In London, the Horse Shoe Brewery caused a flood of beer that rushed through the streets of London on October 17th, 1814. This modern-for-the-time brewery featured the latest in tech including a wooden fermentation tank that was 22 feet high and held the equivalent of anywhere from 3,500 to 18,000 barrels of brown porter ale. While such a gigantic wooden container might seem like a disaster waiting to happen to us, the beer-makers apparently had no fear of a major mishap…though they probably should have.
That’s because the tanks were simply held together by iron rings and when one broke on that fateful day in 1814, it took mere hours for the entire contraption to breach with such a force that it destroyed other vats in the space and exploded through the back wall of the brewery. More than 320,000 gallons of beer then rushed through the streets, creating a wave of dark golden liquid that was a staggering 15 feet high, killing at least 8 people. All this ‘free’ beer led to hundreds of people scooping up the liquid in whatever containers they could. Some resorted to just drinking it, leading to reports of the death of a ninth victim some days later from alcoholic poisoning. Complete Story