In 1854, Punch introduced its readers to Mr John Paterfamilias, ‘a man of an inquiring, but by no means robust mind’, addicted to reforming his suburban household along ‘rational and sanitary principles’. Undeterred by disastrous experiments in gas-fitting, and alarmed by adulteration reports in the Lancet, Paterfamilias decides to brew for himself, aided by his son Newton – a priggish 7-year-old, similarly addicted to scientific authority – and a ‘very clear little practical treatise’, priced 2s. The instructions dictate that mashing should begin at the preposterously low temperature of 78°F: having no thermometer, Paterfamilias accepts his servant's approximation of ‘one pail o'bilin' to three o'cold’. Having mixed the water and malt, Paterfamilias runs off the wort immediately, and is greatly surprised by its watery thinness: ‘I don't think all the gluten can have been converted into saccharine’, remarks Newton sagely. They press on regardless to the fermentation stage. Decanted into a household water-cask, the brew exhales a sufficient blanket of carbon dioxide to strike the inquisitive Newton insensible, and in six weeks proves to be perfect vinegar. ‘The fermentation’, puzzles Paterfamilias, ‘must have been acetous instead of vinous’.