Corncrake wrote:
[...]
The other question is : why was bakers yeast used anyway ?
I know it was readily available in the corner shop, and not
everyone
had a friend in a brewery. But brewers yeast could have been passed
round just like the ginger-beer plants (remember those ! ) and the
bees-yeast cultures.

I'm still thinking ,,,,

I don't think enough people were home-brewing to form county-wide
networks of yeast-culture exchange. And the stuff does get
contaminated with wild yeasts and bacteria quite easily in inexpert
hands: few people would have been able to keep a culture pure for
long. So baker's yeast was probably the best idea as well as the only
one. It can work pretty well if you're skilful and don't mind a bit
of waste and rather lower strengths; I wouldn't recommend it, though.

Bees-yeast? Educate me, please, O Guru.

--
Mike.