The railway reaches Burton upon Trent

What was going on around it

An event on its own is a date. These are the periods it belongs to, where the argument about what changed is actually made.

• Industrial brewing

  Beer became the first mass-produced consumer product, and the technologies that made that possible — measurement, power, pale malt, rail — also decided which beers survived.

Why it matters

The clearest demonstration that brewing geography follows transport rather than water, despite the usual telling.

How well this is established

Traditions

• Burton pale ale brewing — The nineteenth-century Staffordshire pale ale trade built on gypsum-rich well water, high hopping rates and export-stable beer.