Beers
Definition—Different Modes of Manufacture—Antiquity—Osiris, the Inventor—Adam’s Ale—Egyptian—Scandinavian—Adulterations. Africa: Pitto, Ballo, Bouza. America: Persimon, Chica, Vinho de Batatas. Bavaria: Schenk and Lager. Belgium: Lambic, Faro. Borneo: Ava or Cava. China: Samtchoo.
The dictionary definition, or rather description, of Beer is “an alcoholic liquor made from any farinaceous grain, but generally from barley.” This barley clause is, of course, not true in all countries, nor is beer always made from a farinaceous grain. For the rest, the description is all that could be desired. After the barley is malted and grained, its fermentable substance is extracted by hot water. To this extract or infusion hops, or some other plant of an agreeable bitterness, are added, and it is afterwards boiled for some time, both to concentrate it and to obtain all the useful matters from the hops. The liquor is subsequently allowed to ferment in vats. The time allowed for fermentation depends upon the quality and kind of beer. After it has become clear it is stored for drink.
This ordinary popular description of beer will be probably sufficient to satisfy the general reader. But we must add to it a second explanation of beer, which is applied to a fermented extract, not from any farinaceous grain, but from the roots and other parts of various plants, as ginger, spruce-sap, beet, molasses, and many more. The scientific inquirer may learn the mysteries of malting and brewing, which are very nearly distinct trades, in the many treatises on beer-making which have adorned the literature of this and other countries. In these he may read as much as he wills of the steeping of the barley, its extension, its absorption of water, and the time occupied in this process; of the couching and sweating, as it is called, a result of the partial germination of the grain; of the flooring, or spreading out like hay over a field; of the kiln-drying, or the introduction of the half-germinated grain into a kiln with a perforated floor, with the necessary and variable amount of heat beneath it. And if all this is not enough, he may continue to read at full length of cornings or cummings, of pale and amber-coloured malt, of grinding the malt, of washing the malt thus ground, of boiling the worts with hops, of cooling the worts, of fermenting the worts, and, finally, of clearing and storing.
Beer is probably a word of German, as ale, signifying the same thing, is of Scandinavian origin. But the source of the German word is a moot question of comparative philology. Those interested in this matter may find abundant information in a note inserted by M. A. Schleicher in the Zeitschrift of Kuhn. We are led thereby to a Gothic form, pius, which in its turn conducts us to the Lithuanian pyvas. Pyvas or pivas—since etymology is a science dans laquelle les consonants font peu de chose, et les voyelles rien de tout—may be easily attached to the secondary root piv found in the Sanskrit pivâmi. In Indo-European tongues, and in accordance with the dictum of Voltaire, p, b, v, are interchangeable as labials. And so we come to the conclusion that pivas, or its descendant beer, means nothing else but drink; or, in other words, that this particular form of drink is the drink par excellence. And so we might rest content, were it not for the uneasy scruples of a certain M. Pictet, who has introduced a Slavic origin. But of etymology this taste will suffice.
Twenty centuries before the Christian era, Osiris, according to some authors, invented beer,103 and according to others it has been at all times a drink of the Hebrews. We have, indeed, heard of Adam’s ale, but that term has been generally applied to a species of drink which would hardly come under our present category. It is perhaps more probable that the beverage of Osiris and the early Hebrews was a simple infusion of barley without more. Pliny, however, Theophrastus, and Tacitus, speak of beer as known from very early times to the people of the North, who were prevented by their situation from the cultivation of wine.104
The ancient beer of Egypt is compared by Diodorus Siculus to wine on account of its strength and flavour. This Egyptian beer is indeed spoken of by Herodotus as barley wine, a title which still survives in some of the windows of our public-houses. At present beer is the habitual drink of the English, German, Dutch, and Scandinavian races. A drink, better called barley water than beer, appears to have been the favourite beverage of the Danes and Anglo-Saxons, our ancestors in the remote past. Before Christianity had enlightened and corrected their views about the delights of a future state, these benighted folk supposed that the chief felicity enjoyed by the good—in those days synonymous with the brave—after their death and transplantation into Odin’s paradise, would be to drink in large goblets large quantities of ale. Perpetual intoxication thus entered largely into their conception of celestial joy.
