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About The Hydrometer Code
In 18th century England a young brewer, John Beavershaft, is intent on making a name for himself as a brewing scientist. He must first visit London to obtain the equipment he needs, and while there learns much about both brewing, life and his own sexual nature. Back home in rural Hampshire other things intervene with his ambitions - his father's opposition to change, an arranged marriage, and behind the scenes machinations by a banker and lawyer intent on annexing the brewery for themselves. His opponents are overcome by a chain of results intitiated by his father's affair with a married woman and his enemies' attempts to exploit this affair. Beavershaft is left in sole control of the brewery, unexpectedly in love with his young wife who is expecting his heir, and with his scientific work proceeding well. Life looks very good to him, but then he is undone by a man he once called a friend, who had shown him many of the pleasures available in London when he had visited there. This man uses the public's propensity to riot and their animosity towards Dissenters from the Established Church to further his own ends. Beavershaft loses all in a cataclysmic scene of violence, mayhem and destruction. Disappointed but undaunted he comes to terms with his losses and rebuilds his life, recommences and completes his scientific work only to be thwarted when he attempts to publish his results. Still determined he goes back to London to try to persuade publshers to take on his findings. In doing so he happens upon the ex-friend who ruined him earlier and ponders his revenge. The story is set in a town in rural Southern England, and in London. Both settings are vividly described, especially the teeming, vibrant, bawdy, crime-ridden, boisterous and sexually-liberated City as it began to enter the Industrial Era. A central point of the story is the adaptation of the hydrometer for use in brewing, a major advance in brewing science, and an event which actually ocurred during the time-frame of the story.
