The Inland Revenue Act 1880 repealed malt duties and changed how beer was taxed, creating what brewers called the Free Mash Tun. Tax was shifted towards the finished beer rather than malt alone. Brewers gained greater freedom to use different fermentable materials.

This reform helped make modern beer more industrial, varied, and commercially flexible. It illuminates the late Victorian moment in which poets such as Housman could still invoke malt as traditional consolation while breweries were becoming modern businesses. This tension between tradition and modernity became a recurring theme in the poetry of the time.