Beer as we understand it—modified, that is, by the introduction of the hop—was probably little known in England before the beginning of the sixteenth century. The varieties of beer at the present time are numerous. Some of them will be considered later on in detail. There are, however, only three principal types of fabrication,—the Belgian, Bavarian, and English. The beers of England, as of France, and for the most part of Germany, become sour by the contact of air. This defect is absent from Bavarian beers.
So favourite a drink has, of course, been largely adulterated. Taste, colour, and smell are frequently due to unscrupulous falsifications. Bitterness is produced by strychnine, aloes, nux vomica, gentian, quassia, centaury, pyrethrum, absinthe, and many other ingredients. Colour is obtained by liquorice, chicory, and caramel; and flavour by other additions, which perhaps it is better not to particularize. Water, of course, is added to beer, as to most drinks, to enlarge the quantity and therefore the price. Potatoes are frequently a substitute for grain. Potash is introduced to give the much-desired “head,” chalk to diminish acidity, and chloride of sodium, or common salt, for the sake of what is called a piquant flavour. It were well if these little eccentricities of the beer vendors had here their confine; but the sacred hunger for gold has added, alas! to these, virulent and narcotic poisons,105 such as belladonna and opium, henbane and picric or carbazotic acid. In the city of London this kind of adulteration was formerly, it was fondly imagined, to some extent prevented by some ancient guardians, known as ale-conners, who had the right of entering all public-houses and tasting their ales.
Only the most important beers of different countries are given in the following list, arranged alphabetically for convenience of reference:—
Africa
Captain Clapperton (Expedition to Africa, i., 133, 187) found at Wow-wow, the metropolis of Borghoo, a kind of ale bearing the name of pitto, obtained from the same grain as that used for the same purpose in Dahomey, and by a process nearly similar to the brewing of beer in England from malt, only that no hops were added, a defect which prevented it keeping for any length of time. The people of the countries from the Gambia to the Senegal use a kind of beer called ballo. At a village called Wezo there is a beer called otèe, a sort of ale made from millet, of a very enlivening nature. Another sort of beer, called gear, is found at Ragada. At Whidah an excellent beer is made from two sorts of maize. The Jews at Taffilet use beer of their own brewing. Isaacs (Travels in Africa, ii., 319) says that the Zoola nation, between Delagoa Bay and the Bay of Natal, has a description of beer, with which the natives are wont to get drunk. This beer is made from a seed called loopoco, something in size and colour like rape. It has powerful fermenting properties, and forms a beverage of a light brown hue, potent and stimulating. In Sofala a beer is made from rice and millet; also in Abyssinia is to be found a drink of many names—tallah, or selleh, or donqua, or sona—commonly brewed from wheat, millet or barley, mixed with a bitter herb called geso. According to Bruce, Abyssinian beer of an inferior kind is made from tocusso. This is really a variety of bouza, which is also made from teff, the poa abyssinica of botanists.
America
Persimon beer, from the fruit of the date plum (Diospyros Virginiana), is drunk in North America. In South America, long before the Spanish conquest, the Indians prepared and drank a beer obtained from Indian corn, called chica or maize beer. The process followed in making chica is very similar to that of beer brewing in Britain. The maize is moistened with water, allowed partially to germinate and dried in the sun. The maize malt so prepared is bruised, treated with warm water, and allowed to ferment. The liquor is yellow, and has an acid taste something like cider. It is in common demand on the west coast. In the valleys of the Sierra the maize malt is subjected to human mastication, not invariably by the young and beautiful girls, but by old ladies and gentlemen who still retain, by the indulgence of nature, the requisite dental arrangement. The saliva mixed with the chewed morsel is supposed to produce a more excellent chica. Indeed, the result is so choice that this kind is commonly called Peruvian nectar. Chica can also be made from barley, rice, peas, grapes, pine-apples, and manioc. The Brazilians have a beer called Vinho de Batatas, from the Batata106 root. Sora, a Peruvian beer, was formerly forbidden by the Incas because of its extremely intoxicating nature.
Austria
The most famous beer is perhaps the Pilsener, or white beer, from Pilsen in Bohemia, the favourite drink in Vienna. Gratzer is brewed from wheat malt.
Bavaria
The peculiar flavour of the Bavarian ale is perhaps a result of the very free use of pitch or resinous matters to protect the wood of the fermenting tun, but it seems more probable that it is due to the commixture of pine tops. Schenk beer is draught beer, in contradistinction to Lager, or store beer. The one is drunk in summer, the other in winter. Bock beer107 and Salvator, dark heavy kinds of stout, are both well known. Kaiserslautern is the name of a famous brewage in Rhenish Bavaria.
Belgium
White beers, the result of a mixture of oats and wheat, called Walgbaert and Happe, were made in Brussels in the fifteenth century. Roetbier and Zwartbier were, as their names tell us, red and black beers. Cuyte was at one time a favourite and aristocratic drink. It has since fallen from its high estate. There are some forty kinds of beer, at least, now manufactured in Brussels. The white beer of Louvain in South Brabant is the most esteemed; but an Englishman has described it as having the flavour of pitch, soapsuds and vinegar. The winter brew is termed Faro, the summer Lambic. The Faro is by some said to be prepared from the strong Lambic and a small beer called Mars. All Belgium beers, according to the opinion of some experts, have a certain stamp of vinosity. In addition to the Lambic and Faro, which are distinguished in this particular, may be mentioned the Uitzet of Flanders, the Arge, of Antwerp, and Fortes-Saisons of the Walloons. The white sparkling beers of Louvain are the best of summer beers, they are succeeded by those of Hougaerde and Diest. The brown beers of Malines and the Saison of Liege possess good reports. Latterly the Grisettes of Gembloux, the beer of Dinant, the blonde of Buiche, and the ale of Oppuers have been creditably mentioned.
Borneo
The aborigines108 of Borneo, if we are to believe Commodore Roggewein,109 are the “basest, most cruel and perfidious people in the world.” They are “honest, industrious, strongly affectionate and self-denying,” if we are to credit the account of the Italian missionary, Antonio Ventimiglia. When such diversity of opinion is manifested about the people, some discordance might naturally be supposed to exhibit itself in the matter of their potations. But this is not thus. The great drink of the Beajus is allowed on all hands to be the ava or cava, prepared from the piper methysticum, or intoxicating pepper plant. This is a shrub with thick roots, long heart-shaped leaves, and a clump or spike of berries. The root is chewed only—it is satisfactory to learn—by young girls with good teeth and dainty mouths.110 Water or cocoa-nut milk is poured on the masticated pulp, fermentation ensues, and the Beajus drink and become drunken. The mass of chewed matter is kneaded with considerable dexterity by practised professionals. “Every tongue is mute,” says Mariner—one of the crew of a vessel seized by the natives in the commencement of this century,—“while this operation is going on; every eye is upon them, watching every motion of their arms as they describe the various curvilinear turns essential to success.” Ava is also drunk in Otaheite, in the Feejee islands, and those of the Marquesas and of the South Seas.
China
Tar-asun, extracted from barley or wheat, is the beer of China. It is sweet, and commonly drunk warm, before distillation. The mixed liquor from which it is prepared is called tchoo, or wine; after that, sam or san is prefixed, to show its hot nature. Samtchoo—the word is spelt in many ways—may, says Barrow (Travels, p. 304), be considered the basis of the best arrack, itself a mere rectification of the above spirit with the addition of molasses and the juice of the cocoa-nut tree. Bell’s Travels, ii., 9.
England
Love of the English for Beer—A National Drink—Private Brewing—A French View of English Society—Sir John Barleycorn—The “Black Jack” and “Leather Bottel”—“Toby Philpot”—Burton-on-Trent—Bottled Beer—Brewers—The Village Ale-house—Various Beers.
“Back and syde goo bare, goo bare,
Both hande and foote goo colde;
But, Bellie, God send the good ale inowghe
Whether hyt be newe or old.”
“Brynge us home good ale, syr, brynge us home good ale,
And for our der lady’s love, brynge us som good ale.
