In 1636 the poet and traveller John Taylor wrote, ‘Hertfordshire is a County that surpasseth all other Countries and Counties for making the best malt.’ Much of that malt went by cart or barge to London, but Hertfordshire also has a long tradition of brewing, as well as malting, and the county eventually developed several substantial breweries. These included Benskin’s of Watford, which at one point owned some 640 pubs from Brighton to Cambridge, and even supplied the House of Commons. Today Hertfordshire still has some twenty breweries, including one, McMullen’s of Hertford, which will soon celebrate its 200th anniversary.

This carefully researched and well-illustrated book by one of Britain’s leading historians of the brewing industry looks at the long history of commercial brewing across Hertfordshire, and the often fascinating stories of the dozens of now undeservedly forgotten firms that once supplied the county’s pubs with their beer.