the fermented drink has taken on many different styles around the globe, depending on the grain and ingredients used. See how pilsners, IPAs, Sours, and other types evolved from the drink's early history.

Dive into the history of beer via comic book

Why was the covered beer stein invented, and what led to the creation of the Vienna Lager beer style? Find out in this article about a 173-page comic book outlining the history of beer. According to creator Mike Smith, the history of beer is a...

Why are archaeologists brewing ancient beers?

Archaeologists have managed to brew beer from yeast found inside jugs abandoned thousands of years ago. This article explores why scientists are recreating these ancient beverages and what they hope to learn. People have been drinking beer for...

The forgotten carnivals that stood upon the frozen River Thames

The Thames Frost Fairs were unusual winter events that took place between 1607 and 1814. They happened during the so-called Little Ice Age, when the River Thames would freeze over for up to two months straight. These unique festivals transformed the frozen river into a bustling carnival-like environment where Londoners set up temporary shops, entertainment venues, and social spaces directly on the ice.

John Snow—not the one from 'Game of Thrones'—determined that contaminated water sickened London

His pioneering epidemiology work during an 1854 cholera outbreak mapped out the commonalities between people in London who were getting sick. He discovered that ill people were getting water from the same Broad Street pump. Before Snow's work, the prevailing theory was that bad air sickened individuals instead of cholera-causing bacteria in the water.

Play 17th-century death roulette

Before modern science and medicine, death was much harder to escape. Using real mortality records from London's Dreadful Visitation–a collection of all the Bills of Mortality from 1665–this interactive game gives you an idea of what may have possibly killed you during the Great Plague. Grow your appreciation for life today as you stumble upon causes of death like “livergrown” and “drowned at St. Katharine’s by the Tower”.

How Prohibition changed beer

This historical survey from The Beer Connoisseur explores the breweries that survived the government's ban on alcohol production. The common denominator? They all pivoted their business models.

The origins of British pub names

An estimated 50,000 pubs dot the streets and countrysides of Britain, many of which have histories going back centuries. This deep dive traces the origins of some of the most common pub names to the medieval era, including favorites Red Lion, Crown, and Royal Oak. Learn why such names were originally chosen and how they have come to evolve in recent centuries in this comprehensive overview.

A rush to invest in British rail in the 1840s led to investor ruin

During “Railway Mania,” speculative excitement pushed British rail shares to extreme valuations as investors chased rapid expansion. When costs ballooned and profits failed to materialize, the bubble collapsed in 1847—wiping out fortunes across the country.

George Washington had a recipe for 'small beer,' a low-alcohol beer that was once safer than drinking water.

6.7 million people attended Oktoberfest in 2024

With 6.7 million visitors and 1.8 million gallons of beer consumed, 2024's Oktoberfest was large, but smaller than 2023's, which had 7.2 million visitors, making it the most-attended Oktoberfest ever. It was also not the Oktoberfest that consumed the most beer—that would be 2011, with nearly 8 million liters, or roughly three Olympic swimming pools’ worth.

There’s some confusion over who founded the Bavarian Brewery that later became Budweiser

While many traditional histories credit German immigrant George Schneider with founding the Bavarian Brewery in 1852, an investigation from St. Louis Magazine found that it was actually started in 1857 by a fascinating German physician named Dr. Adam Hammer.

Researchers believe beer was being brewed 13,000 years ago

In 2018, archaeologists discovered traces of a wheat-and-barley-based alcoholic beverage near Haifa, in modern-day Israel, and believe it was produced by the Natufian people.

Scroll through a Budweiser historical timeline

From Eberhard Anheuser’s purchase of the Bavarian Brewery in 1860 to the Anheuser-Busch and InBev merger that created what became the world’s largest brewer, this historical timeline highlights the most significant moments in Budweiser’s more than 150-year story.

The 1975 sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald spurred a number of maritime changes

One of the worst Great Lakes shipwrecks in modern history, the freighter sank during an intense storm on Lake Superior that reportedly produced 50-foot waves. The exact cause remains unknown, and the disaster remains in public consciousness today.

