Historedia
Episode 1 of 2

Bursting of the Porter Vat

When
17 October 1814
Where
Horse Shoe Brewery
Part of
London Beer Flood at Meux's Brewery

A 22-foot-tall wooden vat of fermenting porter burst at Meux's Horse Shoe Brewery, releasing hundreds of thousands of gallons of beer.

At around 4:30 pm on 17 October 1814, George Crick saw an iron band slip on a vat. The burst dislodged valves and destroyed barrels, releasing between 128,000 and 323,000 imperial gallons. A 15-foot wave swept into New Street, destroying houses.

Sources

  1. London Beer Flood Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-17

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.