“Beer flood” nowadays might be used as a term to describe an event that offers an unlimited amount of beer. However, in a historical context, the beer flood was something that actually happened in 1814 in London, UK, and had tragic consequences.
On 17 October 1814, an iron ring holding together a large wooden vat at The Horse Shoe Brewery, owned by the company called Meux & Co, broke off. While the workers noticed the issue, they believed they could wait and fix it later. However, with the vat being full and containing between 3,500 and 7,500 barrels of porter beer, it didn’t take long for it to burst.
After the beer started flooding from the broken vat, another vessel broke and destroyed several other barrels. The huge amount of beer ended up demolishing the back wall of the brewery and spilled on the street.
This caused a real “beer flood” that struck the unaware population of St. Giles Rookery, a poor area of the city where many people lived in underground dwellings. The catastrophe caused eight people to lose their lives while many were injured or saw their belongings destroyed.
The beer flood of 1814 is considered one of the turning points of the brewing industry, as breweries stopped using wooden vats in order to avoid similar accidents.
In the aftermath of the incident, the Horse Shoe Brewery was saved from bankruptcy by the government, receiving a rebate from the taxes it paid on the spilled beer. The affected citizens of St. Giles Rookery and families of the people who lost their lives in the beer flood received little to no assistance.