"Incredible as the followig circumstance may appear, it is nevertheless strictly true. - On Sunday, a person living in Sherman's Court in this city, having occasiion to draw off some soft water from the cock, was surprised to see it of a reddish brown colour, and still more, on tasting it, to find it very good beer, though it had evidently been very lately brewed.
"He could not conceal his good luck, the news of which soon spread, and other cocks were tried with the same result, and on Sunday and part of Monday the denizens of "the Quarter" made the most of the chance by getting gloriously drunk.
"How to account for it is, at present, not easy, but some brewer in the neighbourhood must have suffered, and the beer must have been drawn off by the pipes which were only designed to bring water in. At present no brewer can be found who will confess to having lost his beer. Perhaps the same pipes that emptied his vats of their contents, have by this time filled them again with the aqua pura of the resevoir."
"The Quarter" signifies Exeter's West Quarter, the busiest part of tohe city within which, at one time, it is said there were forty public houses, many, possibly all, of which brewed their own beer.
Sherman's Court was a small court or tenement off West Street.
No doubt The Gazette was making the best of the story but, nonetheless, free beer on a Sunday from the 'cocks' must have seemed a small miracle to the person living in Sherman's Court and his neighbours.
Cock for a faucet or a tap has all but disappeared. We still have stop-cocks of course. For Shakespeare it was simply a spout and therefore to hand for bawdy puns.
Source: The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 1st February, 1845.
