London, United Kingdom
The London beer flood
A porter vat at the Horse Shoe Brewery failed, releasing hundreds of thousands of litres into the surrounding streets and killing several people.
1814-10-17
Why it matters
The clearest surviving illustration of the scale eighteenth and nineteenth-century porter brewing had reached, and of the engineering it outran.
How well this is established
| Certainty | Documented. Supported by contemporary records that survive and are agreed on. |
|---|---|
| When | 1814-10-17. |
| Where | London, United Kingdom |
Styles this shaped
Traditions
- London porter brewing — The first industrial-scale brewing tradition, built in eighteenth-century London around dark beer, long maturation and enormous vats.
Either side of this
← 1800: Indirect-fired kilning makes pale malt practical · 1817: Daniel Wheeler patents black malt →
See the whole sequence on the beer history timeline.
Last reviewed 2026-08-16.