Brynge us home no beff, syr, for that is full of bonys,
But brynge us home goode ale y-nough, for that my love alone ys;
Brynge us home no wetyn brede, for yᵗ be ful of branne,
Nothyr of no ry brede, for yᵗ is of yᵉ same;
Brynge us home no porke, syr, for yᵗ is verie fatt,
Nothyr no barly brede, for neythir love I that;
Brynge us home no muton, for that is tough and lene,
Neyther no trypys, for thei be seldyn clene;
Brynge us home no veel, syr, that do I not desyr,
But brynge us home good ale y-nough to drynke by yᵉ fyer;
Brynge us home no syder, nor no palde111 wyne,
For, and yᵘ do, thow shalt have Criste’s curse and mine.”
The foregoing verses epitomise the praise of good beer. The first is from one of the earliest known drinking songs in the English language—the last is an old Wassail song—the Wassail bowl, which was of hot spiced ale, with roasted apples bobbing therein,—a kindly way of welcome on New Year’s Eve, of Saxon derivation as its name “Wes-hal,” be of health, or your health, testifies.
That the Anglo-Saxon took kindly to his beer, we have already seen; and that that feeling exists at the present day is undoubted, for what says the refrain of a comparatively modern drinking song?
“I loves a drop of good beer—I does—
I’se partickler fond of my beer—I is—
And — their eyes,
If ever they tries
To rob a poor man of his beer.”
Its popularity has never waned—and it has reached to such a height that the brewing trade seems to be instituted for the propagation of Peers of the realm—a fact which Dr. Johnson even could not have foreseen, although, at the sale of Thrale’s brewery, he did say that they had not met together to sell boilers and vats, but “the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dream of avarice.”
It was the national drink—for tea and coffee were not introduced into England until the middle of the seventeenth century—and it is only of very modern times that the “free breakfast table” fad of statesmanship has made those beverages so popular, by bringing them within the means of the very poorest. Beer was, perforce, drank morning, noon and night by those, and they were the vast majority, who could not afford wine—and, as a rule, after the Norman Conquest, when the Anglo-Saxons copied the soberer customs of their conquerors, the English were not drunkards as a nation; in fact, although almost all their jests hinge on drinking, there is in most of them an underlying moral, which in print are as telling as in this illustration, which, in deference to nasty Mrs. Grundy, has been slightly toned down. Here is very cleverly satirised for reprobation the phases of men under the influence of drink. How it transforms them into beasts, some like lions, others like asses and calves, sensual as hogs, greedy as goats, stupid as gulls.
Every man brewed his own beer up to the seventeenth century, when we find Pepys speaking of Cobb’s strong ales at Margate; and in the reign of Queen Elizabeth the public brewing had begun at Burton, for an inquiry was made by Walsingham to Sir Ralph Sadler, the governor of Tutbury Castle, as to “What place neere Tutbury, beere may be provided for her Majesty’s use?” and the answer was that it might be obtained at Burton, three miles off. Good Queen Bess would, indeed, have fared badly without her beer, for her breakfast beverages were always beer and wine.
Yet every one was fairly sober. They were weaned on alcoholic liquors, and, consequently, enjoyed them as foods, as they undoubtedly are, if properly used. It is very well to “see our sen as others see us,” but it is almost impossible to agree with Estienne Perlin, who published his Description des Royaulmes d’Angleterre et d’Escosse, at Paris in 1558, in which he says that the English “sont fort grands yvrongnes.” His description is, we feel, as untrustworthy as his English. “Car si un Anglois vous veult traicter, vous dira en son langage, vis dring a quarta rim vim gasquim, vim hespaignol, vim malvoysi, c’est a dire veulx tu venir boire une quarte de vin du gascoigne, une autre d’espaigne, & une autre de malvoisie, en beuvant & en mengeant vous diront plus de cent fois drind iou, c’est a dire je m’en vois boyre a toy, & vous leur responderes en leur langage iplaigiu, qui est a dire, je vous plege. Si vous les remarcies vous leurs dires en leurs langages, god tanque artelay, c’est a dire, je vous remercie de bon cœur. Eulx estans yvres, vous jureront le sang et le mort que vous beures tout ce que vous tenes dedans vostre tace, & vous diront ainsi, bigod sol drind iou agoud oin.” It is much to be feared that the worthy Frenchman, if his description is to be at all relied on, mixed with rather a fast lot.
