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Channel Coding Theory Algorithms and Applications 1st Edition David Declercq (Editor)
Channel Coding Theory Algorithms and Applications 1st
Edition David Declercq (Editor) Digital Instant Download
Author(s): David Declercq (editor), Marc Fossorier (editor), Ezio Biglieri
(editor)
ISBN(s): 9780081013304, 0081013302
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 19.53 MB
Year: 2014
Language: english
Channel Coding
Theory, Algorithms, and
Applications
Academic Press Library
in Mobile and Wireless
Communications
DAVID DECLERQ, MARC FOSSORIER
AND EZIO BIGLIERI
Channel Coding
Theory, Algorithms, and
Applications
AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON
NEW YORK • OXFORD • PARIS • SAN DIEGO
SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO
Academic Press is an imprint of Elsevier
Edited by
Academic Press Library in Mobile
and Wireless Communications
Academic Press is an imprint of Elsevier
The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, UK
225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451, USA
First edition 2014
Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in
any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise with-
out the prior written permission of the publisher.
Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department
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sions@elsevier.com. Alternatively you can submit your request online by visiting the Elsevier
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Elsevier material.
Notice
No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or
property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or opera-
tion of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Because
of rapid advances in the medical sciences, in particular, independent verification of diagnoses
and drug dosages should be made.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN–13: 978-0-12-396499-1
For information on all Academic Press publications
visit our web site at store.elsevier.com
Printed and bound in the US
14 15 16 17 18 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
xv
Channel coding has long been recognized as an important feature for the transmis-
sion or the storage of digital information, to combat the unstructured noise incurred
by small to nano-electronics. Data are always used in coded form for their transmis-
sion through wireless or wired channels, or for their storage on magnetic or opti-
cal recording devices, to ensure a desired level of reliability of the communication
systems.
While its origin dates back to more than half a century, it was not until the 1990s
and the introduction of the turbo principle in information theory that theoretical lim-
its could be approached with practical designs. This discovery, based on the concept
of iterative decoding with feedback of newly processed information, revolutionized
the area of forward error correction (FEC) and nowadays every modern communica-
tions or storage system has been designed with the consideration of an iterative FEC
scheme. Consequently, wireless communications have been directly impacted by
iterative decoding methods. The turbo principle also motivated the designs of other
iteratively decodable codes and in particular contributed to the resurrection of low
density parity check (LDPC) codes. The iterative information processing gives rise to
so strong practical algorithms that the concept has also been applied for more general
communication systems and receivers, incorporating feedback loops between the
FEC and the diverse signal processing blocks. We can cite as most popular examples
receivers implementing turbo-equalization, turbo-detection, turbo-synchronization,
etc. The efficient design of those iterative receivers takes its root in the deep under-
standing of the theory of turbo and LDPC codes.
In this book, we review the concepts of channel coding relevant to wireless commu-
nications in conjunction with the designs that heavily rely on iterative decoding meth-
ods. Although an impressive leap has been achieved in the performance of FEC for
wireless communications due to iterative methods, issues about their design and imple-
mentation remain. In fact, the initial gains achieved were so large compared to previous
FEC schemes that at first, almost every iterative decoding scheme that you could think
of seemed good. These days, refinements about these designs in terms of structure,
complexity, latency, etc. are still of importance, both theoretically and practically.
The authors who contributed to this chapter are leading experts in the area they
cover, with a deep knowledge of both the latest theory and recent practical realiza-
tions of the topic, as well as of the remaining issues. In each chapter, an emphasis is
made on the presentation of the concepts and the most efficient and useful techniques,
with insistence on heavily referencing the corresponding literature. Consequently,
this book is intended to address a large audience from practical engineers to research-
ers to graduate students.
This book is formed of 13 chapters, which can be divided into four conceptual
parts: Part I (Chapters 1 to 4) describes the main iteratively decodable codes; Part II
(Chapters 5 to 7) covers tools to design these codes in practical implementations; Part
III (Chapters 8 to 12) presents the combination of these codes with other techniques
Preface
xvi Preface
relevant to wireless communications. Finally, Part IV (Chapter 13) addresses the
VLSI realization of these schemes.
In Chapter 1, the original turbo codes are first reviewed, with emphasis on the
concepts associated with the initial design, put in a historical perspective, and an
analysis of the performance based on constituents of a turbo code. Finally, the indus-
trial impacts of the turbo codes are presented.
Chapter 2 covers design, analysis, construction, and performance of the turbo-
like codes. This chapter also describes the iterative decoding algorithms for these
codes, with many simulation results provided.
Chapter 3 introduces LDPC codes and their constructions. It first describes the
important parameters for these codes based on an asymptotic analysis. Then con-
structions of practical importance for implementation are presented, with a final
description of LDPC codes already in standards.
Chapter 4 first presents an overall survey of LDPC decoders, and then provides a
more detailed insight into some of the most widely used decoders, with emphasis on
their implementation.
In Chapter 5, one of the most important tools to design iteratively decodable
codes, namely, the extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) method, is presented from a
practical point of view. It is shown how to apply it to design several classes of itera-
tively decodable codes.
Chapter 6 presents a study of the causes of decoding failures on various channels
under different iterative decoding algorithms.
In Chapter 7, practical considerations of FEC such as puncturing with rate com-
patibility and unequal error protection are presented for iteratively decodable codes.
Chapter 8 presents the concept of rateless coding and the main categories of rate-
less codes that have been proposed for various types of channel. Applications for
which rateless coding can be used are then discussed.
Chapter 9 surveys distributed channel coding techniques for cooperative commu-
nications, with emphasis on decode-and-forward relaying. Several classes of codes
are discussed.
Chapter 10 introduces the important aspects of space–time block codes (STBCs)
related to their encoding, decoding, rate diversity, and diversity-multiplexing trade-
offs. Many construction techniques for STBCs are presented.
Chapter 11 considers coded modulation, which jointly combines coding and mod-
ulation to increase bandwidth efficiency. Both original designs and recent designs
based on iteratively decodable codes are presented.
Chapter 12 provides an overview of joint source-channel coding and decoding,
as well as of the related problem of joint protocol-channel decoding techniques. The
impact of these techniques in actual systems is finally discussed.
Chapter 13 gives a systematic review of the main achievements in the implemen-
tation of iterative channel decoders. Solutions required to achieve specific design
objectives, such as low complexity, high throughput, and low energy, are discussed.
In conclusion, the editors would like to thanks all authors for their time and efforts
in order to meet the high expectations of this project.
xvii
Humberto Beltrão
School of Engineering and Science, Jacobs University gGmbH, Campus Ring 1,
D-28725 Bremen, Germany
Sergio Benedetto
Dipartimento di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni (DET), Politecnico di Torino
C.so Duca degli Abruzzi n. 24, 10129 Torino, Italy
Emmanuel Boutillon
Université de Bretagne Sud, Lab-STICC, Centre de Recherche, BP 92216,
56321 Lorient Cedex, France
Shashi Kiran Chilappagari
Marvell Semiconductor Inc., Santa Clara, CA 95054, USA
Dariush Divsalar
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive,
MS 238–420, Pasadena, CA, USA
Catherine Douillard
Telecom Bretagne, UMR6285, Lab-STICC, F29200 Brest, France
Pierre Duhamel
LSS – SUPELEC 3, 3, rue Jolio Curie, 91192, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France
Mark Flanagan
School of Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering,
University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
Alexandre Graell i Amat
Department of Signals and Systems, Chalmers University of Technology,
Gothenburg, Sweden
Werner Henkel
School of Engineering and Science, Jacobs University gGmbH, Campus Ring 1,
D-28725 Bremen, Germany
Motohiko Isaka
Department of Informatics, School of Science and Technology,
Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan
Michel Jezequel
Telecom Bretagne, UMR6285, Lab-STICC, F29200 Brest, France
Michel Kieffer
LSS – SUPELEC 3, 3, rue Jolio Curie, 91192, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France
Contributors
xviii Contributors
Ingmar Land
Institute for Telecommunications Research, University of South Australia,
Mawson Lakes, SA 5095, Australia
Guido Masera
Politecnico di Torino, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications,
corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy
Guido Montorsi
Dipartimento di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni (DET), Politecnico di Torino
C.so Duca degli Abruzzi n. 24, 10129 Torino, Italy
Dung Viet Nguyen
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Arizona,
Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
Enrico Paolini
Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering “G. Marconi”,
University of Bologna, Via Venezia 52, Cesena, FC 47521, Italy
C. Poulliat
IRIT Lab, INP/ENSEEIHT-Toulouse, 2 rue Charles Camichel, B.P. 7122,
31071 Toulouse Cedex 7, France
Aditya Ramamoorthy
Iowa State University, 3222 Coover Hall, Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, Ames, IA 50010, USA
Valentin Savin
CEA-LETI, MINATEC Campus, 17 rue des Martyrs, 38054 Grenoble, France
B. Sundar Rajan
Department of ECE, IISc, Bangalore 560012, India
Ragnar Thobaben
School of Electrical Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH),
Stockholm, Sweden
Bane Vasić
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Arizona,
Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
1
CHAPTER
Turbo Codes: From First
Principles to Recent
Standards
Catherine Douillard and Michel Jezequel
Telecom Bretagne, UMR6285, Lab-STICC, F29200 Brest, France
CHAPTER OUTLINE
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2 History of turbo codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.1 The origins of turbo codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 Concatenation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3 Negative feedback in the decoder and recursive systematic
convolutional codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.4 Extrinsic information and iterative decoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.5 Parallel concatenation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3 Fundamentals of turbo coding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.1 Recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) component codes . . . . . . 8
3.2 Block coding with turbo codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.3 The permutation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3.1 Regular permutation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.3.2 Irregular permutations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4 Fundamentals of turbo decoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.1 The turbo principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.2 Soft-input soft-output decoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.2.1 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.2.2 The MAP algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.2.3 The MAP algorithm in the logarithmic domain:
Log-MAP and Max-Log-MAP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5 Industrial impacts of turbo codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.1 The very first implementations of turbo codecs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.1.1 The CAS 5093 circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.1.2 The Turbo4 circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.2 Early applications of turbo codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.3 Turbo codes in standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Channel Coding: Theory, Algorithms, and Applications. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-396499-1.00001-7
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1
2 CHAPTER 1 Turbo Codes: From First Principles to Recent Standards
5.3.1 Mobile communication systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.3.2 Digital video broadcasting (DVB) standards . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.3.3 Other standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.3.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
1 Introduction
This chapter is a general introduction to the original turbo codes, proposed and
patented by Claude Berrou in 1991 [1–3] and known as convolutional turbo codes or
parallel concatenated convolutional codes. Turbo codes are an outcome of the research
activity of Telecom Bretagne1 (formerly École Nationale des Télécommunications de
Bretagne), a French graduate engineering school in the field of information technolo-
gies. The Electronics Department of Telecom Bretagne has been involved in research
in the field of algorithm-silicon interaction for more than 25 years. Its activity mainly
consists in jointly devising new algorithms and innovative hardware architectures,
digital and analog, for digital communications.
The chapter describes the main concepts of coding theory introduced with the
invention of turbo codes, provides the fundamental guidelines for the design of turbo
codes with good performance, gives the basics of turbo decoding, and briefly reviews
the industrial impacts of this new generation of error-correcting codes. Most of the
sections are introduced from a historical point of view. The chapter is organized as
follows. Section 2 describes the experimentations, observations, and reflections which
led to turbo codes and the ensuing concepts of iterative decoding, extrinsic informa-
tion, and parallel concatenation. Section 3 focuses on the different constituents of the
turbo encoder and analyzes their effects on the code performance. Section 4 provides
the basics of the turbo principle and soft-input soft-output decoding of convolutional
codes. Section 5 presents the very first hardware turbo codecs, some pioneer telecom-
munication applications having adopted these codes, and an overall picture of the
current telecommunication standards including turbo codes. Section 6 concludes the
chapter.
2 History of turbo codes
The invention of turbo codes is the outcome of an intuitive experimental approach,
inspired by the work of some European researchers, Gerard Battail, Joachim
Hagenauer, and Peter Hoeher who, at the end of the 1980s [4–7], highlighted the
interest of soft-output decoding for concatenated coding. This section presents a
1 http://www.telecom-bretagne.eu/index.php?lang=en_GB.
2 History of Turbo Codes 3
chronology describing the successive ideas that led to the development of the first
turbo codes, whose publication in 1993 [8] shook the coding community. With a
performance at 0.5 dB from the Shannon limit, they showed a gain of almost 3 dB
compared to solutions existing at that time.
2.1 The origins of turbo codes
The origins of turbo codes are to be found in the late 1980s at Telecom Bretagne.
Every year, a group of third year students directed by Claude Berrou and Patrick
Adde was assigned to implement a digital communication function into a CMOS
logic integrated circuit. In 1989, Alain Glavieux suggested the Soft-Output Viterbi
Algorithm (SOVA) proposed by Battail in [4] for implementation. Therefore, the
beginning of the work on error-correcting codes at Telecom Bretagne was marked by
essential references on Viterbi decoding such as [9,10] and by the two main papers
describing modifications to the Viterbi decoder to make it provide soft decisions,
[4,7]. After two years, a suitable hardware architecture was finally proposed [11].
Meanwhile, this work led the researchers to a deep understanding of probabilistic
decoding. Following Battail, Hagenauer, and Hoeher, it was observed that a soft-input
and soft-output (SISO) decoder could be regarded as a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
amplifier. This observation stimulated Berrou to consider techniques commonly used
with electronic amplifiers, especially negative feedback. However, this analogy with
amplifiers is meaningful only if the input and output of the decoder represent the same
signal—that is to say, only if the code is systematic.
The next phases went faster. The development of turbo codes passed through
severalstagesandledtotheintroductionofneologisms,suchasparallelconcatenation
and extrinsic information, now part of the coding theory jargon. Here in a few words
are the reflections that marked out this work, as related in [12].
2.2 Concatenation
Using the version of the SOVA in [11], it was possible to cascade SNR amplifiers
and do the experiments described in [6], which was the initial plan: decoding a
classical—i.e., serial—concatenation of two or more ordinary—i.e., non-systematic,
non-recursive—convolutional codes. Concatenation is a simple way to obtain large
asymptotic gains [13], but the performance at low SNR is debased due to the sharing
of the redundancy energy between the component codes.
The concatenated coding and decoding scheme that served as a starting point to
develop turbo codes is described in Figure 1.
2.3 Negative feedback in the decoder and recursive
systematic convolutional codes
Analyzing the scheme in Figure 1, one can notice a dissymmetry in the use of received
information: the inner decoder benefits only from redundancy symbols y1 whereas the
outer decoder benefits from redundancy symbols y2 and from the work of the inner
4 CHAPTER 1 Turbo Codes: From First Principles to Recent Standards
D
Parallel
to serial
Inter-
leaver
Puncturing
D D
Input
d
Outer Code (Code C2) Inner Code (Code C1)
X2
Y2
D
Parallel
to serial
Puncturing
D D
X1
Y1
Output
Equivalent
discrete
channel
Decoder
DEC1
(SOVA)
Serial to
parallel
+
depunct-
uring
Deinter-
leaver
x1
y1
Decoder
DEC2
Serial to
parallel
+
depunct-
uring
x2
y2
Output
Noise
d̂
FIGURE 1
Serial (conventional) concatenation of two convolutional codes with coding rates 3/4
(outer code) and 2/3 (inner code). Global coding rate is 1/2.
decoder. This observation gave Berrou the idea of re-injecting the result of outer
decoding into the inner decoder. As the different levels of the composite decoder
do not represent the same pieces of information—the codes are not systematic, it
was necessary to build an estimate of symbols x2 and y2 at the output of decoder
DEC2. At first, it was a great surprise to observe that the bit error rate (BER) of these
reconstructed symbols after decoding was lower than the BER of decoded information
d̂. However, an intense search did not make it possible to find any explanation for
this strange behavior in the literature. It was then a straightforward task to (re)invent
recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) codes in order to have information data
carried by the encoder output instead of its state and take advantage of this property
not covered in other works. An insight into the distance properties of these codes
is given in Section 3.1. The detailed analysis can be found in [14] (in French). The
resulting serial concatenated coding scheme is shown in Figure 2.
The idea of re-injecting the result of outer decoding into the inner decoder, sim-
ilar to the principle of the turbo engine, gave its prefix to turbo codes, although it
would have been more rigorous to mention only turbo decoding, since no feedback
is implemented at the encoder side.
2.4 Extrinsic information and iterative decoding
The soft-output Viterbi decoder of a systematic code provides a good estimate of
the log likelihood ratio (LLR) relative to its input symbols. It can be shown that
each computed LLR can be expressed as the sum of two contributions. The first,
intrinsic information, is available at the channel output before any decoding stage;
2 History of Turbo Codes 5
D
Parallel
to serial
Inter-
leaver
Puncturing
D D
Input
d
Outer Code (RSC) X2=d
Y2
Output
D
Parallel
to serial
Puncturing
D D
Inner Code (RSC) X1
Y1
FIGURE 2
Serial (conventional) concatenation of two recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) codes
with coding rates 3/4 (outer code) and 2/3 (inner code). Global coding rate is 1/2.
