Yesterday, October 17th, was the 200th anniversary of the
London Beer Flood. It sounded humorous
and I chuckled so I thought it would be a good subject for a random act of
googling! But it turns out to be more of
a tragedy than a comedy.
A London brewery, the Horse Shoe Brewery, had an enormous vat that held approximately
160,000 gallons of beer. A metal band
snapped causing the vat to burst open.
The resulting outpour broke open other vats which resulted in more than
250,000 gallons of beer to flood through the streets of the St. Giles
neighborhood. Reports related that a
15-foot tall tidal wave crashed into buildings, knocking down walls and
flooding ground floor rooms and cellars.
A total of eight people were killed; some drowned, some were slammed
into walls, and one was crushed by a collapsed wall.