Ale was looked upon as a kindly creature, and our ancestors of the seventeenth century had several ballads in praise of the “little Barleycorn” and the indictment, as well as the “Bloody Murther,” of Sir John Barleycorn. From this latter the peasant poet, Burns, plagiarised right royally. There was also a very curious Chap book published in the early part of the eighteenth century, entitled,
“The whole Trial and Indictment of Sir JOHN BARLEY-CORN—Kⁿᵗ.
A Person of Noble Birth and Extraction, and well known by Rich and Poor throughout the Kingdom of Great Britain: Being accused of several Misdemeanours, by him committed against His Majesty’s Liege People; by killing some, wounding others, and bringing Thousands to Beggary, and ruins many a poor Family.
Here you have the Substance of the Evidence given in against him on his Trial, with the Names of the Judges, Jury, and Witnesses. Also the Comical Defence Sir John makes for himself, and the Character given him by some of his Neighbours, namely, Hewson the Cobbler, an honest friend of Sir John’s, who is entomb’d as a Memorandum, at the Two Brewers in East Smithfield.
Taken in Short Hand by Thomas Tosspott, Foreman of the Jury.”
One of the witnesses, hight Mistress Full-Pot, the hostess, called in his defence, thus winds up her evidence,—
“Nay, I beseech you, give me leave to speak to you; if you put him to Death, all England is undone, for there is not such another in the Land that can do as he can do, and hath done; for he can make a Cripple to go, he can make a Coward to fight with a valiant Soldier, nay, he can make a good Soldier feel neither Hunger or Cold. Besides, for Valour in himself, there are few that can encounter with him, for he can pull down the strongest Man in the World, and lay him fast asleep.”
Of course, the jury found a verdict of Not Guilty.
Beer has a large literature of its own, principally metrical, but this has pretty well been collected in two books—The Curiosities of Ale and Beer, by John Bickerdyke; and In Praise of Ale, by W. T. Marchant—either of which would be a valuable addition to any one’s library. Yet in neither of them is met with Ned Ward’s “Dialogue between Claret and Darby Ale,” published 1691, in which each of the drinks speak for themselves; and, of course, the arguments of ale are all potent over his antagonist. Space will only allow of a very short extract.
“Darby.—I’m glad to know you, High and Mighty Sir;
Think you your pompous empty Name could stir
My Choler? No, your Title makes me fear
As much as if you’d been Six Shilling Beer.
Claret.—Thou Son of Earth, thou dull insipid thing,
To level me, who am of Liquors King,
With lean Small Beer, but that thou art not worth
My Anger, else I’de frown thee into Earth.
Darby.—I neither fear your Frown, nor court your Smile;
But, if I’m not mistaken all this while,
By other names than Claret you are known—
Claret.—You do not hear me, Sir, the Fact disown,
Some call me Barcelona, some Navar,
Some Syracuse, but at the Vintner’s Bar
My name’s Red Port. But call me what they will,
Claret I am, and will be Claret still,” etc., etc.
Not content with praising the liquor ale, our ancestors fell to eulogising the vessels used for its consumption, and the “Black Jack” and “Leather Bottel” both came in for their meed of praise. Sketches of a fine example of each are here given, taken from the national collection in the British Museum.
The Black Jack is a jug or pitcher, made of leather, which was sometimes ornamented with a silver rim and a silver plate with the owner’s name or coat of arms engraved thereon. Here is a short lyric, “In praise of the Black Jack.”112
“Be your liquor small, or as thick as mudd,
The cheating bottle cryes, good, good, good,
Whereat the master begins to storme,
Cause he said more than he could performe.
And I wish that his heires may never want Sack,
That first devis’d the bonny black Jack.
No Tankerd, Flaggon, Bottle nor Jugg
Are half so good, or so well can hold Tugg,
For when they are broke, or full of cracks,
Then they must fly to the brave black Jacks.
And I wish, etc.