Decoder
DEC1
(SOVA)
Serial to
parallel
+
depunct-
uring
Deinter-
leaver
x1
y1
Decoder
DEC2
(SOVA)
Serial to
parallel
+
depunct-
uring
x2
y2
Output
d
+
-
+
-
+
- Parallel
to
serial
Inter-
leaver
LLR (x2)
LLR (y2)
Extrinsic
information
z
LLR(d)
LLR(x1)
From
channel
ˆ
FIGURE 3
Structure of the very first turbo decoding scheme.
the second, extrinsic information, is provided by exploiting the dependencies (due to
convolution, parity, …) existing between the symbol being processed and the other
symbols processed by the decoder. As the intrinsic information is used by both
decoders (at different instants), the extrinsic information produced by each of the
decoders must be passed to the other as new information to ensure joint convergence.
In any decoding construction, extrinsic information must not be used by the processor
which produced it. Berrou finally came up with the scheme depicted in Figure 3. The
decoder is built in such a way that no information produced by a component decoder
can feed its input, either directly or indirectly.
Others, mainly in the United States, Elias [15], Gallager [16,17], Tanner [18],
and so on had earlier imagined procedures for coding and decoding that were the
forerunners of turbo codes.
The digital processing of information has at least one major drawback: it does
not lend itself easily to feedback techniques. An iterative procedure has to be used
because of the delays (trellis, interleaving, …). This procedure increases the decoder
latency, but ever-continuing progress in microelectronics makes possible today what
was unimaginable not so long ago.
6 CHAPTER 1 Turbo Codes: From First Principles to Recent Standards
Two hardware solutions can be contemplated, depending on the information rate.
For low data rates, a single decoding processor working at a high data frequency
can make all the required iterations with a tolerable added delay. For high rates, a
cascade of identical decoding modules can be implemented monolithically to enable
high-speed pipeline processing (in this case, typically that of broadcasting, the latency
problems are generally less crucial).
2.5 Parallel concatenation
The idea of the so-called parallel concatenation paradigm did not germinate by anal-
ogy with product codes, as sometimes reported. It came actually from the team in
charge of the design of the very first pipelined turbo decoding integrated circuit,
intended to validate the concept of iterative decoding. Serial concatenation requires
different clock signals for the inner and outer decoders. Due to the symmetric structure
of the encoder, parallel concatenation simplifies the architecture of the system since
both component encoders and decoders can work with the same clock signal, which
is also the data clock. The first studied parallel turbo encoder and its decoding scheme
are shown in Figure 4. Turbo codes are sometimes also called parallel concatenated
convolutional codes (PCCCs) in contrast with the conventional serial concatenation.
Input
d
Output
Equivalent
discrete
channel
+
Noise
D
Inter-
leaver
Puncturing
D D
First Code (RSC)
Y1
D
Parallel
to serial
Puncturing
D D
Second Code (RSC) X1
Y2
Decoder
DEC1
(SOVA1)
Serial to
parallel
+
depunct-
uring
Inter-
leaver
x1
y1
Decoder
DEC2
(SOVA2)
y2
Output
+
-
+
-
Deinter-
leaver
LLR2(d) Extrinsic
information
z
LLR1(d)
d
ˆ
FIGURE 4
Parallel concatenation of two RSC codes and associated (asymmetrical) decoder.
2 History of Turbo Codes 7
Serial to
parallel
+
depunct-
uring
x1
Output Decoder
DEC2
(SOVA2)
+
-
Deinter-
leaver
LLR2(d)
Inter-
leaver
Decoder
DEC1
(SOVA1)
+
-
Inter-
leaver
LLR1(d)
x2
z2
z1
y1
y2
From
channel
d
ˆ
FIGURE 5
Symmetrical turbo decoder.
Later on, a symmetrical structure was also devised for the turbo decoder
(Figure 5), which is more natural is the sense that it reflects the symmetry of the
encoding process.
It was also observed that, for a given coding rate, parallel concatenation yields
more redundant symbols from the outer code than serial concatenation does. A parallel
concatenation of two elementary codes C1 and C2 with coding rates R1 and R2 has
a global coding rate:
Rp =
R1 R2
R1 + R2 − R1 R2
=
R1 R2
1 − (1 − R1)(1 − R2)
, (1)
whereas the global coding rate of the serially concatenated code is RS = R1 R2. For
instance, a global coding rate 1/2 can be obtained with the parallel concatenation of
two codes with elementary rates 2/3 or with the serial concatenation of two codes
with elementary rates 2/3 and 3/4, as in Figure 1. Thanks to a greater number of
redundant symbols, the parallel structure can benefit from a higher diversity effect.
This explains why the convergence threshold, i.e., the minimum SNR at which the
iterative decoder starts to correct most of the errors, is lower when the concatenation
is parallel. In return, serially concatenated convolutional codes (SCCCs) show lower
changes of slope in the bit error probability curves than their parallel counterpart,
due to higher minimum Hamming distances. The distance properties of PCCCs and
SCCCs are analyzed in [19,20].
8 CHAPTER 1 Turbo Codes: From First Principles to Recent Standards
3 Fundamentals of turbo coding
The turbo encoder involves a parallel concatenation of at least two elementary recur-
sive systematic convolutional (RSC) codes separated by an interleaver ().
Figure 6 represents a turbo code in its most conventional version [8,21]. The
input binary message of length K is encoded in its natural order and in a permuted—
or interleaved—order by two RSC encoders ENC1 and ENC2. In the figure, the RSC
encoders are identical but this property is not essential. The overall coding rate R of
the turbo code is 1/3. To obtain higher rates, the most common technique involves
puncturing, i.e., not transmitting, part of coded symbols, most often redundancy sym-
bols Y1 and Y2. Adopting m-binary codes is another way of increasing the code
rate [22].
3.1 Recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) component codes
The convolutional codes used in the experiments described in Figure 1 were a non-
systematic code. However, due to the observation mentioned in Section 2.3 that the
BER of the reconstructed symbols after decoding was lower than the BER of decoded
information, Berrou, Glavieux, and their PhD student Thitimajshima investigated the
ways of building systematic convolutional codes with good performance [14]. It was
then observed that recursive systematic codes could offer good performance both
Data
D D D
ENC1
Y1
ENC2
D D D
Y2
Interleaver
X
Possible
puncturing
FIGURE 6
The turbo encoder structure, a parallel concatenation of two RSC encoders separated by
an interleaver.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
{35}
to make
Clary Wine.
Take twenty-four pounds of Malaga raisins, pick and chop them very small, put
them in a tub, and to each pound a quart of water; let them steep ten or eleven
days—this sounds like a school treat—stirring it twice every day; you must keep it
covered close all the while; then strain it off, and put it into a vessel, and about
half a peck of the tops of clary (what was clary?) when ’tis in blossom; stop it
close for six weeks, and then bottle it off; in two or three months ’tis fit to drink.
Clary naturally leads to
Apricock Wine,
which we of the nineteenth century miscall apricot. The derivation of
the word is Latin. Then the Arabs got hold of it, and it became Al-
precoc. Then the thriving Spaniards got hold of the word, which
became Alborcoque; and so to England. But to the wine.
Take three pounds of sugar, and three quarts of water, let them boil together,
and scum it well; then put in six pounds of apricocks, pared and stoned, and let
them boil till they are tender; then take them up, and when the liquor is cold
bottle it up. You may, if you please, after you have taken out the apricocks, let the
liquor have one boil with a sprig of flower’d clary in it.
Also, you may if you please—and you probably will please—add a
little old brandy to the decoction.
{37}
CHAPTER IV
SOME OLD RECIPES
Indifference of the Chineses — A nasty potion — A nastier — White Bastard —
Helping it to be eager — Improving Malmsey — Death of the Duke of Clarence —
Mum is not the word — English champagne — Life without Ebulum a blank — Cock
ale — How to dispose of surplus poultry — Painful fate of a pauper — Potage pauvre
— Duties of the old English housewife — Election of wines, not golf — Muskadine —
Lemon wine — Familiar recipe — King William’s posset — Pope’s ditto.
“The Chineses,” says a very old work on liquid nourish­
ment, “make
ex­
cel­
lent Drink of Rice, which is very pleasant of taste, and is pre­
‐
ferred by them before wine.”
But, like the Germans, the Chineses will eat and drink pretty
nearly anything. And this is the cheering mixture which the Chineses
sampled in the new German colony of Kiant-schan, according to the
Frankfurter Zeitung:—
“Sitting under the poplars one can imagine oneself in the
courtyard of an old German feudal castle. The hamper is opened,
and the cold mountain stream flowing before the temple serves as
an ice cellar. Once more the male population of the village puts in an
appearance, standing round the table in amazement at all the
unheard-of things happening. The greatest success attends the
uncorking of the Apollinaris bottles. The bottle is pointed at the
onlookers, and the cork having been loosened it flies into their faces
with a loud report. At first they are greatly alarmed, then they enjoy
the joke hugely, and at last they all squat on the ground in a circle,
and send a deputy to the table of the foreigners, bearing a teacup.
The petition is granted, and in the teacup an exquisite brew is
{38}
prepared. The drainings of all the beer bottles are collected, to
which is added a little claret and a liberal proportion of Apollinaris,
and then, in order to lend greater consistency to the beverage, some
sausage skins are mixed with it. The teacup circulates amongst the
Chinese, and each sips it with reverential awe. Some of them make
fearful grimaces, but not one has the courage of his opinion, and it
is evident that, on the whole, the drink is voted a good one,
although, perhaps, its flavour is somewhat rare.”
Next, please. Oh, here is another, about some neighbours of the
Chineses.
“In the Isle Formosa, not far from China, the Natives make a
Drink as strong and intoxicative as Sack, out of Rice, which they
soak in warm water, and then beat it to a paste in a Mortar; then
they chew some Rice-meal in their mouths, which they spit to a pot
till they have got about a quart of liquor, which they put to the paste
instead of Leaven or Ferment. And after all be kneaded together till
it be Dough, they put it into a great earthen pot, which they fill
up with water, and so let it remain for two months; by which means
they make one of the most pleasant Liquors a man need drink; the
older the better and sweeter, although you keep it five and twenty or
thirty years.”
Weel—I hae ma doots.
Until reading “The English Housewife, containing the inward and
outward Vertues which ought to be in a complete Woman, published
{39}
by Nicholas Okes at the sign of the golden Unicorne, in 1631,” I had
no skill in making
White Bastard
or “aparelling” Muskadine. They used a lot of eggs in the vintry in
those days, and these were the instructions for making white
bastard.
Draw out of a pipe of bastard ten gallans, and put to it five gallans of new
milke, and skim it as before, and all to beat it with a parill of eight whites of
egges, and a handfull of Baysalt and a pint of conduit-water, and it will be white
and fine in the morning. But if you will make very fine bastard—which I,
personally, have no ambition to do—take a white-wine hog’s-head, and put out the
lees, and wash it cleane, and fill it halfe full and halfe a quarter, and put to it foure
gallans of new milke, and beate it well with the whites of sixe egges, and fill it up
with white-wine and sacke, and it will be white and fine.
Bastard had not much rest in the seventeenth century. The
housewife who might wish “to helpe bastard being eager” had to
follow these directions:—
Take two gallons of the best stoned honey, and two gallons of white wine,
and boyle them in a faire panne, skimme it cleane, and straine it through a
faire cloth that there be no moats in it; then put to it one ounce of collianders
(coriander seeds?) and one ounce of aniseeds, foure or five orange pils (pips?) dry
and beaten to powder, let them lye three dayes; then draw your bastard into a
cleane pipe, then put in your honey with the rest, and beate it well; then let it lye
a weeke and touch it not, after draw it at pleasure.
In the present enlightened century such a recipe does not read
like helping the possible consumer to be “eager.”
Nor does the following method of treating Malmsey sound
promising, except for making its consumer particularly “for’ard”:—
If you have a good but of Malmsey, and a but or two of sacke that will not be
drunke; for the sacke prepare some empty but or pipe, and draw it more than
{40}
halfe full of sacke; then fill it up with Malmsey, and when your but is full within a
little, put into it three gallons of Spanish cute, the best that you can get—where
did they get it?—then beate it well; then take your taster, and see that it bee
deepe coloured; then fill it up with sacke, and give it aparell, and beate it well.
The aparell is thus: Take the yelkes of tenne egges and beate them in a cleane
bason with a handful of Bay salt, and a quarte of conduit-water, and beate them
together with a little peece of birch, and beate it till it be as short as mosse; then
draw five or sixe gallons out of your but, then beate it againe, and then fill it up,
and the next day it will be ready to be drawne. This aparell will serve both for
muscadine, bastard, and for sacke.
We are not told in history if the butt of Malmsey in which the
Duke of Clarence shuffled off his mortal and sinful coil had been
previously subjected to this “aparell” and castigation. In the interests
of mercy, let us hope not.
The fluid once known as
Mum
never claimed any sort of relationship with sparkling wine, but was a
species of unsophisticated ale, brewed from wheat, or oats, with a
little bean-meal occasionally introduced; in fact, the sort of stuff we
use in the present century to fatten bacon pigs upon. And “mum”
has not been the word with British brewers for some time past.
Champagne has been made in England for a considerable period;
but since the closing of the “night-houses” in Panton Street the trade
therein has not been very brisk. During the present century
champagne in this country—and I grieve to add in France as well—
{41}
has been chiefly fabricated from apples, and other fruits; but here is
a much older way of making
English Champagne.
Take to three gallons of water nine pounds of Lisbon sugar; boil the water and
sugar half an hour, scum it clean, then have one gallon of currants pick’d, but not
bruis’d, pour the liquor boiling hot over them, and when cold work it with half a
pint of balm two days; then pour it through a flannel or sieve, then put it into a
barrel fit for it with half an ounce of ising-glass well bruis’d. When it has done
working stop it close for a month, then bottle it, and in every bottle put a very
small lump of double-refin’d sugar. This is excellent wine, and has a beautiful
colour.
“Life without Ebulum,” writes a friend, an instructor of youth in
the ingenuous arts, in forwarding me the recipe, “is a void to most
people who have not cultivated the eringo root in their back
gardens.” I have never tasted ebulum, preferring my ale neat and
unadorned, but this is how to prepare
Ebulum.
To a hogshead of strong ale take a heap’d bushel of elderberries, and half a
pound of juniper berries beaten; put in all the berries when you put in the hops,
and let them boil together till the berries break in pieces; then work it up as you
do ale. When it has done working, add to it half a pound of ginger, half an ounce
of cloves, as much mace, an ounce of nutmegs, and as much cinnamon grosly
beaten, half a pound of citron, as much eringo root, and likewise of candied
orange-peel. Let the sweetmeats be cut in pieces very thin, and put with the spice
into a bag, and hang it in the vessel when you stop it up. So let it stand till ’tis
fine, then bottle it up, and drink it with lumps of double-refin’d sugar in the glass.
{42}
{43}
One of the quaintest beverages of which I ever heard, or read, is
Cock Ale.
In order to make this, the Compleat Housewyfe instructs us to take ten gallons
of ale, and a large cock, the older the better. Parboil the cock, flea (flay?) him,
and stamp him in a stone mortar till his bones are broken (you must craw and
gut him when you flea him), then put the cock into two quarts of sack, and put to
it three pounds of raisins of the sun stoned, some blades of mace, and a few
cloves; put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has
done working, put the ale and bag together into a vessel; in a week or nine days
bottle it up, fill the bottles but just above the neck, and give it the same time to
ripen as other ale.
I have frequently read of the giving of “body” to ale and stout, by
means of the introduction of horseflesh; and an old song used to tell
us that upon one of the paupers in a certain workhouse happening,
in­
ad­
ver­
tently, to fall head-fore­
most into the copper,
dreadful to tell, he was boiled in the soup,
which, on that account, in all probability so strengthened the con­
sti­
‐
tu­
tions of the other paupers as to render them impatient of work­
‐
house dis­
ci­
pline. The man who disap­
peared mysteriously—this is Mr.
Samuel Weller’s story—and who unwittingly furnished “body” for the
sausages supplied to the neigh­
bour­
hood, was, after all, benefiting
his fellow-men. But to put the rooster into the ale-cask smacks
somewhat of barbarism; and thank goodness we do not work off our
surplus poultry in that fashion nowadays. But these barbarians were
not ashamed; for lo! facing me is “another way” for the man­
u­
fac­
ture
of rooster-beer.
