The Barrel-Count Ruse at Fenwick's Brewery

≈ 9 min

His Majesty's Customs and Excise requires every licensed brewery in England to file a quarterly excise duty declaration accounting for all worts brewed, all beer racked into cask, and all duty paid on barrels removed from bond. Fenwick & Holt Brewery has submitted its declaration for the quarter ending 30 June 1904, claiming duty relief on a quantity of beer allegedly returned unsold and destroyed under supervision. The Inland Revenue Office in Burton-on-Trent has asked an auditor to cross-check the declaration against the brewery's own gauger records, the carrier's delivery register, and correspondence on file, as the claimed destruction relief appears to reduce the duty liability by a suspiciously round and substantial sum. You must identify which line of the declaration is false and which record exposes it.

The scene

Fenwick & Holt Brewery, Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, 1904

Source documents

H.M. Excise Gauger's Destruction Certificate, 18 May 1904
Hadfield & Crane Haulage — Quarterly Delivery Register, April–June 1904
Inland Revenue: Spirits and Beer Duties Act, 1880, Section 41 — Ullage Allowance
Letter from Mr. T. Birch, Brewery Gauger, to the Burton Excise Station, 2 July 1904

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