When the Bottle and Jack stands together, O fie on’t,
The Bottle looks just like a dwarfe to a Gyant;
Then had we not reason Jacks to chuse
For this’l make Boots, when the Bottle mends shoes.
And I wish, etc.
And as for the bottle you never can fill it
Without a Tunnell, but you must spill it,
’Tis as hard to get in, as it is to get out,
’Tis not so with a Jack, for it runs like a Spout
And I wish, etc.
And when we have drank out all our store,
The Jack goes for Barme to brew us some more;
And when our Stomacks with hunger have bled,
Then it marches for more to make us some bread.
And I wish, etc.
I now will cease to speak of the Jack,
But hope his assistance I never shall lack,
And I hope that now every honest man,
Instead of Jack will y’clip him John.
And I wish, etc.”
But the composer of “A Song in praise of the Leather Bottel” could rise to the magnitude of his subject in a far superior manner than the preceding poet, the refrain of his song being of a higher type.
“And I wish in Heaven his Soul may dwell,
That first devised the Leather Bottel.”
The uses of the Bottel were so manifest, and its material so superior to any other, that it occupied a higher position. It was better than wood, for it would not run, and was unbreakable. When a man and his wife fell out, as will occasionally happen even in the best matrimonial existence, the bottel could be thrown at each other, without great injury either to human, or the bottel. It held no temptation to steal, as if it were of silver; nor could it be broken, as if it were of glass—because, as the song justly says,—
“Then what do you say to these Glasses fine?
Yes, they shall have no Praise of mine;
For when a Company there are sat,
For to be merry, as we are met;
Then, if you chance to touch the Brim,
Down falls your Liquor, and all therein;
If your Table Cloath be never so fine,
There lies your Beer, your Ale or Wine;
It may be for a small Abuse,
A young Man may his Service lose;
But had it been in a Leather Bottel,
And the Stopple in, then all had been well.”
The rhymester recapitulates the gratitude of all classes for this extremely handy and unbreakable convenience, and winds up thus, somewhat sadly—
“Then when the Bottel doth grow old,
And will good Liquor no longer hold,
Out of its side you may take a Clout,
Will mend your Shooes when they’r worn out;
Else take it, and hang it upon a Pin,
It will serve to put many Trifles in,
As Hinges, Awls, and Candle-ends,
For young Beginners must have such things.
Then I wish, etc.”
The next most popular English drinking vessel was the greybeard, or as it was sometimes, but seldom, called the Bellarmine, from the Cardinal of that name so famous for his controversial works. These jugs were imported largely from the Low Countries, where the Cardinal’s name was a reproach. These greybeards are of very common occurrence, being frequently found in excavating on the sites of old houses.
Two centuries after the greybeard, came the brown Staffordshire Toby Philpot, an enormously stout old gentleman, whose arms and hands encircle his enormous paunch, and his three-cornered hat forms a most convenient lip, whence the ale can be poured. It owes its origin to a once very popular drinking song, entitled “The Brown Jug,” which is an imitation from the Latin of Hieronymus Amaltheus, by Francis Fawkes, M.A., published in 1761, which is the date of the accompanying illustration.
“Dear Tom, this brown jug, which now foams with mild ale,
Out of which I now drink to sweet Nan of the Vale,
Was once Toby Philpot, a thirsty old soul,
As e’er cracked a bottle, or fathom’d a bowl;
In bousing about, ’twas his pride to excel,
And amongst jolly topers he bore off the bell.
It chanced as in dog-days he sat at his ease,
In his flower-woven arbour, as gay as you please,
With his friend and a pipe, puffing sorrow away,
And with honest Old Stingo sat soaking his clay,
His breath-doors of life on a sudden were shut,
And he died full big as a Dorchester Butt.
His body, when long in the ground it had lain,
And time into clay had dissolved it again,
A potter found out, in its covert so snug,
And with part of Fat Toby he form’d this brown jug;
Now sacred to friendship, to mirth, and mild ale—
So here’s to my lovely sweet Nan of the Vale.”