Take an old red, or other cock, and boyle him indifferent well; then flea his
skin clean off, and beat him flesh and bones in a stone mortar all to mash,
then slice into him half a pound of dates, two nutmegs quartered, two or three
blaids of mace, four cloves; and put to all this two quarts of sack that is very
{44}
good; stop all this up very close that no air may get to it for the space of sixteen
hours; then tun eight gallons of strong ale into your barrel so timely as it may
have done working at the sixteen hours’ end; and then put thereinto your infusion
and stop it close for five days, then bottle it in stone bottles; be sure your corks
are very good, and tye them with pack-thread; and about a fortnight or three
weeks after you may begin to drink of it; you must also put into your infusion two
pound of raisins of the sun stoned.
Holy Moses ! What a drink !
“It is necessary,” wrote a chronicler of the day, “that our English
Housewife be skilfull in the election, preservation, and curing of all
sorts of wines, because they be usuall charges under her hands, and
by the least neglect must turne the Husband to much losse.”
This was written, I may interpolate, before the bicycle craze had
set in, and before the era of ladies’ clubs. Fancy asking the New
Woman to elect, preserve, and cure all sorts of wines!
“Therefore,” continues the same writer, “to speak first of the
election of sweete Wines she must be careful that her Malmseys be
full Wines, pleasant, well hewed, and fine; that Bastard be fat, and if
it be tawny it skils not, for the tawny Bastards be always the
sweetest. Muskadine must be great, pleasant, and strong, with a
swete sent, and Amber colour. Sacke, if it be Seres (Xerez?),
which it should be, you shall know it by the marke of a corke burned
on one side of the bung, and they be ever full gadge, and so are no
other Sackes; and the longer they lye the better they be.”
Muskadine
was, apparently, made from bastard and malmsey, with the addition
of ginger and new milk (with the cream removed).
{45}
Here is a potion bearing the harmless, Band-of-Hopish name of
Lemon Wine,
which would not, however, be tolerated at a Salvation Army banquet.
The first part of the recipe will be familiar to many of my young
friends.
Take six large lemons, pare off the rind, and cut the lemons and squeeze out
the juice, and in the juice steep the rind, and put it to a quart of brandy—so far,
brother, the court is with you—and let it stand in an earthen pot close stop’t three
days, and then squeeze six more, and mix with two quarts of spring-water, and as
much sugar as will sweeten the whole, and boil the water and lemons and sugar
together, and let it stand till ’tis cool. Then add a quart of white wine and the other
lemon and brandy, and mix them together, and run it through a flannel bag into
some vessel. Let it stand three months and bottle it off. Cork your bottles very
well, and keep it cool; it will be fit to drink in a month or six weeks.
Cheer-oh ! This potion reads well, and I know a punch which
bears some resemblance thereto. But why call it lemon wine? Do not
the brandy and the white wine deserve some recognition in the
nomenclature?
What is understood by the name
Barley Wine
nowadays is a particularly strong brew of ale. With the ancients,
however, it was a drink which might have been with safety handed
round at breaking-up parties in a young ladies’ school.
Take half a pound of French barley, and boil it in three waters, and save three
pints of the last water, and mix it with a quart of white wine, half a pint of borage-
water, as much clary-water, and a little red rose-water, the juice of five or six
lemons, three quarters of a pound of fine sugar, and the thin yellow rind of a
lemon; brew all these quick together, run it through a strainer, and bottle it up. ’Tis
pleasant in hot weather, and very good in fevers.
{46}
In the matter of possets—of which more anon—the following
reads like a seductive winter’s beverage, especially if the imbiber
have a cold in the head. Fear not the bile, but read the directions for
making
King William’s Posset.
Take a quart of cream, and mix with it a pint of ale, then beat the yolks of ten
eggs and the whites of four; when they are well beaten, put them to your
cream and ale. Sweeten to your taste and slice some nutmeg in it; set it over
the fire, and keep it stirring all the while, and when ’tis thick, and before it boils,
take it off, and pour it into the bason you serve it in to the table.
Here is another, even more seductive.
To make the Pope’s Posset.
Blanch and beat three-quarters of a pound of almonds so fine that they will
spread between your fingers like butter, put in water as you beat them to keep
them from oiling. Then take a pint of sack or sherry, and sweeten it very well in
double-refin’d sugar, make it boiling hot, and at the same time put half a pint of
water to your almonds, and make them boil; then take both off the fire, and mix
them very well together with a spoon. Serve it in a china dish.
Frontiniac Wine
was simplicity itself.
Take six gallons of water and twelve pounds of white sugar, and six pounds of
raisins of the sun cut small; boil them together one hour; then take of the flowers
of elder, when they are falling and will shake off, the quantity of half a peck; put
them in the liquor when ’tis almost cold, and next day put in six spoonfuls of syrup
of lemons, and four spoonfuls of ale yeast; and two days after put it into a vessel
that is fit for it, and when it has stood two months bottle it off.
{47}
In the olden times, just before Oliver Cromwell was a going
concern, there were two sorts of what was then called
Renish Wine,
that is to say, Elstertune and Barabant.
“The Elstertune,” says my informant, “are best, you shall know it
by the Fat, for it is double bard and double pinned”—I have not the
faintest idea what he means, but those are his words; “the Barabant
is nothing so good, and there is not so much good to be done with
them as with the other. If the Wines be good and pleasant, a man
may rid away a Hogshead or two of White wine, and this is the most
vantage a man can have by them; and if it be slender and hard,
then take three or four gallons of stone-honey and clarify it cleane;
then put into the honey four or five gallons of the same wine, and
then let it seeth a great while, and put into it twopence in cloves
bruised, let them seeth together, for it will take away the sent of
honey; and when it is sodden take it off, and set it by till it be
thorow cold; then take foure gallons of milke and order it as before,
and then put all into your wine, and all to beate it; and (if you can)
role it, for that is the best way; then stop it close and let it lie, and
that will make it pleasant.”
Possibly, but it seems a deal of trouble to take over a wine.
And now let us adjourn to a more familiar subject, for discussion
in the next chapter.
{49}
CHAPTER V
GLORIOUS BEER
Nectar on Olympus — Beer and the Bible — “Ninepenny” at Eton — “Number One”
Bass — “The wicked weed called hops” — All is not beer that’s bitter — Pathetic story
of “Poor Richard” — Secrets of brewing — Gervase Markham — An “espen” full of
hops — Eggs in ale — Beer soup — The wassail bowl — Sir Watkin Wynne — Brown
Betty — Rumfustian — Mother-in-law — A delightful summer drink — Brasenose ale.
As much poetry has been written in praise of John Bar­
ley­
corn as in
praise of wine, woman, battles, heroes, Cupid’s darts, and patent
med­
i­
cines. And one dear old song, which seems to ring in my ears
as I write, proclaimed that in the opinion of the author the nectar
which the gods imbibed from golden goblets on the top of Mount
Olympus was in reality cool, re­
fresh­
ing pale ale, quaffed out of
pewter tankards. Whether this was so matters not, but as to the
antiquity of beer as a beverage there can be no question; and
however much the demand for other liquors may have slackened
during the rolling on of time, John Barleycorn is still growing in
public estimation. Breweries keep on springing up all over the
country, and those who purchase shares in them receive, for the
most part, sub­
stan­
tial div­
i­
dends. “Beer and the Bible” have won
more elections than any other combination; the organ­
i­
za­
tion of the
brewers has hitherto proved powerful enough to withstand all the
slings and arrows of the Prohibition party, whilst there has been an
enormous increase in the value of houses licensed to sell fermented
refreshment; and the name of Bass will “live on,” like Claudian,
“through the centuries.”
{50}
There be more than one description of beer put before the
public. I forget at this moment who was responsible for the “swipes”
of my school days, which tasted like red ink—and I have sampled
both—but I have always believed that the man­
u­
fac­
turer—I do not
believe him to have been a brewer at all—had a special spite against
the rising generation, which he wished to die a lingering death. The
“ninepenny” quaffed beneath the holy shade of Henry was good,
sound, wholesome tipple; but I fancy an inferior brand was poured
forth to us at “half time” in the football field. Since those days I have
tasted pretty nearly all sorts and conditions of beer, from the
“Number One” Bass drawn from the wood in pewter pots, in a little
hostelry just off the Waterloo Road—the very best according to my
taste—to the awful stuff tasted, and only tasted, one Sunday in a
charmingly rural-looking little inn, with a thatched roof—a licensed
house which apparently laid itself out to entrap the daring and
enterprising “bona fide traveller,” and whose malt liquor was
apparently composed for the most part of vinegar and dirty
water, in which had been soaked quassia chips, salt, bloater-heads,
and some of the thatch from the roof.
Beer was the current name in England for every description of
malt liquor before the introduction of “the wicked weed called hops”
from the Netherlands in 1524. According to the Alvismal, a didactic
Scandinavian poem of the tenth century, this malt liquor was called
ale amongst men, and beer by the gods; and it was probably from
this Scandinavian poem that the author of the anything-but-didactic
poem quoted above got his ideas as to the real nature of the
beverage partaken of on Olympus. In the Eastern counties of
England, and over the greater part of the kingdom, ale signifies
{51}
strong, and beer small, malt liquor, but in the West these names
mean exactly the reverse—which must be confusing in the extreme
to the intelligent foreigner on his travels in search of facts and—
refreshment. As now used, ale is distinguished from beer—I am
alluding to the more civilized parts of our country—chiefly by its
strength, and by the quantity of sugar remaining in it
undecomposed. Strong ale is made from the best pale malt, and the
fermentation is allowed to proceed slowly, and the ferment to be
exhausted and separated. This, together with the large quantity of
sugar still left undecomposed, enables the liquor to keep long,
without requiring a large amount of hops.
The last few lines may give the reader the impression that the
writer served his time in Burton-on-Trent; but this is not the case. I
have conveyed the bulk of my technical knowledge of brewing
from standard works on the subject.
It will be gathered from some previous remarks that all is not
beer that’s bitter; and although it would seem impossible to find a
cleaner, healthier, or more strengthening drink than the “pure beer”
of commerce, brewed from good English or Scotch barley, Kentish
hops, and fair spring-water, how about the wash sold in some
licensed houses which is “fetched up” with foot-sugar, bittered with
quassia, and mixed with salt and any nasty flavourer which is handy?
The old stories about the carcass of a horse placed in the London
stout, to give it “body,” and the mysterious disappearance of an
Italian organ-grinder, together with his monkey and infernal
machine, just outside a high-class brewery, are probably apocryphal.
And although the ancients undoubtedly put a red cock—the older the
better—into ale, on occasion, the nineteenth century Briton, for the
{52}
most part, if the rooster be too tough to serve as a boiled bonne
bouche with parsley-and-butter, usually makes Cock-a-Leekie of him.
And thereby hangs a tale.
When my firm was running a small chicken-ranche we once
reared an unfortunate fowl, who had curvature of the spine, almost
from the fracture of his shell. He was a weakling, and his brethren
and sistren, after the manner of birds, beasts, and fishes, who “go
for” the anæmic and infirm, persecuted him exceedingly, and peeked
most of his feathers off. Being a merciful, and withal a thrifty,
poultry-farmer, I looked out an old parrot’s cage from the tool-shed,
and in this cage installed the weakly cockerel. He was forthwith
christened “Poor Richard,” and given little Benjamin’s share of the
corn and wine, and cayenne pepper and—other things. And although
his head was still slewed round to starboard, he thrived under his
liberal nourishment and freedom from the assaults of his relatives.
Time flew on. I had been the “Northern Circuit,” in the pursuit of
my then profession of reporter of the sport of kings. I returned
home late on a Saturday night, and next day we had friends to
dinner. So much North Country language, and so much travelling
about had quite put our feathered and afflicted pensioner out of my
head; and even the fact of our having the favourite broth of His
Majesty King James the First for dinner did not suggest anything to
my busy brain. But afterwards, when we were alone—she ought not
to have done it—my life-partner confided to me that I had helped to
eat “Poor Richard”! And I felt like a very cannibal; and mourned the
bird as a brother.
{53}
But to return. In Queen Elizabeth’s reign it was, I used to believe,
a capital offence to put hops into beer. But these are the directions
for
Brewing of Strong Ale,
issued by one Gervase Markham, an authority on the subject, and a
contemporary of Shakespeare; and in these directions “hops” are
distinctly mentioned as one of the component parts of the brew.
Now for the brewing of strong Ale, because it is drinke of no such long lasting
as Beere is, therefore you shall brew lesse quantity at a time thereof, as two
bushels of Northerne measure (which is foure bushels or halfe a quarter in the
South) at a brewing, and not above, which will make foureteene gallons of the
best Ale. Now for the mashing and ordering of it in the mash-fat, it will not differ
any thing from that of Beere; as for hops, although some use not to put in any,
yet the best Brewers thereof will allow to foureteene gallons of Ale a good espen
full of hops, and no more, yet before you put in your hops, as soone as you take it
from the graines, you shall put it into a vessell, and change it, or blinke it in this
manner: Put into the Wort a handfull of Oke-bowes and a pewter dish, and let
them lye therein till the Wort looke a little paler than it did at the first, and then
presently take out the dish and the leafe, and then boile it a full houre with the
hops, as aforesayd, and then clense it, and set it in vessels to cook; when it is
milk-warme, having set your Barme to rise with some sweete Wort; then put all
into the guilfat, and as soone as it riseth, with a dishe or bowle beate it in, and so
keepe it with continuall beating a day and a night, and after run it. From this Ale
you may also draw halfe so much very good middle Ale, and a third part very good
small Ale.
Another way
To make Strong Beer
was published at a later date than the above, and to my thinking is
not a better way.
{54}
{55}
To a barrel of beer take two bushels of malt and half a bushel of wheat just
crackt in the mill, and some of the flour lifted out of it; when your water is
scalding hot, put it in your mashing-fat; there let it stand till you can see your
face in it; then put your malt upon it, then put your wheat upon that, and do not
stir it; let it stand two hours and a half; then let it run into a tub that has two
pounds of hops in it, and a handful of rosemary flowers, and when ’tis all run put
it in your copper and boil it two hours; then strain it off, setting it a-cooling very
thin, and set it a-working very cool; clear it very well before you put it a-working,
put a little yeast to it; when the yeast begins to fall, put it into your vessel, and
when it has done working in the vessel, put in a pint of whole wheat and six eggs;
then stop it up, let it stand a year, and then bottle it. Then mash again, stir the
malt very well in, and let it stand two hours, and let that run, and mash again, and
stir it as before; be sure you cover your mashing-fat well up, mix the first and
second running together; it will make good household beer.
I rather fancy the blend­
ing of a lot of eggs (pre­
sum­
ably new-laid)
with the mash, would “break” some of the smal­
ler brewers. It could
hardly be done at the price.
The Germans make
Beer Soup.
Whether this is made from British or lager beer is not stated in the
recipe before me, which hardly reads suited to the ordinary English
palate.
I will now give a few modern recipes for tasty beer-compounds.
Ale Cup (Cold).
Squeeze the juice of a lemon into a round of hot toast; lay on it a thin piece of
the rind, a tablespoonful of powdered sugar, a little grated nutmeg or powdered
all-spice, and a sprig of balm. Pour over these one wine-glass of brandy, two of
sherry, and three pints of mild ale. Do not allow the balm to remain in many
minutes.
Ale Flip (Hot).
{56}
Put into a saucepan three pints of ale, a tablespoonful of sugar, a blade of
mace, a clove, and a small piece of butter, and bring the liquor to a boil. Beat the
white of one egg and the yolks of two thoroughly, mixing with them a
tablespoonful of cold ale. Mix all together, and then pour the whole rapidly from
one large jug to another, from a good height—mind your fingers and the furniture
—for some minutes, to froth it thoroughly. Do not allow it to get cool.
Ale Posset (Hot).
Boil a pint of new milk, and pour it over a slice of toasted bread. Stir in the
beaten yolk of an egg and a small piece of butter, and sugar ad lib. Mix these with
a pint of hot ale, and boil for a few minutes. When the scum rises the mixture is
ready for use.
Mulled Ale (Very Hot).
Put half a pint of ale, a clove, a little whole ginger, a piece of butter the size of
a marble, and a teaspoonful of sugar into a saucepan, and bring it to boiling-
point. Beat two eggs with a tablespoonful of cold ale, and pour the boiling ale
into them, and then into a large jug. Pass the whole from one jug to another, as in
the case of Ale Flip, return to saucepan, and heat it again till almost, not quite, at
boiling-point.
With regard to
Wassail, or Swig (Cold),
which used to be a very popular beverage at the uni­
vers­
i­
ties—at one
time it was peculiar to Jesus College, Oxford—is of very ancient date
indeed.
“Sir quod he,” is part of a conversation culled from an old MS.,
“Watsayll, for never days of your lyf ne dronk ye of such a cuppe,”
which sounds as if the Watsayll was of a seductive and harmful
nature. Nev­
er­
the­
less here is the recipe, taken from “Oxford
Nightcaps.”
