Sir, – The references to the Guinness barges by several letter writers (February 14th) serve as a reminder to an important social club of gentlemen who used gather at the Guinness berth at Custom House Quay many decades ago.
These gentlemen were aware of the return of empty casks from the English bottlers, whereby the empties would be stacked on the quayside awaiting their return to the brewery. However, they were also aware that some casks might not be completely empty, resulting in a search for those with some beer left back. In ceremonial fashion, the cask containing the Guinness would be held horizontally over an upright cask and rotated until the beer would drain out into the saucer-shaped end of the upright cask. Supping would commence as each man would bend over the drained beer and suck up several mouthfuls, then stepping aside to allow the next man to do so.
Some of these supping gentlemen who kept their caps on during the ceremony would come away with the peaks of their caps stained with a mixture of Guinness tinged with the red raddle which had been applied by the brewery. These were known as “peakers”. However, as the casks were mainly hogsheads a more salubrious name for the group became “The Hoggers Club”. A detailed description of this unique ceremony, long past, was reported in The Irish Times, initially on December 11th, 1943, and later redescribed on December 11th, 1993, under the heading “Times Past”. – Yours, etc,
TONY CORCORAN,
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Rathfarnham,
Dublin 14.