London Beer Flood.
The London Beer Flood was an accident at Meux & Co's Horse Shoe Brewery (pictured) on 17 October 1814. When one of the 22-foot-tall (6.7 m) wooden vats of fermenting porter burst, the pressure destroyed another vessel, and between 128,000 and 323,000 imperial gallons (580,000–1,470,000 l; 154,000–388,000 US gal) of beer were released. The resulting wave of porter destroyed the back wall of the brewery and swept into an area of slum-dwellings. Eight people were killed. The coroner's inquest returned a verdict that they had lost their lives "casually, accidentally and by misfortune". The brewery was nearly bankrupted by the event; it avoided collapse after a rebate from HM Excise on the lost beer. After the accident the brewing industry gradually stopped using large wooden vats, replacing them with lined concrete vessels. The brewery moved in 1921, and the Dominion Theatre is now where the brewery used to stand.