Put into a bowl half a pound of Lisbon sugar (if you do not possess that brand,
I have no doubt “best lump,” pulverized, will do as well), and pour on it one pint of
{57}
warm beer; grate a nutmeg and some ginger into it; add four glasses of sherry
and five additional pints of beer; stir it well and sweeten to taste; let it stand
covered up two or three hours, then put three or four slices of bread cut thin and
toasted brown into it, and it is fit for use. Sometimes two or three slices of lemon
are introduced, together with a few lumps of sugar rubbed on the peel of a lemon.
Bottle this mixture, and in a few days it may be drunk in a state of effervescence.
On the festival of St. David, an immense silver-gilt bowl, the gift
of Sir Watkin W. Wynne to the college in 1732 is filled with this
“swig,” and passed round, at Jesus College. And I should prefer to
call the beverage “swig” instead of “wassail,” which should properly
be a hot drink, if we are to believe the illustrated papers at
Christmas-time. And there is no toast in the orthodox Wassail, but,
instead, roasted apples. What does Puck say in A Midsummer Night’s
Dream?
Sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks against her lips I bob,
And on her wither’d dewlaps pour the ale.
Brown Betty
Here is another old recipe:—
Dissolve a quarter of a pound of brown sugar in one pint of water, slice a
lemon into it, let it stand a quarter of an hour, then add a small quantity of
pulverised cloves and cinnamon, half a pint of brandy, and one quart of good
strong ale; stir it well together, put a couple of slices of toasted bread in it, grate
some nutmeg and ginger over the toast, and it is fit for use. Ice it well, and it will
prove a good summer, warm it and it will become a pleasant winter, beverage. It is
drunk chiefly at dinner.
Rather heavily loaded for a dinner drink, I should say.
{58}
Another recipe for
Ale Flip
will serve, here.
Beat well together in a jug, four eggs with a quarter of a pound of sifted sugar;
then add by degrees, stirring all the time, two quarts of old Burton ale, and half a
pint of gin; pour backwards and forwards from one jug to another, and when well
frothed serve in tumblers. Grate a little nutmeg atop of each portion. This is one of
the best “nightcaps” I know—especially after you may have been badger-hunting,
or burgling, or serenading anybody on Christmas Eve.
Rumfustian.
Beat up in a jug, the yolks of two eggs with a tablespoonful of sifted sugar;
then take half a pint of old Burton ale, one wine-glass of gin, one wine-glass of
sherry, a little spice and lemon rind. Let the ale, wine, and gin, mixed together
come to the boil, then pour in the egg mixture, whisking rapidly; serve hot, with a
little nutmeg grated atop.
Such compound drinks, into which ale enters, as Shandy-gaff
require no mention here. Suffice it to mention that this gaff has for
many years been the favourite beverage of those who go up the
river—there is but one river in England—in boats, whether
schoolboys, or of riper years. In Stock Exchange circles champagne
is occasionally substituted for ginger-beer, but this is a combination
in which I have no implicit belief; although champagne and
{59}
{60}
Guinness’s stout make an excellent mixture. Stout and bitter,
otherwise known as
Mother-in-law,
and old-and-mild, for which the pet name is
Uncle,
are also in much request amongst the groundlings; whilst during the
warm weather I know of no more popular swallow, for moderate
drinkers, who do not require their throats to be scratched, than a
small bottle of lemonade to which is added just one “pull” of pale-
ale. This is called, for the sake of brevity, a
Small Lem and a Dash,
or the Poor Man’s Champagne; and is a refreshing and innocuous
drink which might commend itself to total abstainers.
In the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge there is probably as
much malt liquor drunk per head as in any other part of the world.
Brasenose Ale
has obtained a reputation which the beverage doubtless fully merits.
Since the foundation of this college a custom has prevailed of
introducing into the refectory on Shrove Tuesday, immediately after
dinner, what is denominated Brasenose Ale, but what is known in
many other parts of England as Lamb’s Wool. Verses in praise of the
Ale are—or at all events were—annually written by one of the
undergraduates, and a copy of them is sent to every resident
member of the College.
The following stanzas are taken from one of these
contributions:—
Shall all our singing now be o’er,
Since Christmas carols fail?
No ! Let us shout one stanza more
In praise of Brasenose Ale !
A fig for Horace and his juice,
Falernian and Massic;
Far better drink can we produce,
Though ’tis not quite so classic.
Not all the liquors Rome e’er had
Can beat our matchless Beer;
Apicius’ self had gone stark mad
To taste such noble cheer.
After all, the potion is simplicity itself:—
Three quarts of ale, sweetened with sifted sugar, and served up in a bowl with
six roasted apples floating in it.
{62}
CHAPTER VI
ALL ALE
Waste not, want not — The right hand for the froth — Arthur Roberts and Phyllis
Broughton — A landlord’s perquisites — Marc Antony and hot coppers — Introduction
of ale into Britain — Burton-on-Trent — Formerly a cotton-spinning centre — A few
statistics — Michael Thomas Bass — A grand old man — Malting barleys — Porter
and stout — Lager beer — Origin of bottled ale — An ancient recipe — Lead-
poisoning — The poor man’s beer.
In a speech made some years ago Sir Michael Hicks-Beach observed
that nearly one million sterling’s worth of tobacco was wasted
annually by throwing away cigarette-ends and the stumps of cigars.
But what would you, Sir Michael? Are the lieges to cremate their lips
and singe their moustaches by smoking on to the (literally) bitter
end? Whether or no, it is tolerably certain that there is an enormous
daily waste in the matter of in­
tox­
i­
ca­
ting drinks—without counting the
wanton, although con­
sci­
en­
tious, des­
truc­
tion made by teetotal
magnates. According to statistics—I shall not madden my readers
with many of these—more than £138,000,000 are spent annually
in Great Britain on spirituous liquors. Half of this sum, it may be
fairly stated, is spent in the provinces. It may also be taken as read
that 5 per cent of beer and stout is wasted, in the way of froth,
spillings, and leavings, and 3 per cent of spirits. This brings us face
to face with the calculation that the value of our daily waste in drinks
is nearly £6500. Carbonic acid gas is undoubtedly answerable for a
lot of this waste. In The Old Guard, a musical piece produced at the
Avenue Theatre some years ago, Mr. Arthur Roberts in his
instructions to Miss Phyllis Broughton—who made a very comely
{63}
stage barmaid—particularly enjoined her, when drawing ale, to use
her left hand to bring the handle down.
“The right hand,” he observed—of course it was all “gag”—“is for
the froth.” And then he shewed her how to make half a pint of liquor
fill a pint measure. Of course there be some professional imbibers
who would object strongly and refuse to accept the froth
programme; but on the other hand it pays the retailer, in the long-
run. I am not going to re-tell the old story of the Quaker; but will
only mention that in the early seventies the landlord of a favourite
tavern in the Strand—a house of call for histrions, which has since
then been transmogrified and adorned with much bevelled glass and
carved walnut—once confided to me that he made every bit of £300
per annum out of his froth. His barmaids were all of angelic
appearance, with most beautiful heads of hair (the girls wore plenty
of it in those days) and a wealth of pretty prattle. And the
customers being susceptible, and liberal-minded, the rest was easy.
Egyptian manuscripts written at least 3000 years before the
Christian era shew conclusively that even at that primitive period the
man­
u­
fac­
ture of an intoxicating liquor from barley or other grain was
extensively carried out in Egypt. Probably the wretched Israelites got
far more birch and bastinado than beer given them whilst engaged
in brickmaking; but it is quite on the cards that Cleopatra, when
fatigued with practising the spot stroke on her billiard-table, often
commanded one of her slaves to draw her a pint of bitter with a
head on it; and who knows but that her beloved Antony cooled his
coppers with small ale?
Pliny—who would be a useful sort of man to have in a daily
newspaper office nowadays—records that in his time a fermented
{64}
drink made from “corn and water” was in regular use in all the
districts of Europe with which he was acquainted. But in Britain little
was known about beer before the Roman conquest, as the favourite
beverages of our ancestors were mead and cider. But the Romans,
although they never quite succeeded in subduing the stubborn
dispositions of the “barbarians,” managed to teach them a bit of
husbandry, and to shew them something about brewing. There were
no means of making wine in those days, and—save in Wales—there
were no grapes to make it with; but the Latins were not long in
teaching the Britons—who were never slow to learn anything which
might lead to revelry—that a very good substitute for wine might
be expressed from grain and water. Hops were undoubtedly known
in England before the conquest, but do not appear to have been
regularly used in brewing before the be­
gin­
ning of the sixteenth
century. It is probable, therefore, that they were employed as
medicine—and there is no better tonic than your hop. The Germans
would seem to have brewed with the “wicked weed” before the
Englanders did, according to the omniscient Pliny.
The horny-handed son of toil, who can put away his four or five
gallons daily during harvest-time, without falling off the waggon,
may not know it, but it is only the female hop which is used by the
brewer of to-day. The char­
ac­
ter­
is­
tics of the he-hop are not known to
the writer, or whether he plays any part in aiding to relieve the thirst
of the lieges; but the female is said to exercise “a purifying, a
preservative, and an aromatic influence over the wort.”
It used to be a popular fallacy that the beer made at Burton-on-
Trent was brewed from Trent water, instead of, as was and is the
case, from spring-water, which is eminently suited to the purpose.
{65}
The chief industry at Burton was, originally, cotton-spinning, but fifty
years ago this industry was discontinued owing to the triumphal
march of John Barleycorn. Why spin cotton when the man­
u­
fac­
ture of
beer is not only a much healthier occupation but is far more
lucrative? So Burton stuck to its beer-making, a trade which was
originally established there—in a very small way—in the sixteenth
century. There appears to have been a demand for Burton ale in
London, during the reign of Charles I.; although details are missing
as to whether the demand extended to the royal palaces. It is
certain, however, that more than one hundred years ago Burton-on-
Trent did a considerable export trade with the Baltic. In 1791 there
were nine breweries here, and in 1851 sixteen. But at the be­
gin­
ning
of the present century, until the last-named year, when the great
Exhibition attracted all the world and his wife to England, the
breweries at Burton were not all in a flourishing condition; and I
have more than once heard my grandfather—who spoke from
personal knowledge—tell the story of how the late Mr. Michael
Thomas Bass most magnanimously offered to “prop up” another
large firm, with the remark, “There’s room enough for us both here!”
{66}
At present there are thirty breweries in Burton-on-Trent, and
employed in these are some 8000 men and boys. After the opening
of the Midland Railway in 1839 the brewing trade here began to
improve, but it was mainly due to the energy and practical
knowledge of Mr.
Bass
aforementioned that Burton-on-Trent in general, and the great firm
of Bass are in their present flourishing condition. In the words of
Shakespeare, “He was a man; take him for all in all we shall not look
upon his like again.” Beginning as traveller to the firm, he was not
long ere he became its chief director. He was untiring in
business, a man possessing the broadest views of men and things, a
bit crotchety on occasion, but possessed of “that most excellent gift
of charity,” in boundless supplies. Amongst his other benefactions
was the building and endowment of St. Paul’s, Burton, and the gift
of recreation grounds, a free library, and swimming-baths to the
adjacent town of Derby. He also built and endowed another church
on his own estate, at Rangemore; and his hand was never out of his
cash-pocket when he could aid in a good work. He represented
Derby, in the Liberal interest, from 1848 to 1883, and was a tower of
strength to that party, albeit possessed of nothing like bigoted
opinions. On the contrary, it was his custom through life, like Hal o’
the Wynd in The Fair Maid of Perth, to “fight for his own hand.” And
as an instance of his energy and grit, it may be mentioned that after
voting in the House of Commons for Mr. Gladstone’s Irish Church
Disestablishment Bill—the division on which did not take place till 2
A.M.—he travelled by the “newspaper train” at 5 A.M. from Euston to
Rugeley in order to hunt with Mr. Hugo Meynell Ingram’s hounds,
{67}
later in the morning, changing his clothes on the way down. The
meet was at Brereton Hayes, close to Cunnock Chase, and I well
remember greeting him that morning, and receiving for a reply:
“Thank you, I’m pretty well for an old ’un.” He was over seventy (I
think) at the time. That was three decades ago; and since then the
trade of Bass has increased enormously. For the annual holiday
of the staff I should be afraid to state from memory how many
special trains are required to convey the great hive of workers to
Brighton, and other far-distant watering-places, and back to Burton
again. In short, it would be hard to find a spot in the inhabited world
in which the name of Bass is not known and respected.
I mentioned further back Scotch and English barleys as being
employed for malting purposes; but as a matter of fact the produce
of many countries is used, in a blend, the whole being divided into
two classes, heavy and light. And in making choice of barleys it is
necessary that they should be thoroughly and equally ripened, well
“got” or harvested, and as far as possible presented to the brewer in
the perfect husk or envelope with which nature has furnished the
kernel. Ancient and modern modes of thrashing and dressing to a
greater or less extent damage both the husk and the kernel, and
thus at the very threshold introduce one of the causes of disease.
Whenever the grain is broken or bruised it is liable to be attacked
when moist by a variety of moulds which lead to more or less
serious disaster.
Of the different varieties of beer, “pale ale” or “bitter” is a highly-
hopped beer made from the very finest selected malt and hops;
whilst “mild ale,” or as it is called in Scotland “sweet ale,” is of
greater gravity or strength, and is comparatively lightly hopped. “Old
{68}
{69}
ale” is, naturally, the best stuff that can be brewed, in a state of
maturity; and it is a peculiarity of ale that, securely bottled, it will
keep its strength far longer than any other fermented drink. In
December 1889 some bottles of beer were found walled up in a
cellar at Burton-on-Trent; and the records of the firm, as well as the
shape of the bottles, shewed that the beer had been brewed nearly
a hundred years before. It was as bright as a sunbeam, and quite
drinkable, but had lost its bitterness, and assumed the character of
sherry. But old ale, like old brandy, is of little value to the toper, in
that it takes a very minute quantity to accomplish in him the desired
effect—oblivion. “Audit” ales and “college” ditto require very delicate
handling of the jug; and I have tasted ancient beer in Allsopp’s
cellars in Burton, a wine-glassful of which would probably have put a
coal-whipper on his back. It was the colour of mahogany and oh! so
seductive.
Porter, as most people know, is a black beer, brewed in much the
same manner as the other stuff, with roasted malt to give it colour;
whilst stout is simply a superior kind of porter. As for the lager beer
of the Fatherland it is fermented at a very low temperature, the
fermentation being longer delayed. Some years ago great stress was
laid on the German system of mashing called the “thick mash,”
which consisted of boiling or cooking a portion of the mash, and
running it back and remixing it with the portion left in the tun; but it
is now found possible to brew the finest lager beer with a slight
modification of our own mashing method.
The sons of Britannia for a considerable period held aloof from
this lager, which was pronounced by some to be mere
“hogwash,” and by others to consist principally of the juice of fir-
{70}
cones and onions mixed with snow-water. The fir-cone flavour is, I
believe, accounted for by the “pitching” of the barrels in which the
beer is stored; but I don’t know where the oniony flavour comes
from. The prejudice against this beer has long since departed from
our midst; in fact it has become quite a favourite summer drink. It is
generally considered less intoxicating than its English cousin. In fact
the German students are in the habit of putting huge quantities
thereof out of sight, on the occasion of passing examinations, and
public rejoicings; and these “beer-drinkings” are, apparently, fully
sanctioned by the authorities.
It has been written that it is to Dean Nowell, “classed by Fuller
among the worthies of England,” that we are indebted for the
discovery of bottled beer. According to Fuller, “this worthy, who was
an en­
thus­
ias­
tic fish­
er­
man, was one day angling in the Thames; but
at the very time when he was trying to catch perch to carry to the
frying-pan, that benighted bigot Bishop Bonner was trying to catch
him to tie him to the stake for pur­
poses of cremation, to the glory of
the old religion. The reverend gen­
tle­
man heard that he was ‘wanted,’
left his fishing, and fled as far from the Thames as he could, leaving
untasted in a safe place a bottle of beer which he had filled in the
morning. Bonner’s day did not last long, and Dean Nowell was soon
able to return to his old haunts. Fishing as usual, he went to look
after his bottle of beer, and found that it had turned into a
species of gun—it exploded its contents, when touched.” Thus
Nature, which is ever kind, turned the martyrdom and misery of
Bloody Mary’s reign to good—it brought about bottled beer. The
Dean un­
bos­
omed himself of his great dis­
covery to his clerical
friends, and the clergy let it out gradually to the laity.
{71}
Gervase Markham, the aforementioned con­
tem­
po­
rary of Shake­
‐
speare, gives the fol­
low­
ing directions to “the English House­
wife” of
1631, for
Brewing of Bottle-Ale.
