Beer earns its X factor
QUESTION What is the significance of the X in the names of certain beers?
For centuries, Xs have appeared on casks and this has filtered through into modern beer names. The tradition probably originated as an ad hoc signifier of strong beer, but during the 19th century it was codified into a precise measurement of strength.
A popular origin story is that it came from the monastic practice of indicating sound quality, i.e. ‘sworn on the cross’, in the days when monks produced much of the nation’s beer. There is no documentary evidence for this.
Another explanation is that it comes from the 17th century when beer was first taxed. The taxman was said to mark ‘XX’ on casks of strong ale or beer and ‘X’ on casks of small beer or low-alcohol ale. However, we know that the excise men’s marks were ‘X’ for strong beer and ‘T’ for table beer, which is lower in alcohol.
The letter X is a rough measurement of strength. By 1695, the Anchor brewery in Southwark, South London, was sending ‘15 Tunns of XX beer’ to Barbados.
The process was formalised in the 19th century. Breweries began producing ales ranging from X to XXXX. This system was used to designate mild ales — these weren’t weak, but unaged.
one way producers measure beer strength is using original gravity (oG). This is the amount of sugar converted to alcohol during the fermentation process and gives the brewer a rough indication of the final ABV (alcohol by volume). Hammonds in Bradford produced X with 1,042 oG (ABV 4.1 per cent) up to XXXX with 1,100 oG (ABV 9.5 per cent).
Breweries produced a second range of stock or keeping ales that were aged before sale. In the first half of the 19th century, these were often designated XXK, XXXK or XXXXK. The names later changed to K, KK, KKK and KKKK.
Few brewers went above XXXX, though E.J. and C.Healey of Watford, Hertfordshire, sold XXXXX Christmas ale for two shillings a gallon in the 1890s.
The system was dropped in the mid20th century, but the terminology lives on in various beers, such as the popular
Wadworth 6X, though this is only ABV 4.3, and Castlemaine XXXX, one of Australia’s best-known beers.
Kenneth D. Fisher, Chard, Somerset.
QUESTION Why did the British occupy Lhasa in Tibet in 1904?
THIS was one of the last and most futile actions of The Great Game, the battle for supremacy in the region between russia and Britain in the 1840s.
In 1899, George Nathaniel Curzon, the 1st Marquess of Kedleston, was appointed Queen Victoria’s Viceroy to India. He had a particular mistrust of russian dealings in Central Asia.
In 1893, Britain had signed a trade agreement with China, believing its authority extended over Tibet. Yet China’s hold had weakened and Tibet, with a strong political leader in the 13th Dalai Lama, took on an isolationist stance.
Curzon suspected russian interference. He told the India office in London that an informant had heard rumours of a russian and Chinese-backed invasion of India through Tibet. British officials sought to make contact with the Dalai Lama to win assurance of Tibet’s continuing neutrality, but received no response.
Curzon decided to force the issue. In 1903, he dispatched Francis Younghusband, a dashing young military officer from the King’s Dragoon Guards, to Lhasa to negotiate with the Dalai Lama and establish a British legation.
Younghusband jumped at his chance to lead the Tibet Frontier Commission and wrote: ‘Here, indeed, I felt was the chance of my life. The thrill of adventure again ran through my veins.’
To impress the Tibetans, Younghusband ordered his 32nd Pioneers to cross the border resplendent in full-dress uniform. No one turned up to greet them. Younghusband received permission from London and Lord Curzon via telegraph to press on toward the Tibetan trading centre of Gyantse.
His expeditionary force included 1,150 British, Indian and Gurkha troops, four artillery pieces and four rapid-fire Maxim guns under the command of Brigadier General James r. r. L. Macdonald. It was supported by 4,000 yaks, 7,000 mules and 10,000 porters.
on March 31, 1904, the expedition halted before the small township of Guru (now Chumik Shenko). They were faced by 3,000 Tibetan soldiers, armed with matchlock muskets, behind a rough 5ft-high wall. A shot was fired — it was later said by the Tibetan commander. Macdonald’s machine gunners opened up. The Tibetans walked forward as a mass into the machine gun fire and were massacred.
Younghusband entered Lhasa on August 2, 1904, by which time the Dalai Lama had left the city. A month later he signed an agreement that gave the British trading advantages and, in theory, excluded others from Tibet.
In truth, Britain’s final imperial adventure accomplished nothing other than damage to its international reputation.
Simon Lancaster, Newcastle upon Tyne.
QUESTION Tuna fish is a tautology. What other examples are there?
FurTHEr to the earlier answer, the most common tautology these days is surely global pandemic.
Fiona Crawford, York.
THEN there is actress Brooke Shields’s infamous statement: ‘Smoking can kill you, and if you’ve been killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.’
Carol Francis, Maidenhead, Berks.
TV SoCCEr commentators never seem keen to let the football do the talking and often like to excitedly impart their knowledge of the laws of the game.
Whenever there is a question of the ball going out of play or over the goal line, viewers are constantly reminded ‘the whole of the ball must be over the whole of the line’. As if the whole of the ball could be partially over the line.
Stuart Swann, Church Gresley, Derbys.
IS THERE a question to which you want to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question here? Write to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB; or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection is published, but we’re unable to enter into individual correspondence. Visit mailplus.co.uk to hear the Answers To Correspondents podcast