A malfunctioning prop caused Shakespeare's Globe Theatre to burn down during a performance of 'Henry VIII.'

Cholera was called the 'Blue Death'

In the mid-1800s—when John Snow identified cholera in London—the disease was known simply as the "Blue Death." That's because blood would thicken in patients' veins when they were struggling with extreme dehydration. As a result, their skin would turn a blueish hue as their blood was starved of oxygen.

Niagara Falls stopped flowing for a full day in 1848 due to ice

In March 1848, ice jams halted the Niagara River entirely for over 24 hours, allowing people to walk on the riverbed—a rare event that drew international headlines.

Colonial America imported brides for their beer brewing skills

Life in the New World's English colonies was hard, so it's easy to see how these colonizers might've wanted to reach for a cold one more often than not. This article explains how beer brewing became one of the most critical skills expected in imported English wives.

Pub crawl generator: In the United Kingdom, a lot of pubs have the same name

For instance, the UK’s most popular pub name is Red Lion—if you wanted to have a drink at every Red Lion in the UK area, you’d have to finish 339 drinks. (For the record, we don’t advise this!) This fun resource plots the shortest route between all the pubs with the same name in the UK, in case you’re up for visiting all 339 Red Lions in a row.

The list of historic volcanic eruptions includes the 1883 blast from Krakatau, which killed more than 36,000 and was the first such event to be documented in real time, thanks to the telegraph.

Britain’s bottle innovation saved Champagne

Champagne wouldn’t be where it is today without a surprising partner: 17th-century British glassmakers. An energy crisis caused by deforestation—not enough trees to burn—led to the search for an alternative fuel source. Enter coal. The plentiful resource burned much hotter than wood, creating stronger glass that could stand up to the pressure of the carbon monoxide produced by the wine’s second fermentation and solving one of the fledgling industry’s most vexing problems.

How a modern 'beer archaeologist' crafts ancient ales

The short documentary follows Travis Rupp, a University of Colorado classics professor who also works with Avery Brewing to produce Ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Peruvian beer.

That time British slavers killed enslaved people and filed for insurance reimbursement

In 1781, a British slave ship tossed 132 enslaved Africans overboard, leaving them to drown. This 52-minute podcast explores the context behind the massacre and its implications. The slavers of the ship named Zong sought insurance reimbursement for...

An in-depth history of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot

Guy Fawkes Day has been celebrated on November 5 in the United Kingdom for over four centuries, with bonfires, fireworks, and effigies. But who was Guy Fawkes, really? Learn about the Catholic radical who was a member of a group of 13 men eventually executed for their attempts to blow up Parliament and the king.

Maps of murder across medieval England

These interactive maps show the sites of murders across York, Oxford, and London during the 14th Century. Explore the data by clicking site pins or experimenting with map filters, including crime scene type and murder weapon. Each pin includes a blurb on what researchers concluded about the attack, such as how a fight between the London fishmonger and skinner guilds during August 1340 ultimately left one man dead.

Oktoberfest has been canceled 26 times

The first time, in 1813, Bavaria was fighting off Napoleon’s army, which left little time for celebration. Years were also lost to the Austro-Prussian War, a worldwide cholera outbreak, and both World Wars. Most recently, the 2020 and 2021 Oktoberfests were canceled due to COVID-19.

A fire in NYC that burned a fifth of the city in 1776 may have been started under orders from George Washington.

The states in America that drink the most beer

Americans, in 2020, drank on average almost twenty-six gallons of beer per adult aged twenty-one or over, over the course of the pandemic.

Portugal's 1775 earthquake is considered Europe's first modern natural disaster.

How Monet’s paintings changed the way we see London

Between 1899 and 1901, legendary French Impressionist painter Claude Monet produced over 100 paintings of London consistently shrouded in fog. Art historians claim this series left a permanent mark on how we perceive the capital city, inevitably layered in obscuring and dramatic mist. See some of the paintings and read more here.