Touching the brewing of Bottle-ale, it differeth nothing at all from the brewing
of strong Ale, onely it must be drawne in a larger proportion, as at least twenty
gallons of halfe a quarter; and when it comes to be changed, you shall blinke it
(as was before shewed) more by much than was the strong Ale, for it must bee
pretty and sharpe, which giveth the life and quicknesse to the Ale: and when you
tunne it, you shall put it into round bottles with narrow mouthes, and then
stopping them close with corke, set them in a cold sellar up to the wast in sand,
and be sure that the corkes be fast tied in with strong packe-thrid, for feare of
rising out, or taking vent, which is the utter spoyle of the Ale.
Now for the small drinke arising from this Bottle-ale, or any other beere or ale
whatsoever, if you keep it after it is blinckt and boyled in a close vessell, and then
put it to barme every morning as you have occasion to use it, the drinke will
drinke a great deale the fresher, and be much more lively in taste.
I confess that the above directions are somewhat vague to my
untutored mind, which is quite a blank upon the subject of “blinckt
and boyled” ale. Nor do I imagine for one moment that the “English
Housewife” of the year 1899 will cumber herself with brewing or
bottling, any sort of malt-liquor, as long as there be bonnets to be
chosen, bicycles to be ridden, or golf to be played.
Wholesome as may be the beer in itself, its surroundings are not
always hygienic. The system of pumping up the glorious fluid from
the cellar through leaden pipes neither improves the flavour nor
renders it more valuable as a morning “livener.” And there is a story
—which I believe to be strictly true—told of a night cabman in
London who used to call at the nearest tavern to his stand, the first
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  • 5. Channel Coding Theory Algorithms and Applications 1st Edition David Declercq (Editor) Digital Instant Download Author(s): David Declercq (editor), Marc Fossorier (editor), Ezio Biglieri (editor) ISBN(s): 9780081013304, 0081013302 Edition: 1 File Details: PDF, 19.53 MB Year: 2014 Language: english
  • 6. Channel Coding Theory, Algorithms, and Applications Academic Press Library in Mobile and Wireless Communications
  • 7. DAVID DECLERQ, MARC FOSSORIER AND EZIO BIGLIERI Channel Coding Theory, Algorithms, and Applications AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON NEW YORK • OXFORD • PARIS • SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO Academic Press is an imprint of Elsevier Edited by Academic Press Library in Mobile and Wireless Communications
  • 8. Academic Press is an imprint of Elsevier The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, UK 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451, USA First edition 2014 Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise with- out the prior written permission of the publisher. Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone (+44) (0) 1865 843830; fax (+44) (0) 1865 853333; email: permis- sions@elsevier.com. Alternatively you can submit your request online by visiting the Elsevier web site at http://elsevier.com/locate/permissions, and selecting Obtaining permission to use Elsevier material. Notice No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or opera- tion of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences, in particular, independent verification of diagnoses and drug dosages should be made. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN–13: 978-0-12-396499-1 For information on all Academic Press publications visit our web site at store.elsevier.com Printed and bound in the US 14 15 16 17 18 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
  • 9. xv Channel coding has long been recognized as an important feature for the transmis- sion or the storage of digital information, to combat the unstructured noise incurred by small to nano-electronics. Data are always used in coded form for their transmis- sion through wireless or wired channels, or for their storage on magnetic or opti- cal recording devices, to ensure a desired level of reliability of the communication systems. While its origin dates back to more than half a century, it was not until the 1990s and the introduction of the turbo principle in information theory that theoretical lim- its could be approached with practical designs. This discovery, based on the concept of iterative decoding with feedback of newly processed information, revolutionized the area of forward error correction (FEC) and nowadays every modern communica- tions or storage system has been designed with the consideration of an iterative FEC scheme. Consequently, wireless communications have been directly impacted by iterative decoding methods. The turbo principle also motivated the designs of other iteratively decodable codes and in particular contributed to the resurrection of low density parity check (LDPC) codes. The iterative information processing gives rise to so strong practical algorithms that the concept has also been applied for more general communication systems and receivers, incorporating feedback loops between the FEC and the diverse signal processing blocks. We can cite as most popular examples receivers implementing turbo-equalization, turbo-detection, turbo-synchronization, etc. The efficient design of those iterative receivers takes its root in the deep under- standing of the theory of turbo and LDPC codes. In this book, we review the concepts of channel coding relevant to wireless commu- nications in conjunction with the designs that heavily rely on iterative decoding meth- ods. Although an impressive leap has been achieved in the performance of FEC for wireless communications due to iterative methods, issues about their design and imple- mentation remain. In fact, the initial gains achieved were so large compared to previous FEC schemes that at first, almost every iterative decoding scheme that you could think of seemed good. These days, refinements about these designs in terms of structure, complexity, latency, etc. are still of importance, both theoretically and practically. The authors who contributed to this chapter are leading experts in the area they cover, with a deep knowledge of both the latest theory and recent practical realiza- tions of the topic, as well as of the remaining issues. In each chapter, an emphasis is made on the presentation of the concepts and the most efficient and useful techniques, with insistence on heavily referencing the corresponding literature. Consequently, this book is intended to address a large audience from practical engineers to research- ers to graduate students. This book is formed of 13 chapters, which can be divided into four conceptual parts: Part I (Chapters 1 to 4) describes the main iteratively decodable codes; Part II (Chapters 5 to 7) covers tools to design these codes in practical implementations; Part III (Chapters 8 to 12) presents the combination of these codes with other techniques Preface
  • 10. xvi Preface relevant to wireless communications. Finally, Part IV (Chapter 13) addresses the VLSI realization of these schemes. In Chapter 1, the original turbo codes are first reviewed, with emphasis on the concepts associated with the initial design, put in a historical perspective, and an analysis of the performance based on constituents of a turbo code. Finally, the indus- trial impacts of the turbo codes are presented. Chapter 2 covers design, analysis, construction, and performance of the turbo- like codes. This chapter also describes the iterative decoding algorithms for these codes, with many simulation results provided. Chapter 3 introduces LDPC codes and their constructions. It first describes the important parameters for these codes based on an asymptotic analysis. Then con- structions of practical importance for implementation are presented, with a final description of LDPC codes already in standards. Chapter 4 first presents an overall survey of LDPC decoders, and then provides a more detailed insight into some of the most widely used decoders, with emphasis on their implementation. In Chapter 5, one of the most important tools to design iteratively decodable codes, namely, the extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) method, is presented from a practical point of view. It is shown how to apply it to design several classes of itera- tively decodable codes. Chapter 6 presents a study of the causes of decoding failures on various channels under different iterative decoding algorithms. In Chapter 7, practical considerations of FEC such as puncturing with rate com- patibility and unequal error protection are presented for iteratively decodable codes. Chapter 8 presents the concept of rateless coding and the main categories of rate- less codes that have been proposed for various types of channel. Applications for which rateless coding can be used are then discussed. Chapter 9 surveys distributed channel coding techniques for cooperative commu- nications, with emphasis on decode-and-forward relaying. Several classes of codes are discussed. Chapter 10 introduces the important aspects of space–time block codes (STBCs) related to their encoding, decoding, rate diversity, and diversity-multiplexing trade- offs. Many construction techniques for STBCs are presented. Chapter 11 considers coded modulation, which jointly combines coding and mod- ulation to increase bandwidth efficiency. Both original designs and recent designs based on iteratively decodable codes are presented. Chapter 12 provides an overview of joint source-channel coding and decoding, as well as of the related problem of joint protocol-channel decoding techniques. The impact of these techniques in actual systems is finally discussed. Chapter 13 gives a systematic review of the main achievements in the implemen- tation of iterative channel decoders. Solutions required to achieve specific design objectives, such as low complexity, high throughput, and low energy, are discussed. In conclusion, the editors would like to thanks all authors for their time and efforts in order to meet the high expectations of this project.
  • 11. xvii Humberto Beltrão School of Engineering and Science, Jacobs University gGmbH, Campus Ring 1, D-28725 Bremen, Germany Sergio Benedetto Dipartimento di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni (DET), Politecnico di Torino C.so Duca degli Abruzzi n. 24, 10129 Torino, Italy Emmanuel Boutillon Université de Bretagne Sud, Lab-STICC, Centre de Recherche, BP 92216, 56321 Lorient Cedex, France Shashi Kiran Chilappagari Marvell Semiconductor Inc., Santa Clara, CA 95054, USA Dariush Divsalar Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, MS 238–420, Pasadena, CA, USA Catherine Douillard Telecom Bretagne, UMR6285, Lab-STICC, F29200 Brest, France Pierre Duhamel LSS – SUPELEC 3, 3, rue Jolio Curie, 91192, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France Mark Flanagan School of Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland Alexandre Graell i Amat Department of Signals and Systems, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden Werner Henkel School of Engineering and Science, Jacobs University gGmbH, Campus Ring 1, D-28725 Bremen, Germany Motohiko Isaka Department of Informatics, School of Science and Technology, Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan Michel Jezequel Telecom Bretagne, UMR6285, Lab-STICC, F29200 Brest, France Michel Kieffer LSS – SUPELEC 3, 3, rue Jolio Curie, 91192, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France Contributors
  • 12. xviii Contributors Ingmar Land Institute for Telecommunications Research, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, SA 5095, Australia Guido Masera Politecnico di Torino, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy Guido Montorsi Dipartimento di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni (DET), Politecnico di Torino C.so Duca degli Abruzzi n. 24, 10129 Torino, Italy Dung Viet Nguyen Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA Enrico Paolini Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering “G. Marconi”, University of Bologna, Via Venezia 52, Cesena, FC 47521, Italy C. Poulliat IRIT Lab, INP/ENSEEIHT-Toulouse, 2 rue Charles Camichel, B.P. 7122, 31071 Toulouse Cedex 7, France Aditya Ramamoorthy Iowa State University, 3222 Coover Hall, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ames, IA 50010, USA Valentin Savin CEA-LETI, MINATEC Campus, 17 rue des Martyrs, 38054 Grenoble, France B. Sundar Rajan Department of ECE, IISc, Bangalore 560012, India Ragnar Thobaben School of Electrical Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden Bane Vasić Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
  • 13. 1 CHAPTER Turbo Codes: From First Principles to Recent Standards Catherine Douillard and Michel Jezequel Telecom Bretagne, UMR6285, Lab-STICC, F29200 Brest, France CHAPTER OUTLINE 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 History of turbo codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2.1 The origins of turbo codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.2 Concatenation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.3 Negative feedback in the decoder and recursive systematic convolutional codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.4 Extrinsic information and iterative decoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.5 Parallel concatenation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3 Fundamentals of turbo coding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 3.1 Recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) component codes . . . . . . 8 3.2 Block coding with turbo codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 3.3 The permutation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 3.3.1 Regular permutation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 3.3.2 Irregular permutations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 4 Fundamentals of turbo decoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 4.1 The turbo principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 4.2 Soft-input soft-output decoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 4.2.1 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 4.2.2 The MAP algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 4.2.3 The MAP algorithm in the logarithmic domain: Log-MAP and Max-Log-MAP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 5 Industrial impacts of turbo codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 5.1 The very first implementations of turbo codecs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 5.1.1 The CAS 5093 circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 5.1.2 The Turbo4 circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 5.2 Early applications of turbo codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 5.3 Turbo codes in standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Channel Coding: Theory, Algorithms, and Applications. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-396499-1.00001-7 © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1
  • 14. 2 CHAPTER 1 Turbo Codes: From First Principles to Recent Standards 5.3.1 Mobile communication systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 5.3.2 Digital video broadcasting (DVB) standards . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 5.3.3 Other standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 5.3.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 1 Introduction This chapter is a general introduction to the original turbo codes, proposed and patented by Claude Berrou in 1991 [1–3] and known as convolutional turbo codes or parallel concatenated convolutional codes. Turbo codes are an outcome of the research activity of Telecom Bretagne1 (formerly École Nationale des Télécommunications de Bretagne), a French graduate engineering school in the field of information technolo- gies. The Electronics Department of Telecom Bretagne has been involved in research in the field of algorithm-silicon interaction for more than 25 years. Its activity mainly consists in jointly devising new algorithms and innovative hardware architectures, digital and analog, for digital communications. The chapter describes the main concepts of coding theory introduced with the invention of turbo codes, provides the fundamental guidelines for the design of turbo codes with good performance, gives the basics of turbo decoding, and briefly reviews the industrial impacts of this new generation of error-correcting codes. Most of the sections are introduced from a historical point of view. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the experimentations, observations, and reflections which led to turbo codes and the ensuing concepts of iterative decoding, extrinsic informa- tion, and parallel concatenation. Section 3 focuses on the different constituents of the turbo encoder and analyzes their effects on the code performance. Section 4 provides the basics of the turbo principle and soft-input soft-output decoding of convolutional codes. Section 5 presents the very first hardware turbo codecs, some pioneer telecom- munication applications having adopted these codes, and an overall picture of the current telecommunication standards including turbo codes. Section 6 concludes the chapter. 2 History of turbo codes The invention of turbo codes is the outcome of an intuitive experimental approach, inspired by the work of some European researchers, Gerard Battail, Joachim Hagenauer, and Peter Hoeher who, at the end of the 1980s [4–7], highlighted the interest of soft-output decoding for concatenated coding. This section presents a 1 http://www.telecom-bretagne.eu/index.php?lang=en_GB.
  • 15. 2 History of Turbo Codes 3 chronology describing the successive ideas that led to the development of the first turbo codes, whose publication in 1993 [8] shook the coding community. With a performance at 0.5 dB from the Shannon limit, they showed a gain of almost 3 dB compared to solutions existing at that time. 2.1 The origins of turbo codes The origins of turbo codes are to be found in the late 1980s at Telecom Bretagne. Every year, a group of third year students directed by Claude Berrou and Patrick Adde was assigned to implement a digital communication function into a CMOS logic integrated circuit. In 1989, Alain Glavieux suggested the Soft-Output Viterbi Algorithm (SOVA) proposed by Battail in [4] for implementation. Therefore, the beginning of the work on error-correcting codes at Telecom Bretagne was marked by essential references on Viterbi decoding such as [9,10] and by the two main papers describing modifications to the Viterbi decoder to make it provide soft decisions, [4,7]. After two years, a suitable hardware architecture was finally proposed [11]. Meanwhile, this work led the researchers to a deep understanding of probabilistic decoding. Following Battail, Hagenauer, and Hoeher, it was observed that a soft-input and soft-output (SISO) decoder could be regarded as a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) amplifier. This observation stimulated Berrou to consider techniques commonly used with electronic amplifiers, especially negative feedback. However, this analogy with amplifiers is meaningful only if the input and output of the decoder represent the same signal—that is to say, only if the code is systematic. The next phases went faster. The development of turbo codes passed through severalstagesandledtotheintroductionofneologisms,suchasparallelconcatenation and extrinsic information, now part of the coding theory jargon. Here in a few words are the reflections that marked out this work, as related in [12]. 2.2 Concatenation Using the version of the SOVA in [11], it was possible to cascade SNR amplifiers and do the experiments described in [6], which was the initial plan: decoding a classical—i.e., serial—concatenation of two or more ordinary—i.e., non-systematic, non-recursive—convolutional codes. Concatenation is a simple way to obtain large asymptotic gains [13], but the performance at low SNR is debased due to the sharing of the redundancy energy between the component codes. The concatenated coding and decoding scheme that served as a starting point to develop turbo codes is described in Figure 1. 2.3 Negative feedback in the decoder and recursive systematic convolutional codes Analyzing the scheme in Figure 1, one can notice a dissymmetry in the use of received information: the inner decoder benefits only from redundancy symbols y1 whereas the outer decoder benefits from redundancy symbols y2 and from the work of the inner
  • 16. 4 CHAPTER 1 Turbo Codes: From First Principles to Recent Standards D Parallel to serial Inter- leaver Puncturing D D Input d Outer Code (Code C2) Inner Code (Code C1) X2 Y2 D Parallel to serial Puncturing D D X1 Y1 Output Equivalent discrete channel Decoder DEC1 (SOVA) Serial to parallel + depunct- uring Deinter- leaver x1 y1 Decoder DEC2 Serial to parallel + depunct- uring x2 y2 Output Noise d̂ FIGURE 1 Serial (conventional) concatenation of two convolutional codes with coding rates 3/4 (outer code) and 2/3 (inner code). Global coding rate is 1/2. decoder. This observation gave Berrou the idea of re-injecting the result of outer decoding into the inner decoder. As the different levels of the composite decoder do not represent the same pieces of information—the codes are not systematic, it was necessary to build an estimate of symbols x2 and y2 at the output of decoder DEC2. At first, it was a great surprise to observe that the bit error rate (BER) of these reconstructed symbols after decoding was lower than the BER of decoded information d̂. However, an intense search did not make it possible to find any explanation for this strange behavior in the literature. It was then a straightforward task to (re)invent recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) codes in order to have information data carried by the encoder output instead of its state and take advantage of this property not covered in other works. An insight into the distance properties of these codes is given in Section 3.1. The detailed analysis can be found in [14] (in French). The resulting serial concatenated coding scheme is shown in Figure 2. The idea of re-injecting the result of outer decoding into the inner decoder, sim- ilar to the principle of the turbo engine, gave its prefix to turbo codes, although it would have been more rigorous to mention only turbo decoding, since no feedback is implemented at the encoder side. 2.4 Extrinsic information and iterative decoding The soft-output Viterbi decoder of a systematic code provides a good estimate of the log likelihood ratio (LLR) relative to its input symbols. It can be shown that each computed LLR can be expressed as the sum of two contributions. The first, intrinsic information, is available at the channel output before any decoding stage;
  • 17. 2 History of Turbo Codes 5 D Parallel to serial Inter- leaver Puncturing D D Input d Outer Code (RSC) X2=d Y2 Output D Parallel to serial Puncturing D D Inner Code (RSC) X1 Y1 FIGURE 2 Serial (conventional) concatenation of two recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) codes with coding rates 3/4 (outer code) and 2/3 (inner code). Global coding rate is 1/2. Decoder DEC1 (SOVA) Serial to parallel + depunct- uring Deinter- leaver x1 y1 Decoder DEC2 (SOVA) Serial to parallel + depunct- uring x2 y2 Output d + - + - + - Parallel to serial Inter- leaver LLR (x2) LLR (y2) Extrinsic information z LLR(d) LLR(x1) From channel ˆ FIGURE 3 Structure of the very first turbo decoding scheme. the second, extrinsic information, is provided by exploiting the dependencies (due to convolution, parity, …) existing between the symbol being processed and the other symbols processed by the decoder. As the intrinsic information is used by both decoders (at different instants), the extrinsic information produced by each of the decoders must be passed to the other as new information to ensure joint convergence. In any decoding construction, extrinsic information must not be used by the processor which produced it. Berrou finally came up with the scheme depicted in Figure 3. The decoder is built in such a way that no information produced by a component decoder can feed its input, either directly or indirectly. Others, mainly in the United States, Elias [15], Gallager [16,17], Tanner [18], and so on had earlier imagined procedures for coding and decoding that were the forerunners of turbo codes. The digital processing of information has at least one major drawback: it does not lend itself easily to feedback techniques. An iterative procedure has to be used because of the delays (trellis, interleaving, …). This procedure increases the decoder latency, but ever-continuing progress in microelectronics makes possible today what was unimaginable not so long ago.
  • 18. 6 CHAPTER 1 Turbo Codes: From First Principles to Recent Standards Two hardware solutions can be contemplated, depending on the information rate. For low data rates, a single decoding processor working at a high data frequency can make all the required iterations with a tolerable added delay. For high rates, a cascade of identical decoding modules can be implemented monolithically to enable high-speed pipeline processing (in this case, typically that of broadcasting, the latency problems are generally less crucial). 2.5 Parallel concatenation The idea of the so-called parallel concatenation paradigm did not germinate by anal- ogy with product codes, as sometimes reported. It came actually from the team in charge of the design of the very first pipelined turbo decoding integrated circuit, intended to validate the concept of iterative decoding. Serial concatenation requires different clock signals for the inner and outer decoders. Due to the symmetric structure of the encoder, parallel concatenation simplifies the architecture of the system since both component encoders and decoders can work with the same clock signal, which is also the data clock. The first studied parallel turbo encoder and its decoding scheme are shown in Figure 4. Turbo codes are sometimes also called parallel concatenated convolutional codes (PCCCs) in contrast with the conventional serial concatenation. Input d Output Equivalent discrete channel + Noise D Inter- leaver Puncturing D D First Code (RSC) Y1 D Parallel to serial Puncturing D D Second Code (RSC) X1 Y2 Decoder DEC1 (SOVA1) Serial to parallel + depunct- uring Inter- leaver x1 y1 Decoder DEC2 (SOVA2) y2 Output + - + - Deinter- leaver LLR2(d) Extrinsic information z LLR1(d) d ˆ FIGURE 4 Parallel concatenation of two RSC codes and associated (asymmetrical) decoder.
  • 19. 2 History of Turbo Codes 7 Serial to parallel + depunct- uring x1 Output Decoder DEC2 (SOVA2) + - Deinter- leaver LLR2(d) Inter- leaver Decoder DEC1 (SOVA1) + - Inter- leaver LLR1(d) x2 z2 z1 y1 y2 From channel d ˆ FIGURE 5 Symmetrical turbo decoder. Later on, a symmetrical structure was also devised for the turbo decoder (Figure 5), which is more natural is the sense that it reflects the symmetry of the encoding process. It was also observed that, for a given coding rate, parallel concatenation yields more redundant symbols from the outer code than serial concatenation does. A parallel concatenation of two elementary codes C1 and C2 with coding rates R1 and R2 has a global coding rate: Rp = R1 R2 R1 + R2 − R1 R2 = R1 R2 1 − (1 − R1)(1 − R2) , (1) whereas the global coding rate of the serially concatenated code is RS = R1 R2. For instance, a global coding rate 1/2 can be obtained with the parallel concatenation of two codes with elementary rates 2/3 or with the serial concatenation of two codes with elementary rates 2/3 and 3/4, as in Figure 1. Thanks to a greater number of redundant symbols, the parallel structure can benefit from a higher diversity effect. This explains why the convergence threshold, i.e., the minimum SNR at which the iterative decoder starts to correct most of the errors, is lower when the concatenation is parallel. In return, serially concatenated convolutional codes (SCCCs) show lower changes of slope in the bit error probability curves than their parallel counterpart, due to higher minimum Hamming distances. The distance properties of PCCCs and SCCCs are analyzed in [19,20].
  • 20. 8 CHAPTER 1 Turbo Codes: From First Principles to Recent Standards 3 Fundamentals of turbo coding The turbo encoder involves a parallel concatenation of at least two elementary recur- sive systematic convolutional (RSC) codes separated by an interleaver (). Figure 6 represents a turbo code in its most conventional version [8,21]. The input binary message of length K is encoded in its natural order and in a permuted— or interleaved—order by two RSC encoders ENC1 and ENC2. In the figure, the RSC encoders are identical but this property is not essential. The overall coding rate R of the turbo code is 1/3. To obtain higher rates, the most common technique involves puncturing, i.e., not transmitting, part of coded symbols, most often redundancy sym- bols Y1 and Y2. Adopting m-binary codes is another way of increasing the code rate [22]. 3.1 Recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) component codes The convolutional codes used in the experiments described in Figure 1 were a non- systematic code. However, due to the observation mentioned in Section 2.3 that the BER of the reconstructed symbols after decoding was lower than the BER of decoded information, Berrou, Glavieux, and their PhD student Thitimajshima investigated the ways of building systematic convolutional codes with good performance [14]. It was then observed that recursive systematic codes could offer good performance both Data D D D ENC1 Y1 ENC2 D D D Y2 Interleaver X Possible puncturing FIGURE 6 The turbo encoder structure, a parallel concatenation of two RSC encoders separated by an interleaver.
  • 21. Exploring the Variety of Random Documents with Different Content
  • 22. {35} to make Clary Wine. Take twenty-four pounds of Malaga raisins, pick and chop them very small, put them in a tub, and to each pound a quart of water; let them steep ten or eleven days—this sounds like a school treat—stirring it twice every day; you must keep it covered close all the while; then strain it off, and put it into a vessel, and about half a peck of the tops of clary (what was clary?) when ’tis in blossom; stop it close for six weeks, and then bottle it off; in two or three months ’tis fit to drink. Clary naturally leads to Apricock Wine, which we of the nineteenth century miscall apricot. The derivation of the word is Latin. Then the Arabs got hold of it, and it became Al- precoc. Then the thriving Spaniards got hold of the word, which became Alborcoque; and so to England. But to the wine. Take three pounds of sugar, and three quarts of water, let them boil together, and scum it well; then put in six pounds of apricocks, pared and stoned, and let them boil till they are tender; then take them up, and when the liquor is cold bottle it up. You may, if you please, after you have taken out the apricocks, let the liquor have one boil with a sprig of flower’d clary in it. Also, you may if you please—and you probably will please—add a little old brandy to the decoction.
  • 23. {37} CHAPTER IV SOME OLD RECIPES Indifference of the Chineses — A nasty potion — A nastier — White Bastard — Helping it to be eager — Improving Malmsey — Death of the Duke of Clarence — Mum is not the word — English champagne — Life without Ebulum a blank — Cock ale — How to dispose of surplus poultry — Painful fate of a pauper — Potage pauvre — Duties of the old English housewife — Election of wines, not golf — Muskadine — Lemon wine — Familiar recipe — King William’s posset — Pope’s ditto. “The Chineses,” says a very old work on liquid nourish­ ment, “make ex­ cel­ lent Drink of Rice, which is very pleasant of taste, and is pre­ ‐ ferred by them before wine.” But, like the Germans, the Chineses will eat and drink pretty nearly anything. And this is the cheering mixture which the Chineses sampled in the new German colony of Kiant-schan, according to the Frankfurter Zeitung:— “Sitting under the poplars one can imagine oneself in the courtyard of an old German feudal castle. The hamper is opened, and the cold mountain stream flowing before the temple serves as an ice cellar. Once more the male population of the village puts in an appearance, standing round the table in amazement at all the unheard-of things happening. The greatest success attends the uncorking of the Apollinaris bottles. The bottle is pointed at the onlookers, and the cork having been loosened it flies into their faces with a loud report. At first they are greatly alarmed, then they enjoy the joke hugely, and at last they all squat on the ground in a circle, and send a deputy to the table of the foreigners, bearing a teacup. The petition is granted, and in the teacup an exquisite brew is
  • 24. {38} prepared. The drainings of all the beer bottles are collected, to which is added a little claret and a liberal proportion of Apollinaris, and then, in order to lend greater consistency to the beverage, some sausage skins are mixed with it. The teacup circulates amongst the Chinese, and each sips it with reverential awe. Some of them make fearful grimaces, but not one has the courage of his opinion, and it is evident that, on the whole, the drink is voted a good one, although, perhaps, its flavour is somewhat rare.” Next, please. Oh, here is another, about some neighbours of the Chineses. “In the Isle Formosa, not far from China, the Natives make a Drink as strong and intoxicative as Sack, out of Rice, which they soak in warm water, and then beat it to a paste in a Mortar; then they chew some Rice-meal in their mouths, which they spit to a pot till they have got about a quart of liquor, which they put to the paste instead of Leaven or Ferment. And after all be kneaded together till it be Dough, they put it into a great earthen pot, which they fill up with water, and so let it remain for two months; by which means they make one of the most pleasant Liquors a man need drink; the older the better and sweeter, although you keep it five and twenty or thirty years.” Weel—I hae ma doots. Until reading “The English Housewife, containing the inward and outward Vertues which ought to be in a complete Woman, published
  • 25. {39} by Nicholas Okes at the sign of the golden Unicorne, in 1631,” I had no skill in making White Bastard or “aparelling” Muskadine. They used a lot of eggs in the vintry in those days, and these were the instructions for making white bastard. Draw out of a pipe of bastard ten gallans, and put to it five gallans of new milke, and skim it as before, and all to beat it with a parill of eight whites of egges, and a handfull of Baysalt and a pint of conduit-water, and it will be white and fine in the morning. But if you will make very fine bastard—which I, personally, have no ambition to do—take a white-wine hog’s-head, and put out the lees, and wash it cleane, and fill it halfe full and halfe a quarter, and put to it foure gallans of new milke, and beate it well with the whites of sixe egges, and fill it up with white-wine and sacke, and it will be white and fine. Bastard had not much rest in the seventeenth century. The housewife who might wish “to helpe bastard being eager” had to follow these directions:— Take two gallons of the best stoned honey, and two gallons of white wine, and boyle them in a faire panne, skimme it cleane, and straine it through a faire cloth that there be no moats in it; then put to it one ounce of collianders (coriander seeds?) and one ounce of aniseeds, foure or five orange pils (pips?) dry and beaten to powder, let them lye three dayes; then draw your bastard into a cleane pipe, then put in your honey with the rest, and beate it well; then let it lye a weeke and touch it not, after draw it at pleasure. In the present enlightened century such a recipe does not read like helping the possible consumer to be “eager.” Nor does the following method of treating Malmsey sound promising, except for making its consumer particularly “for’ard”:— If you have a good but of Malmsey, and a but or two of sacke that will not be drunke; for the sacke prepare some empty but or pipe, and draw it more than
  • 26. {40} halfe full of sacke; then fill it up with Malmsey, and when your but is full within a little, put into it three gallons of Spanish cute, the best that you can get—where did they get it?—then beate it well; then take your taster, and see that it bee deepe coloured; then fill it up with sacke, and give it aparell, and beate it well. The aparell is thus: Take the yelkes of tenne egges and beate them in a cleane bason with a handful of Bay salt, and a quarte of conduit-water, and beate them together with a little peece of birch, and beate it till it be as short as mosse; then draw five or sixe gallons out of your but, then beate it againe, and then fill it up, and the next day it will be ready to be drawne. This aparell will serve both for muscadine, bastard, and for sacke. We are not told in history if the butt of Malmsey in which the Duke of Clarence shuffled off his mortal and sinful coil had been previously subjected to this “aparell” and castigation. In the interests of mercy, let us hope not. The fluid once known as Mum never claimed any sort of relationship with sparkling wine, but was a species of unsophisticated ale, brewed from wheat, or oats, with a little bean-meal occasionally introduced; in fact, the sort of stuff we use in the present century to fatten bacon pigs upon. And “mum” has not been the word with British brewers for some time past. Champagne has been made in England for a considerable period; but since the closing of the “night-houses” in Panton Street the trade therein has not been very brisk. During the present century champagne in this country—and I grieve to add in France as well—
  • 27. {41} has been chiefly fabricated from apples, and other fruits; but here is a much older way of making English Champagne. Take to three gallons of water nine pounds of Lisbon sugar; boil the water and sugar half an hour, scum it clean, then have one gallon of currants pick’d, but not bruis’d, pour the liquor boiling hot over them, and when cold work it with half a pint of balm two days; then pour it through a flannel or sieve, then put it into a barrel fit for it with half an ounce of ising-glass well bruis’d. When it has done working stop it close for a month, then bottle it, and in every bottle put a very small lump of double-refin’d sugar. This is excellent wine, and has a beautiful colour. “Life without Ebulum,” writes a friend, an instructor of youth in the ingenuous arts, in forwarding me the recipe, “is a void to most people who have not cultivated the eringo root in their back gardens.” I have never tasted ebulum, preferring my ale neat and unadorned, but this is how to prepare Ebulum. To a hogshead of strong ale take a heap’d bushel of elderberries, and half a pound of juniper berries beaten; put in all the berries when you put in the hops, and let them boil together till the berries break in pieces; then work it up as you do ale. When it has done working, add to it half a pound of ginger, half an ounce of cloves, as much mace, an ounce of nutmegs, and as much cinnamon grosly beaten, half a pound of citron, as much eringo root, and likewise of candied orange-peel. Let the sweetmeats be cut in pieces very thin, and put with the spice into a bag, and hang it in the vessel when you stop it up. So let it stand till ’tis fine, then bottle it up, and drink it with lumps of double-refin’d sugar in the glass.
  • 28. {42} {43} One of the quaintest beverages of which I ever heard, or read, is Cock Ale. In order to make this, the Compleat Housewyfe instructs us to take ten gallons of ale, and a large cock, the older the better. Parboil the cock, flea (flay?) him, and stamp him in a stone mortar till his bones are broken (you must craw and gut him when you flea him), then put the cock into two quarts of sack, and put to it three pounds of raisins of the sun stoned, some blades of mace, and a few cloves; put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has done working, put the ale and bag together into a vessel; in a week or nine days bottle it up, fill the bottles but just above the neck, and give it the same time to ripen as other ale. I have frequently read of the giving of “body” to ale and stout, by means of the introduction of horseflesh; and an old song used to tell us that upon one of the paupers in a certain workhouse happening, in­ ad­ ver­ tently, to fall head-fore­ most into the copper, dreadful to tell, he was boiled in the soup, which, on that account, in all probability so strengthened the con­ sti­ ‐ tu­ tions of the other paupers as to render them impatient of work­ ‐ house dis­ ci­ pline. The man who disap­ peared mysteriously—this is Mr. Samuel Weller’s story—and who unwittingly furnished “body” for the sausages supplied to the neigh­ bour­ hood, was, after all, benefiting his fellow-men. But to put the rooster into the ale-cask smacks somewhat of barbarism; and thank goodness we do not work off our surplus poultry in that fashion nowadays. But these barbarians were not ashamed; for lo! facing me is “another way” for the man­ u­ fac­ ture of rooster-beer. Take an old red, or other cock, and boyle him indifferent well; then flea his skin clean off, and beat him flesh and bones in a stone mortar all to mash, then slice into him half a pound of dates, two nutmegs quartered, two or three blaids of mace, four cloves; and put to all this two quarts of sack that is very
  • 29. {44} good; stop all this up very close that no air may get to it for the space of sixteen hours; then tun eight gallons of strong ale into your barrel so timely as it may have done working at the sixteen hours’ end; and then put thereinto your infusion and stop it close for five days, then bottle it in stone bottles; be sure your corks are very good, and tye them with pack-thread; and about a fortnight or three weeks after you may begin to drink of it; you must also put into your infusion two pound of raisins of the sun stoned. Holy Moses ! What a drink ! “It is necessary,” wrote a chronicler of the day, “that our English Housewife be skilfull in the election, preservation, and curing of all sorts of wines, because they be usuall charges under her hands, and by the least neglect must turne the Husband to much losse.” This was written, I may interpolate, before the bicycle craze had set in, and before the era of ladies’ clubs. Fancy asking the New Woman to elect, preserve, and cure all sorts of wines! “Therefore,” continues the same writer, “to speak first of the election of sweete Wines she must be careful that her Malmseys be full Wines, pleasant, well hewed, and fine; that Bastard be fat, and if it be tawny it skils not, for the tawny Bastards be always the sweetest. Muskadine must be great, pleasant, and strong, with a swete sent, and Amber colour. Sacke, if it be Seres (Xerez?), which it should be, you shall know it by the marke of a corke burned on one side of the bung, and they be ever full gadge, and so are no other Sackes; and the longer they lye the better they be.” Muskadine was, apparently, made from bastard and malmsey, with the addition of ginger and new milk (with the cream removed).
