page_title: Beer in Sussex
section_title: Medieval period
hierarchical_section_title: Beer in Sussex / History / Medieval period
caption_attribution_description: English: Rose and Crown, Fletching Historic pub on the west side of the village's High Street. This is a photo of listed building number 1353475.
context_page_description: Beer in Sussex is beer produced in the historic county of Sussex in England, a region divided for administrative purposes into East Sussex and West Sussex. In 2017 it was estimated to be worth £40 million to the economy of Sussex with 60 brewers employing 375 workers.
context_section_description: In the late medieval period, ale was known to have been brewed by monks at Lewes Priory as the water was too contaminated to drink.  The Normans introduced cider to Sussex in the 11th century.  Nevertheless in the late 14th and early 15th centuries it is recorded that even in regions with a cider drinking history such as Sussex, ale was a more popular drink than cider.
  From the late 14th century hopped beer was being imported into Winchelsea.  The first recorded hopped beer in Sussex and one of the first in England arrived at Winchelsea from the Low Countries in 1400.   At this time ale produced in the countryside was typically weak and flat and quickly deteriorated.  Adding hops instead of spices produced a drink that would last longer and which was favoured by some drinkers.  It is recorded that in 1426-27 beer was being bought for Sir Thomas Etchingham and workers that he employed. Hops were being imported into Sussex and since no manufactured beer was being imported, beer must have been manufactured locally in Sussex, usually by foreign residents.  In 1460 hopped beer was being bought in Rye.  By the 1490s records from the leet and rape courts show hopped beer was being sold at Brede (at the time near the coast), Alfriston (on the South Downs) and at Laughton and Waldron in the Weald.  By 1500 "beer was being sold almost everywhere" in the county.  This was due to Sussex's ties with the Low Countries; in many English villages outside Sussex no hopped beer was sold well into the 16th century and later.  Henry Stanton was accused in Crawley in 1602 of stealing nutmeg and cinnamon, the spices are likely to have been to flavour hopped beer rather than unhopped ale.
  Sussex's oldest public houses date from the medieval period including the Rose & Crown at Fletching (c 1150, mostly rebuilt 17th century),  the Mermaid Inn at Rye (1156, rebuilt 1420), the George & Dragon at Houghton (1276), the George at Alfriston (first licensed 1397), the Blackboys Inn at Blackboys in the parish of Framfield (14th century), the Spread Eagle, Midhurst (c1435), the Star (originally the Star of Bethlehem, Alfriston, c. 1450).
caption: Parts of the Rose & Crown public house at Fletching date from around 1150
exif: {}