How LA brought water to its booming population

By the turn of the 20th century, Los Angeles had grown from a dusty, crime-ridden pueblo into a thriving metropolis. The only problem was that it was growing too fast. Here's the story of how the booming town created a massive water infrastructure to redirect area rivers to its residents.

Why the craft beer industry is in decline

The trend began in 2024, when more craft breweries closed than opened, and has continued since then. Some blame the rise of canned cocktails, hard seltzers, and non-alcoholic beers, while others point to declining drinking rates for Gen Z.

August A. Busch, Sr. was gifted a six-horse Clydesdale hitch to celebrate Prohibition’s end

This helped reveal the marketing power of a horse-drawn beer wagon, so it invested in a second six-horse Clydesdale hitch. The Clydesdales soon went to New York, where they drew a crowd of thousands en route to the Empire State Building. Anheuser-Busch even gifted a case of Budweiser to New York Governor Alfred E. Smith in thanks for his help in the fight against Prohibition.

The long history of alcohol and sports

Spectators have long enjoyed alcohol at sporting events, dating back at least to ancient Rome. This article unpacks how companies leveraged this history to make beer a central part of sporting events and masculine culture.

Mount Vesuvius' ancient Roman eruption may have literally boiled blood

Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE, sending ash and debris far and wide, burying several cities and the people inside them. This article details the various ways the blast killed those in Herculaneum. This seaside town was hit with the same ash and debris as Pompeii, and it was also hit by a wave of volcanic gases estimated to be more than 500° Fahrenheit, about 260° Celcius.

Protesters in Boston tossed chests of a type of Chinese black tea called Bohea.

Budweiser pioneered refrigerated rail transport for its beer in the 1870s

This enabled Budweiser to achieve national distribution long before competitors, fundamentally transforming the US beer industry. It was also among the earliest large-scale adopters to use pasteurization, allowing it to be shipped long distances without going bad.

Budweiser still uses the same yeast lineage derived from the one used in the 1800s

During the late 1800s when Budweiser beers hit the market, darker, all‑malt lagers dominated the US beer market. Budweiser was brewed with a single, consistent yeast strain that gave it a crisp uniform flavor, differentiating it from darker beers.

Craft beer is partially responsible for disrupting Budweiser’s US market share

Over the past few decades, as craft beer from smaller breweries has become more popular (as well as seltzers, light beers, and other alternatives), Budweiser’s market share has declined.

The origins of the Guinness Book of World Records

Yes, it was the beer company that started it. In 1955, the very first edition of the Guinness Book of World Records debuted as a marketing campaign for the famous Irish beer brand. Get all the details on the origins here.

An eyewitness account of the sinking of the Titanic

One of the most famous modern disasters, the Titanic sank in April, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg, killing an estimated 1,500 passengers and crew. One survivor, Washington Dodge, recorded his events just days after returning to land, offering one of the most immediate first-hand accounts of the ship's sinking.

The South Sea Bubble was an 18th-century scandal that redefined speculation

This video illustrates how the South Sea Company in Britain sparked a stock boom in 1720, with promises of huge trading profits, driving shares to unprecedented heights before a sudden crash wiped out the fortunes of investors—including Isaac Newton, who lost an estimated £20K.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

Englishmen in the 17th century mixed their blood into wine to show devotion

In order to demonstrate their love for a woman, some young Englishmen would stab themselves in the arm and mix the blood into their wine. They'd then toast the object of their affection and drink to their honor.

Civilian 'little ships' saved Dunkirk: over 700 civilian boats joined the evacuation

Between May  26 and June 4, 1940, Operation Dynamo evacuated roughly 338,000 Allied soldiers from Dunkirk, France. Crucially, over 700 civilian “little ships”—yachts, fishing boats, pleasure craft—ferried troops from the shallow beaches to larger vessels, embodying a national rescue effort and preserving the core of Britain’s army for the war ahead.

The 21st Amendment was the only amendment to repeal another

The 1933 constitutional amendment rolled back 1920's 18th Amendment, better known as Prohibition, which outlawed "the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors."