h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Devon White Ale. A once popular drink that died away more than a century ago..

It continued to be popular in parts of Devon until the late nineteenth century.

What did it taste like? Here is a report from the sixteenth century.

“stark nought, lokinge whyte and thycke, as pygges had wrasteled in it,” adding that “it wyll make one to kacke, also to spew; it is dycke [thick] and smoky, and also it is dyn”.

Tempting??

But popular it was. Here is a report from William Ellis noted in The London and Country Brewer in 1736 that “the Plymouth People … are so attach’d to their white thick Ale, that many have undone themselves by drinking it.”

The anonymous author (named only as g“a practical brewer”) of The Publican, Innkeeper and Brewer’s Guide also gives the following comment "a liquor much drank in Plymouth and the adjoining towns. It is considered a very nutritious and wholesome drinks and is probably one of our old English ales, slightly improved or altered. The method of preparing it we have not yet seen in any modern work published on brewing, therefore we proceed to supply the deficiency."

More information here

https://zythophile.wordpress.com/2007/11/09/west-country-white-ale-a-lost-english-beer/

Some brave souls are actually trying to brew this again today

http://beervana.blogspot.com/2011/08/devonshire-white-ale-taste-of-past.html