Burton-on-Trent may be termed the Metropolis of English Beer, and there, veritably, “Beer is King.” This pre-eminence is attributed to the quality of the water, which seems peculiarly fitted for brewing purposes, and the fact that the large brewers there located use none but the finest malt and hops procurable. There is an old saying, that wherever an Englishman has trodden, and where has he not? there may be found an empty beer bottle. And, truly, he does carry the taste for his natural beverage wherever he goes, and the export trade is enormous, every ship wanting freight, filling up with bottled beer, as a safe thing. Fuller, in his Worthies of England (ed. 1662, p. 115), gives his account of the origin of bottled beer. Speaking of Alexander Nowell, who was made Dean of St. Paul’s as soon as Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, he mentions his fondness for fishing, and says, “Without offence it may be remembred, that leaving a Bottle of Ale (when fishing) in the Grasse; he found it some dayes after, no Bottle, but a Gun, such the sound at the opening therof. And this is believed (Casualty is Mother of more Inventions than Industry) the original of bottled-ale in England.”
The London brewer had to be content, before Sir Hugh Myddleton brought the New River to the Metropolis, with the water obtained from the Thames, for Artesian wells were not, and other well water must, from the crowded state of the City, have been highly charged with organic matter. But their trade was so important that they were incorporated into a Gild, and the Brewers’ Company is now in existence, having their Hall in Addle Street, Wood Street. The City still maintains the importance of beer as a beverage by keeping an Ale Conner, whose duty is to taste ales, and see that the price charged is not excessive. Their oath of office may be found in the Liber Albus, published at the instance of the Government.
The names of our great English brewers are too well known among the English people to need recapitulation—and space is too scarce to describe their premises. The London draymen have always been noted as a race of tall stalwart men, and brewers generally have taken a pride in getting the largest and strongest horses for their work. These two draymen are of the time of George I., and the weight they are carrying contrasts favourably with the satire of a huge dray horse dragging a four and a half gallon cask. On one notable occasion brewers’ draymen have gone beyond their last. When General Haynau visited Barclay’s Brewery, they rose in indignation against him and chased him from the place, because it was alleged that the General had caused a lady to be flogged!
The Village Ale-house is, or was, the village club, and certainly is a welcome place of rest for the wayfarer. They are always clean, and frequently quaint, although now-a-days it would be hard to find, as Rowlandson did, a turnspit dog on duty.
The names of ales are legion; but some are worthy of a passing notice on account of their strength, such as some of the College Ales, those brewed at the birth of an heir—to be drank at his coming of age, Ten Guinea Ale, etc., and there are any quantity of pseudo beers—i.e. those not made from malt and hops, China Ale, Radish Ale, ale made from beet or mangel wurzel, and heather beer, which latter is of so great antiquity that its method of manufacture is said to have been lost with the extirpation of the Picts, although some say it was brewed by the Danes. It is probable that the flowers and tops of the heath were used as a substitute for hops, as, previous to the introduction of the latter plant, broom, wormwood and other bitter herbs were used.
J. A.
France: Cerevisia; Double Bière; Adulteration. Germany: Mum; Beer Factories; Faust. India: Pachwai, Piworree. Japan: Saki; Kæmpfer. Russia: Kvas; Vodki; Pivo. Sweden: Spruce. Tartary: Baksoum.
France
In France beer was originally known as cervoise from the Low Latin cerevisia. There are two sorts, white and red; the latter has more hops. When much grain enters into the composition it is called double bière. Its qualities vary here as elsewhere, according to the grain employed in its manufacture, the malt, and the fermentation. It has been commonly adulterated with ledum palustre or wild rosemary, a strong narcotic. Allusions to beer are comparatively infrequent in French works. The details of its manufacture, which present no remarkable points of variation, may be found in any French work on brewing.
Germany
Of the many beers of this country, perhaps the most deserving of notice here is the Mum of Brunswick, well known and appreciated for its excellence. The process observed in its manufacture has been, it is said, always kept a mystery,113 and to prevent discovery, the men who brewed it were hired for life. The origin of the word Mum is obscure. The German Mumme, a strong ale producing silence114 from intoxication; the Danish word for a mask, because it exhibits the parties drinking it with a new face; and Christian Mummer of Brunswick, the supposed inventor of the drink, have been by turns suggested. The varied kinds of Schenk, or winter beer, and Lager, or summer beer, are fairly well known. The Leipzig Goose and the Berlin white beer are refreshing drinks in summer. An excellent description of Bierbrauerei apparatus is given in Brockhaus’ Conversations Lexikon, Band iii. The most important beer factories are in Munich,115 Erlangen, Zirndorf, Nürnberg, and Vienna.