  • 30. {45} Here is a potion bearing the harmless, Band-of-Hopish name of Lemon Wine, which would not, however, be tolerated at a Salvation Army banquet. The first part of the recipe will be familiar to many of my young friends. Take six large lemons, pare off the rind, and cut the lemons and squeeze out the juice, and in the juice steep the rind, and put it to a quart of brandy—so far, brother, the court is with you—and let it stand in an earthen pot close stop’t three days, and then squeeze six more, and mix with two quarts of spring-water, and as much sugar as will sweeten the whole, and boil the water and lemons and sugar together, and let it stand till ’tis cool. Then add a quart of white wine and the other lemon and brandy, and mix them together, and run it through a flannel bag into some vessel. Let it stand three months and bottle it off. Cork your bottles very well, and keep it cool; it will be fit to drink in a month or six weeks. Cheer-oh ! This potion reads well, and I know a punch which bears some resemblance thereto. But why call it lemon wine? Do not the brandy and the white wine deserve some recognition in the nomenclature? What is understood by the name Barley Wine nowadays is a particularly strong brew of ale. With the ancients, however, it was a drink which might have been with safety handed round at breaking-up parties in a young ladies’ school. Take half a pound of French barley, and boil it in three waters, and save three pints of the last water, and mix it with a quart of white wine, half a pint of borage- water, as much clary-water, and a little red rose-water, the juice of five or six lemons, three quarters of a pound of fine sugar, and the thin yellow rind of a lemon; brew all these quick together, run it through a strainer, and bottle it up. ’Tis pleasant in hot weather, and very good in fevers.
  • 31. {46} In the matter of possets—of which more anon—the following reads like a seductive winter’s beverage, especially if the imbiber have a cold in the head. Fear not the bile, but read the directions for making King William’s Posset. Take a quart of cream, and mix with it a pint of ale, then beat the yolks of ten eggs and the whites of four; when they are well beaten, put them to your cream and ale. Sweeten to your taste and slice some nutmeg in it; set it over the fire, and keep it stirring all the while, and when ’tis thick, and before it boils, take it off, and pour it into the bason you serve it in to the table. Here is another, even more seductive. To make the Pope’s Posset. Blanch and beat three-quarters of a pound of almonds so fine that they will spread between your fingers like butter, put in water as you beat them to keep them from oiling. Then take a pint of sack or sherry, and sweeten it very well in double-refin’d sugar, make it boiling hot, and at the same time put half a pint of water to your almonds, and make them boil; then take both off the fire, and mix them very well together with a spoon. Serve it in a china dish. Frontiniac Wine was simplicity itself. Take six gallons of water and twelve pounds of white sugar, and six pounds of raisins of the sun cut small; boil them together one hour; then take of the flowers of elder, when they are falling and will shake off, the quantity of half a peck; put them in the liquor when ’tis almost cold, and next day put in six spoonfuls of syrup of lemons, and four spoonfuls of ale yeast; and two days after put it into a vessel that is fit for it, and when it has stood two months bottle it off.
  • 32. {47} In the olden times, just before Oliver Cromwell was a going concern, there were two sorts of what was then called Renish Wine, that is to say, Elstertune and Barabant. “The Elstertune,” says my informant, “are best, you shall know it by the Fat, for it is double bard and double pinned”—I have not the faintest idea what he means, but those are his words; “the Barabant is nothing so good, and there is not so much good to be done with them as with the other. If the Wines be good and pleasant, a man may rid away a Hogshead or two of White wine, and this is the most vantage a man can have by them; and if it be slender and hard, then take three or four gallons of stone-honey and clarify it cleane; then put into the honey four or five gallons of the same wine, and then let it seeth a great while, and put into it twopence in cloves bruised, let them seeth together, for it will take away the sent of honey; and when it is sodden take it off, and set it by till it be thorow cold; then take foure gallons of milke and order it as before, and then put all into your wine, and all to beate it; and (if you can) role it, for that is the best way; then stop it close and let it lie, and that will make it pleasant.” Possibly, but it seems a deal of trouble to take over a wine. And now let us adjourn to a more familiar subject, for discussion in the next chapter.
  • 33. {49} CHAPTER V GLORIOUS BEER Nectar on Olympus — Beer and the Bible — “Ninepenny” at Eton — “Number One” Bass — “The wicked weed called hops” — All is not beer that’s bitter — Pathetic story of “Poor Richard” — Secrets of brewing — Gervase Markham — An “espen” full of hops — Eggs in ale — Beer soup — The wassail bowl — Sir Watkin Wynne — Brown Betty — Rumfustian — Mother-in-law — A delightful summer drink — Brasenose ale. As much poetry has been written in praise of John Bar­ ley­ corn as in praise of wine, woman, battles, heroes, Cupid’s darts, and patent med­ i­ cines. And one dear old song, which seems to ring in my ears as I write, proclaimed that in the opinion of the author the nectar which the gods imbibed from golden goblets on the top of Mount Olympus was in reality cool, re­ fresh­ ing pale ale, quaffed out of pewter tankards. Whether this was so matters not, but as to the antiquity of beer as a beverage there can be no question; and however much the demand for other liquors may have slackened during the rolling on of time, John Barleycorn is still growing in public estimation. Breweries keep on springing up all over the country, and those who purchase shares in them receive, for the most part, sub­ stan­ tial div­ i­ dends. “Beer and the Bible” have won more elections than any other combination; the organ­ i­ za­ tion of the brewers has hitherto proved powerful enough to withstand all the slings and arrows of the Prohibition party, whilst there has been an enormous increase in the value of houses licensed to sell fermented refreshment; and the name of Bass will “live on,” like Claudian, “through the centuries.”
  • 34. {50} There be more than one description of beer put before the public. I forget at this moment who was responsible for the “swipes” of my school days, which tasted like red ink—and I have sampled both—but I have always believed that the man­ u­ fac­ turer—I do not believe him to have been a brewer at all—had a special spite against the rising generation, which he wished to die a lingering death. The “ninepenny” quaffed beneath the holy shade of Henry was good, sound, wholesome tipple; but I fancy an inferior brand was poured forth to us at “half time” in the football field. Since those days I have tasted pretty nearly all sorts and conditions of beer, from the “Number One” Bass drawn from the wood in pewter pots, in a little hostelry just off the Waterloo Road—the very best according to my taste—to the awful stuff tasted, and only tasted, one Sunday in a charmingly rural-looking little inn, with a thatched roof—a licensed house which apparently laid itself out to entrap the daring and enterprising “bona fide traveller,” and whose malt liquor was apparently composed for the most part of vinegar and dirty water, in which had been soaked quassia chips, salt, bloater-heads, and some of the thatch from the roof. Beer was the current name in England for every description of malt liquor before the introduction of “the wicked weed called hops” from the Netherlands in 1524. According to the Alvismal, a didactic Scandinavian poem of the tenth century, this malt liquor was called ale amongst men, and beer by the gods; and it was probably from this Scandinavian poem that the author of the anything-but-didactic poem quoted above got his ideas as to the real nature of the beverage partaken of on Olympus. In the Eastern counties of England, and over the greater part of the kingdom, ale signifies
  • 35. {51} strong, and beer small, malt liquor, but in the West these names mean exactly the reverse—which must be confusing in the extreme to the intelligent foreigner on his travels in search of facts and— refreshment. As now used, ale is distinguished from beer—I am alluding to the more civilized parts of our country—chiefly by its strength, and by the quantity of sugar remaining in it undecomposed. Strong ale is made from the best pale malt, and the fermentation is allowed to proceed slowly, and the ferment to be exhausted and separated. This, together with the large quantity of sugar still left undecomposed, enables the liquor to keep long, without requiring a large amount of hops. The last few lines may give the reader the impression that the writer served his time in Burton-on-Trent; but this is not the case. I have conveyed the bulk of my technical knowledge of brewing from standard works on the subject. It will be gathered from some previous remarks that all is not beer that’s bitter; and although it would seem impossible to find a cleaner, healthier, or more strengthening drink than the “pure beer” of commerce, brewed from good English or Scotch barley, Kentish hops, and fair spring-water, how about the wash sold in some licensed houses which is “fetched up” with foot-sugar, bittered with quassia, and mixed with salt and any nasty flavourer which is handy? The old stories about the carcass of a horse placed in the London stout, to give it “body,” and the mysterious disappearance of an Italian organ-grinder, together with his monkey and infernal machine, just outside a high-class brewery, are probably apocryphal. And although the ancients undoubtedly put a red cock—the older the better—into ale, on occasion, the nineteenth century Briton, for the
  • 36. {52} most part, if the rooster be too tough to serve as a boiled bonne bouche with parsley-and-butter, usually makes Cock-a-Leekie of him. And thereby hangs a tale. When my firm was running a small chicken-ranche we once reared an unfortunate fowl, who had curvature of the spine, almost from the fracture of his shell. He was a weakling, and his brethren and sistren, after the manner of birds, beasts, and fishes, who “go for” the anæmic and infirm, persecuted him exceedingly, and peeked most of his feathers off. Being a merciful, and withal a thrifty, poultry-farmer, I looked out an old parrot’s cage from the tool-shed, and in this cage installed the weakly cockerel. He was forthwith christened “Poor Richard,” and given little Benjamin’s share of the corn and wine, and cayenne pepper and—other things. And although his head was still slewed round to starboard, he thrived under his liberal nourishment and freedom from the assaults of his relatives. Time flew on. I had been the “Northern Circuit,” in the pursuit of my then profession of reporter of the sport of kings. I returned home late on a Saturday night, and next day we had friends to dinner. So much North Country language, and so much travelling about had quite put our feathered and afflicted pensioner out of my head; and even the fact of our having the favourite broth of His Majesty King James the First for dinner did not suggest anything to my busy brain. But afterwards, when we were alone—she ought not to have done it—my life-partner confided to me that I had helped to eat “Poor Richard”! And I felt like a very cannibal; and mourned the bird as a brother.
  • 37. {53} But to return. In Queen Elizabeth’s reign it was, I used to believe, a capital offence to put hops into beer. But these are the directions for Brewing of Strong Ale, issued by one Gervase Markham, an authority on the subject, and a contemporary of Shakespeare; and in these directions “hops” are distinctly mentioned as one of the component parts of the brew. Now for the brewing of strong Ale, because it is drinke of no such long lasting as Beere is, therefore you shall brew lesse quantity at a time thereof, as two bushels of Northerne measure (which is foure bushels or halfe a quarter in the South) at a brewing, and not above, which will make foureteene gallons of the best Ale. Now for the mashing and ordering of it in the mash-fat, it will not differ any thing from that of Beere; as for hops, although some use not to put in any, yet the best Brewers thereof will allow to foureteene gallons of Ale a good espen full of hops, and no more, yet before you put in your hops, as soone as you take it from the graines, you shall put it into a vessell, and change it, or blinke it in this manner: Put into the Wort a handfull of Oke-bowes and a pewter dish, and let them lye therein till the Wort looke a little paler than it did at the first, and then presently take out the dish and the leafe, and then boile it a full houre with the hops, as aforesayd, and then clense it, and set it in vessels to cook; when it is milk-warme, having set your Barme to rise with some sweete Wort; then put all into the guilfat, and as soone as it riseth, with a dishe or bowle beate it in, and so keepe it with continuall beating a day and a night, and after run it. From this Ale you may also draw halfe so much very good middle Ale, and a third part very good small Ale. Another way To make Strong Beer was published at a later date than the above, and to my thinking is not a better way.
  • 38. {54} {55} To a barrel of beer take two bushels of malt and half a bushel of wheat just crackt in the mill, and some of the flour lifted out of it; when your water is scalding hot, put it in your mashing-fat; there let it stand till you can see your face in it; then put your malt upon it, then put your wheat upon that, and do not stir it; let it stand two hours and a half; then let it run into a tub that has two pounds of hops in it, and a handful of rosemary flowers, and when ’tis all run put it in your copper and boil it two hours; then strain it off, setting it a-cooling very thin, and set it a-working very cool; clear it very well before you put it a-working, put a little yeast to it; when the yeast begins to fall, put it into your vessel, and when it has done working in the vessel, put in a pint of whole wheat and six eggs; then stop it up, let it stand a year, and then bottle it. Then mash again, stir the malt very well in, and let it stand two hours, and let that run, and mash again, and stir it as before; be sure you cover your mashing-fat well up, mix the first and second running together; it will make good household beer. I rather fancy the blend­ ing of a lot of eggs (pre­ sum­ ably new-laid) with the mash, would “break” some of the smal­ ler brewers. It could hardly be done at the price. The Germans make Beer Soup. Whether this is made from British or lager beer is not stated in the recipe before me, which hardly reads suited to the ordinary English palate. I will now give a few modern recipes for tasty beer-compounds. Ale Cup (Cold). Squeeze the juice of a lemon into a round of hot toast; lay on it a thin piece of the rind, a tablespoonful of powdered sugar, a little grated nutmeg or powdered all-spice, and a sprig of balm. Pour over these one wine-glass of brandy, two of sherry, and three pints of mild ale. Do not allow the balm to remain in many minutes. Ale Flip (Hot).
  • 39. {56} Put into a saucepan three pints of ale, a tablespoonful of sugar, a blade of mace, a clove, and a small piece of butter, and bring the liquor to a boil. Beat the white of one egg and the yolks of two thoroughly, mixing with them a tablespoonful of cold ale. Mix all together, and then pour the whole rapidly from one large jug to another, from a good height—mind your fingers and the furniture —for some minutes, to froth it thoroughly. Do not allow it to get cool. Ale Posset (Hot). Boil a pint of new milk, and pour it over a slice of toasted bread. Stir in the beaten yolk of an egg and a small piece of butter, and sugar ad lib. Mix these with a pint of hot ale, and boil for a few minutes. When the scum rises the mixture is ready for use. Mulled Ale (Very Hot). Put half a pint of ale, a clove, a little whole ginger, a piece of butter the size of a marble, and a teaspoonful of sugar into a saucepan, and bring it to boiling- point. Beat two eggs with a tablespoonful of cold ale, and pour the boiling ale into them, and then into a large jug. Pass the whole from one jug to another, as in the case of Ale Flip, return to saucepan, and heat it again till almost, not quite, at boiling-point. With regard to Wassail, or Swig (Cold), which used to be a very popular beverage at the uni­ vers­ i­ ties—at one time it was peculiar to Jesus College, Oxford—is of very ancient date indeed. “Sir quod he,” is part of a conversation culled from an old MS., “Watsayll, for never days of your lyf ne dronk ye of such a cuppe,” which sounds as if the Watsayll was of a seductive and harmful nature. Nev­ er­ the­ less here is the recipe, taken from “Oxford Nightcaps.” Put into a bowl half a pound of Lisbon sugar (if you do not possess that brand, I have no doubt “best lump,” pulverized, will do as well), and pour on it one pint of
  • 40. {57} warm beer; grate a nutmeg and some ginger into it; add four glasses of sherry and five additional pints of beer; stir it well and sweeten to taste; let it stand covered up two or three hours, then put three or four slices of bread cut thin and toasted brown into it, and it is fit for use. Sometimes two or three slices of lemon are introduced, together with a few lumps of sugar rubbed on the peel of a lemon. Bottle this mixture, and in a few days it may be drunk in a state of effervescence. On the festival of St. David, an immense silver-gilt bowl, the gift of Sir Watkin W. Wynne to the college in 1732 is filled with this “swig,” and passed round, at Jesus College. And I should prefer to call the beverage “swig” instead of “wassail,” which should properly be a hot drink, if we are to believe the illustrated papers at Christmas-time. And there is no toast in the orthodox Wassail, but, instead, roasted apples. What does Puck say in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab, And when she drinks against her lips I bob, And on her wither’d dewlaps pour the ale. Brown Betty Here is another old recipe:— Dissolve a quarter of a pound of brown sugar in one pint of water, slice a lemon into it, let it stand a quarter of an hour, then add a small quantity of pulverised cloves and cinnamon, half a pint of brandy, and one quart of good strong ale; stir it well together, put a couple of slices of toasted bread in it, grate some nutmeg and ginger over the toast, and it is fit for use. Ice it well, and it will prove a good summer, warm it and it will become a pleasant winter, beverage. It is drunk chiefly at dinner. Rather heavily loaded for a dinner drink, I should say.
