Our drink, whose force and continuance is partly touched already, is
made of barley, water, and hops, sodden and mingled together, by the
industry of our brewers in a certain exact proportion. But, before our
barley do come into their hands, it sustaineth great alteration, and
is converted into malt, the making whereof I will here set down in
such order as my skill therein may extend unto (for I am scarce a good
maltster), chiefly for that foreign writers have attempted to describe
the same, and the making of our beer, wherein they have shot so far
wide, as the quantity of ground was between themselves and their mark.
In the meantime bear with me, gentle reader (I beseech thee), that
lead thee from the description of the plentiful diet of our country
unto the fond report of a servile trade, or rather from a table
delicately furnished into a musty malt-house; but such is now thy hap,
wherefore I pray thee be contented.
Our malt is made all the year long in some great towns; but in
gentlemen's and yeomen's houses, who commonly make sufficient for
their own expenses only, the winter half is thought most meet for that
commodity: howbeit the malt that is made when the willow doth bud is
commonly worst of all.
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