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Beerage is a term mainly used to describe the influence of the brewing industry within the British political system. A portmanteau word combining beer and peerage, it arose through the ennoblement and award of other honours to brewers in the late 19th century, and such individuals were considered to be within this subset of the peerage. Its use has since been applied in other contexts within the British beer sector. ==Historical use== Beerage is a portmanteau word combining beer and peerage and was coined about 1880.〔(Eric Partridge, Jacqueline Simpson ''The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang'' )〕 The term carried connotations of political funding by brewers, and reciprocal favourable treatment of the brewing industry. In the late 19th century there were a large number brewers as Members of Parliament in the House of Commons and several of these were elevated to the peerage or awarded other honours.〔(''The New York Times'' August 16, 1886 )〕 The link between political donations and the honours system, though criticised,〔("Britain and the Beerage" ''The Pittsburgh Press'' - 28 August 1919" ) Google News: Retrieved 2010-03-17〕 was then more prevalent. The 19th century Liberals included a strong contingent of temperance campaigners which created tensions with the brewing faction within the party. It has been noted that following Gladstone's Licensing Act of 1872 "the beerage swung from the Liberal party to the Conservative party"〔(Hansard Debate 15 February 1995 )〕 By the early 1900s, Sir Winston Churchill accused the Conservative Party of "drawing a brewer's dray across the road of progress" and the Conservative Benches in the House of Lords were known collectively as the "Beerage".〔(Hansard Debate 14 November 2005 )〕 These references were used in setting the historical context in the course of debates on licensing in the Houses of Parliament in 1995 and 2005. In 1931 the term was used in the Commons during a "hotly debated"〔 bill by Scottish temperance M. P., Edwin Scrymgeour, to prohibit commercial liquor sales in Britain: Mr. Scrymgeour: "Evidence given before the present Royal Licensing Commission showed that in four London brewing companies there were among the shareholders forty-six peers, twenty peeresses, 161 lords and ladies and honorables, forty-seven baronets, 106 knights and seventeen members of Parliament." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Beerage」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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