  • 41. {58} Another recipe for Ale Flip will serve, here. Beat well together in a jug, four eggs with a quarter of a pound of sifted sugar; then add by degrees, stirring all the time, two quarts of old Burton ale, and half a pint of gin; pour backwards and forwards from one jug to another, and when well frothed serve in tumblers. Grate a little nutmeg atop of each portion. This is one of the best “nightcaps” I know—especially after you may have been badger-hunting, or burgling, or serenading anybody on Christmas Eve. Rumfustian. Beat up in a jug, the yolks of two eggs with a tablespoonful of sifted sugar; then take half a pint of old Burton ale, one wine-glass of gin, one wine-glass of sherry, a little spice and lemon rind. Let the ale, wine, and gin, mixed together come to the boil, then pour in the egg mixture, whisking rapidly; serve hot, with a little nutmeg grated atop. Such compound drinks, into which ale enters, as Shandy-gaff require no mention here. Suffice it to mention that this gaff has for many years been the favourite beverage of those who go up the river—there is but one river in England—in boats, whether schoolboys, or of riper years. In Stock Exchange circles champagne is occasionally substituted for ginger-beer, but this is a combination in which I have no implicit belief; although champagne and
  • 42. {59} {60} Guinness’s stout make an excellent mixture. Stout and bitter, otherwise known as Mother-in-law, and old-and-mild, for which the pet name is Uncle, are also in much request amongst the groundlings; whilst during the warm weather I know of no more popular swallow, for moderate drinkers, who do not require their throats to be scratched, than a small bottle of lemonade to which is added just one “pull” of pale- ale. This is called, for the sake of brevity, a Small Lem and a Dash, or the Poor Man’s Champagne; and is a refreshing and innocuous drink which might commend itself to total abstainers. In the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge there is probably as much malt liquor drunk per head as in any other part of the world. Brasenose Ale has obtained a reputation which the beverage doubtless fully merits. Since the foundation of this college a custom has prevailed of introducing into the refectory on Shrove Tuesday, immediately after dinner, what is denominated Brasenose Ale, but what is known in many other parts of England as Lamb’s Wool. Verses in praise of the Ale are—or at all events were—annually written by one of the undergraduates, and a copy of them is sent to every resident member of the College. The following stanzas are taken from one of these contributions:—
  • 43. Shall all our singing now be o’er, Since Christmas carols fail? No ! Let us shout one stanza more In praise of Brasenose Ale ! A fig for Horace and his juice, Falernian and Massic; Far better drink can we produce, Though ’tis not quite so classic. Not all the liquors Rome e’er had Can beat our matchless Beer; Apicius’ self had gone stark mad To taste such noble cheer. After all, the potion is simplicity itself:— Three quarts of ale, sweetened with sifted sugar, and served up in a bowl with six roasted apples floating in it.
  • 44. {62} CHAPTER VI ALL ALE Waste not, want not — The right hand for the froth — Arthur Roberts and Phyllis Broughton — A landlord’s perquisites — Marc Antony and hot coppers — Introduction of ale into Britain — Burton-on-Trent — Formerly a cotton-spinning centre — A few statistics — Michael Thomas Bass — A grand old man — Malting barleys — Porter and stout — Lager beer — Origin of bottled ale — An ancient recipe — Lead- poisoning — The poor man’s beer. In a speech made some years ago Sir Michael Hicks-Beach observed that nearly one million sterling’s worth of tobacco was wasted annually by throwing away cigarette-ends and the stumps of cigars. But what would you, Sir Michael? Are the lieges to cremate their lips and singe their moustaches by smoking on to the (literally) bitter end? Whether or no, it is tolerably certain that there is an enormous daily waste in the matter of in­ tox­ i­ ca­ ting drinks—without counting the wanton, although con­ sci­ en­ tious, des­ truc­ tion made by teetotal magnates. According to statistics—I shall not madden my readers with many of these—more than £138,000,000 are spent annually in Great Britain on spirituous liquors. Half of this sum, it may be fairly stated, is spent in the provinces. It may also be taken as read that 5 per cent of beer and stout is wasted, in the way of froth, spillings, and leavings, and 3 per cent of spirits. This brings us face to face with the calculation that the value of our daily waste in drinks is nearly £6500. Carbonic acid gas is undoubtedly answerable for a lot of this waste. In The Old Guard, a musical piece produced at the Avenue Theatre some years ago, Mr. Arthur Roberts in his instructions to Miss Phyllis Broughton—who made a very comely
  • 45. {63} stage barmaid—particularly enjoined her, when drawing ale, to use her left hand to bring the handle down. “The right hand,” he observed—of course it was all “gag”—“is for the froth.” And then he shewed her how to make half a pint of liquor fill a pint measure. Of course there be some professional imbibers who would object strongly and refuse to accept the froth programme; but on the other hand it pays the retailer, in the long- run. I am not going to re-tell the old story of the Quaker; but will only mention that in the early seventies the landlord of a favourite tavern in the Strand—a house of call for histrions, which has since then been transmogrified and adorned with much bevelled glass and carved walnut—once confided to me that he made every bit of £300 per annum out of his froth. His barmaids were all of angelic appearance, with most beautiful heads of hair (the girls wore plenty of it in those days) and a wealth of pretty prattle. And the customers being susceptible, and liberal-minded, the rest was easy. Egyptian manuscripts written at least 3000 years before the Christian era shew conclusively that even at that primitive period the man­ u­ fac­ ture of an intoxicating liquor from barley or other grain was extensively carried out in Egypt. Probably the wretched Israelites got far more birch and bastinado than beer given them whilst engaged in brickmaking; but it is quite on the cards that Cleopatra, when fatigued with practising the spot stroke on her billiard-table, often commanded one of her slaves to draw her a pint of bitter with a head on it; and who knows but that her beloved Antony cooled his coppers with small ale? Pliny—who would be a useful sort of man to have in a daily newspaper office nowadays—records that in his time a fermented
  • 46. {64} drink made from “corn and water” was in regular use in all the districts of Europe with which he was acquainted. But in Britain little was known about beer before the Roman conquest, as the favourite beverages of our ancestors were mead and cider. But the Romans, although they never quite succeeded in subduing the stubborn dispositions of the “barbarians,” managed to teach them a bit of husbandry, and to shew them something about brewing. There were no means of making wine in those days, and—save in Wales—there were no grapes to make it with; but the Latins were not long in teaching the Britons—who were never slow to learn anything which might lead to revelry—that a very good substitute for wine might be expressed from grain and water. Hops were undoubtedly known in England before the conquest, but do not appear to have been regularly used in brewing before the be­ gin­ ning of the sixteenth century. It is probable, therefore, that they were employed as medicine—and there is no better tonic than your hop. The Germans would seem to have brewed with the “wicked weed” before the Englanders did, according to the omniscient Pliny. The horny-handed son of toil, who can put away his four or five gallons daily during harvest-time, without falling off the waggon, may not know it, but it is only the female hop which is used by the brewer of to-day. The char­ ac­ ter­ is­ tics of the he-hop are not known to the writer, or whether he plays any part in aiding to relieve the thirst of the lieges; but the female is said to exercise “a purifying, a preservative, and an aromatic influence over the wort.” It used to be a popular fallacy that the beer made at Burton-on- Trent was brewed from Trent water, instead of, as was and is the case, from spring-water, which is eminently suited to the purpose.
  • 47. {65} The chief industry at Burton was, originally, cotton-spinning, but fifty years ago this industry was discontinued owing to the triumphal march of John Barleycorn. Why spin cotton when the man­ u­ fac­ ture of beer is not only a much healthier occupation but is far more lucrative? So Burton stuck to its beer-making, a trade which was originally established there—in a very small way—in the sixteenth century. There appears to have been a demand for Burton ale in London, during the reign of Charles I.; although details are missing as to whether the demand extended to the royal palaces. It is certain, however, that more than one hundred years ago Burton-on- Trent did a considerable export trade with the Baltic. In 1791 there were nine breweries here, and in 1851 sixteen. But at the be­ gin­ ning of the present century, until the last-named year, when the great Exhibition attracted all the world and his wife to England, the breweries at Burton were not all in a flourishing condition; and I have more than once heard my grandfather—who spoke from personal knowledge—tell the story of how the late Mr. Michael Thomas Bass most magnanimously offered to “prop up” another large firm, with the remark, “There’s room enough for us both here!”
  • 48. {66} At present there are thirty breweries in Burton-on-Trent, and employed in these are some 8000 men and boys. After the opening of the Midland Railway in 1839 the brewing trade here began to improve, but it was mainly due to the energy and practical knowledge of Mr. Bass aforementioned that Burton-on-Trent in general, and the great firm of Bass are in their present flourishing condition. In the words of Shakespeare, “He was a man; take him for all in all we shall not look upon his like again.” Beginning as traveller to the firm, he was not long ere he became its chief director. He was untiring in business, a man possessing the broadest views of men and things, a bit crotchety on occasion, but possessed of “that most excellent gift of charity,” in boundless supplies. Amongst his other benefactions was the building and endowment of St. Paul’s, Burton, and the gift of recreation grounds, a free library, and swimming-baths to the adjacent town of Derby. He also built and endowed another church on his own estate, at Rangemore; and his hand was never out of his cash-pocket when he could aid in a good work. He represented Derby, in the Liberal interest, from 1848 to 1883, and was a tower of strength to that party, albeit possessed of nothing like bigoted opinions. On the contrary, it was his custom through life, like Hal o’ the Wynd in The Fair Maid of Perth, to “fight for his own hand.” And as an instance of his energy and grit, it may be mentioned that after voting in the House of Commons for Mr. Gladstone’s Irish Church Disestablishment Bill—the division on which did not take place till 2 A.M.—he travelled by the “newspaper train” at 5 A.M. from Euston to Rugeley in order to hunt with Mr. Hugo Meynell Ingram’s hounds,
  • 49. {67} later in the morning, changing his clothes on the way down. The meet was at Brereton Hayes, close to Cunnock Chase, and I well remember greeting him that morning, and receiving for a reply: “Thank you, I’m pretty well for an old ’un.” He was over seventy (I think) at the time. That was three decades ago; and since then the trade of Bass has increased enormously. For the annual holiday of the staff I should be afraid to state from memory how many special trains are required to convey the great hive of workers to Brighton, and other far-distant watering-places, and back to Burton again. In short, it would be hard to find a spot in the inhabited world in which the name of Bass is not known and respected. I mentioned further back Scotch and English barleys as being employed for malting purposes; but as a matter of fact the produce of many countries is used, in a blend, the whole being divided into two classes, heavy and light. And in making choice of barleys it is necessary that they should be thoroughly and equally ripened, well “got” or harvested, and as far as possible presented to the brewer in the perfect husk or envelope with which nature has furnished the kernel. Ancient and modern modes of thrashing and dressing to a greater or less extent damage both the husk and the kernel, and thus at the very threshold introduce one of the causes of disease. Whenever the grain is broken or bruised it is liable to be attacked when moist by a variety of moulds which lead to more or less serious disaster. Of the different varieties of beer, “pale ale” or “bitter” is a highly- hopped beer made from the very finest selected malt and hops; whilst “mild ale,” or as it is called in Scotland “sweet ale,” is of greater gravity or strength, and is comparatively lightly hopped. “Old
  • 50. {68} {69} ale” is, naturally, the best stuff that can be brewed, in a state of maturity; and it is a peculiarity of ale that, securely bottled, it will keep its strength far longer than any other fermented drink. In December 1889 some bottles of beer were found walled up in a cellar at Burton-on-Trent; and the records of the firm, as well as the shape of the bottles, shewed that the beer had been brewed nearly a hundred years before. It was as bright as a sunbeam, and quite drinkable, but had lost its bitterness, and assumed the character of sherry. But old ale, like old brandy, is of little value to the toper, in that it takes a very minute quantity to accomplish in him the desired effect—oblivion. “Audit” ales and “college” ditto require very delicate handling of the jug; and I have tasted ancient beer in Allsopp’s cellars in Burton, a wine-glassful of which would probably have put a coal-whipper on his back. It was the colour of mahogany and oh! so seductive. Porter, as most people know, is a black beer, brewed in much the same manner as the other stuff, with roasted malt to give it colour; whilst stout is simply a superior kind of porter. As for the lager beer of the Fatherland it is fermented at a very low temperature, the fermentation being longer delayed. Some years ago great stress was laid on the German system of mashing called the “thick mash,” which consisted of boiling or cooking a portion of the mash, and running it back and remixing it with the portion left in the tun; but it is now found possible to brew the finest lager beer with a slight modification of our own mashing method. The sons of Britannia for a considerable period held aloof from this lager, which was pronounced by some to be mere “hogwash,” and by others to consist principally of the juice of fir-
  • 51. {70} cones and onions mixed with snow-water. The fir-cone flavour is, I believe, accounted for by the “pitching” of the barrels in which the beer is stored; but I don’t know where the oniony flavour comes from. The prejudice against this beer has long since departed from our midst; in fact it has become quite a favourite summer drink. It is generally considered less intoxicating than its English cousin. In fact the German students are in the habit of putting huge quantities thereof out of sight, on the occasion of passing examinations, and public rejoicings; and these “beer-drinkings” are, apparently, fully sanctioned by the authorities. It has been written that it is to Dean Nowell, “classed by Fuller among the worthies of England,” that we are indebted for the discovery of bottled beer. According to Fuller, “this worthy, who was an en­ thus­ ias­ tic fish­ er­ man, was one day angling in the Thames; but at the very time when he was trying to catch perch to carry to the frying-pan, that benighted bigot Bishop Bonner was trying to catch him to tie him to the stake for pur­ poses of cremation, to the glory of the old religion. The reverend gen­ tle­ man heard that he was ‘wanted,’ left his fishing, and fled as far from the Thames as he could, leaving untasted in a safe place a bottle of beer which he had filled in the morning. Bonner’s day did not last long, and Dean Nowell was soon able to return to his old haunts. Fishing as usual, he went to look after his bottle of beer, and found that it had turned into a species of gun—it exploded its contents, when touched.” Thus Nature, which is ever kind, turned the martyrdom and misery of Bloody Mary’s reign to good—it brought about bottled beer. The Dean un­ bos­ omed himself of his great dis­ covery to his clerical friends, and the clergy let it out gradually to the laity.
  • 52. {71} Gervase Markham, the aforementioned con­ tem­ po­ rary of Shake­ ‐ speare, gives the fol­ low­ ing directions to “the English House­ wife” of 1631, for Brewing of Bottle-Ale. Touching the brewing of Bottle-ale, it differeth nothing at all from the brewing of strong Ale, onely it must be drawne in a larger proportion, as at least twenty gallons of halfe a quarter; and when it comes to be changed, you shall blinke it (as was before shewed) more by much than was the strong Ale, for it must bee pretty and sharpe, which giveth the life and quicknesse to the Ale: and when you tunne it, you shall put it into round bottles with narrow mouthes, and then stopping them close with corke, set them in a cold sellar up to the wast in sand, and be sure that the corkes be fast tied in with strong packe-thrid, for feare of rising out, or taking vent, which is the utter spoyle of the Ale. Now for the small drinke arising from this Bottle-ale, or any other beere or ale whatsoever, if you keep it after it is blinckt and boyled in a close vessell, and then put it to barme every morning as you have occasion to use it, the drinke will drinke a great deale the fresher, and be much more lively in taste. I confess that the above directions are somewhat vague to my untutored mind, which is quite a blank upon the subject of “blinckt and boyled” ale. Nor do I imagine for one moment that the “English Housewife” of the year 1899 will cumber herself with brewing or bottling, any sort of malt-liquor, as long as there be bonnets to be chosen, bicycles to be ridden, or golf to be played. Wholesome as may be the beer in itself, its surroundings are not always hygienic. The system of pumping up the glorious fluid from the cellar through leaden pipes neither improves the flavour nor renders it more valuable as a morning “livener.” And there is a story —which I believe to be strictly true—told of a night cabman in London who used to call at the nearest tavern to his stand, the first
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