German beer is far less potent than that of England, but want of strength is made up by the quantity taken. From the time of Goethe, and long before, Germans were great consumers of beer, and the scene in his “Faust,” of students in Auerbach’s Cellar, was typical of his time. Now-a-days there is no degeneracy in the German beer drinker, and a Viennese “Saufender Renommist” will drink his thirty half-pints of Märzen at a sitting. German beers are now readily attainable at any German restaurant in London.
India
The Hill-tribes of India commonly consume Pachwai, prepared from rice and other grain in Bengal. In Nepaul a beer named Phaur, made from rice or wheat, is brewed much in the same manner as English ale, which it is said strongly to resemble. It is in considerable repute and, according to Hamilton,116 wheat and barley are in Nepaul reared for the express purpose of making the beer and other drinks similar to it. In the West Indies the negroes make a fermented drink resembling beer from cassava, which in Barbadoes is termed piworree,117 and in other places ouycou.
This plant, the manioc or mandioc of America, grows to the size of a small tree, and produces roots like our parsnips.118 Ouycou is sometimes brewed very strong. It is considered nourishing and refreshing, as indeed most drinks which gratify the palate seem to be considered. Molasses and yams are used in its preparation. The liquor is red. Piworree or paiwari is also made by the Indians in Honduras, as in Brazil, from cassava. Cassava bread carbonised superficially is placed in hot water until fermentation arises. To promote this, feminine chewing is found efficacious. The taste, says Simmonds, is said to resemble that of ale, but is not “quite so agreeable—this may easily be believed.” Cela dépend, as in the case of the chica of the sierras of South America.
Japan
Kæmpfer, in his History of Japan, i., 121, tells us that in the manufacture of Sacke or Saki,119 a strong and wholesome beer produced from rice, the Japanese are not excelled by any other people. This beer, a very ancient drink, is white when fresh, but becomes brown, if it remains long in the cask. It is manufactured to the highest degree of excellence in Osacca, and thence exported to other countries. The beer’s name is said to be derived from that of this city, being the genitive case of the word, with the initial letter omitted. It is wholesome and pleasant, but should be drunk moderately warm.120 There are many varieties of saki, distinguished by different names.
Russia
Quass, or Kvas, a word signifying sour, an ancient Scythian beverage, is the ordinary household beer of Russia. A variety of it called Kisslyschtschy is variably described as exceedingly pleasant, and as an abominable small beer, something like sweet wort or treacle beer, almost as vile as the Vodki or Russian gin. These matters of course depend on individual taste. The Russian pivo, also in common use, is said to resemble German beer, but German beers are many and diverse.
Sweden
Swedish beer is made at Stockholm. Spruce beer is much in use. This drink is said to have originated from a decoction of the tops of the spruce fir. In Norway and Denmark as well as in Sweden this liquor is made from boiling the leaves, rind and branches of pines. But the Spruce beer of Great Britain and Ireland—either white or brown, according as sugar or molasses is employed in the making—is an essence or fluid extract procured by boiling the shoots, tops, bark and cones of the Scotch fir (pinus sylvestris). Spruce beer is supposed to be of much medicinal value as an antiscorbutic. Samuel Morewood presents us with a gratifying reflection on this matter. While, he says, Spruce is beneficial to the health of man, it has not, by its “consequence depreciated his character, or lowered him in his moral dignity.”
Tartary
The beer to be met with in Tartary is for the most part of an indifferent quality. That brewed from barley and millet by the Turkestans, termed baksoum, more resembles water boiled with rice than beer. They, however, admire it, and affirm that it is an invaluable remedy for dysentery. The reader will have already perceived that it is a cosmopolitan practice to pamper the appetite under the pretence of preserving the health. Baksoum is acid in taste, of no scent, a feeble intoxicant, and cannot be kept for any length of time.