The London Beer Flood: When a Million Pints Flooded the Streets

On October 17, 1814, a 700-pound iron hoop fell from a massive wooden vat inside London’s Horse Shoe Brewery. The vat held more than one million pints of porter. The workers noticed the problem. They reported it. But hoops had slipped before, and nothing catastrophic had happened. About an hour later, the vat exploded. The resulting flood tore through the brewery, brought down a wall, and poured into the neighboring St. Giles area, where families lived in cramped homes and basement rooms directly in its path. Eight people were killed, including children and a 14-year-old girl working at a nearby pub. Pasted text But that's only part of the story. Over the next two centuries, the London Beer Flood became a legend filled with stories of people rushing into the streets with buckets, drinking free beer and turning the disaster into a giant drunken party. The contemporary historical record tells a very different story. This week on Yore Town, Matt and Megh dig into the true story of the London Beer Flood of 1814, including the enormous wooden vats used by London breweries, the warning that came before the disaster, the people caught in the flood, the myths that developed afterward, the bizarre legal verdict, and the financial relief eventually granted to the brewery. In this episode: 00:00 The London Beer Flood 01:57 Why London Built Enormous Beer Vats 04:36 The 700-Pound Warning 08:01 The Vat Explodes 10:59 A Neighborhood in the Path 13:50 Eight People Are Dead 16:55 The Legend vs. What Really Happened 19:46 Nobody Is Held Responsible 22:54 What the Beer Flood Left Behind Eight people died. Nobody was held responsible. And somehow, the brewery eventually received tax relief for the beer it lost. Pasted text Sometimes history doesn't need help being weird. Yore Town The strange, dark, and unbelievable true stories of real places. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.