MODERN HISTORY OF BEER.
From the account already given, it will be seen that beer not only
took an early hold on the affections of the people, but kept its
position wherever it was introduced. It is now well established in
every civilized country and plays so important a part in the economy of
nations that a review of the light in which it is regarded by different
governments cannot fail to be both interesting and useful.
In Germany the state uses every possible means to provide good,
wholesome beer for the people. It is the habitual beverage of most
of the population, used by them at their meals and their places of
amusement, cheering but not intoxicating, and rendering them temperate,
industrious, healthy and contented, a people whose bravery is beyond
question, and whose peaceable yet progressive qualities tend to make
the nation powerful, and its government respected at home and abroad.
And yet an advance by the government of half a cent a quart on the
price of beer has in years not long passed caused a serious riot.
Cheap, wholesome beer is considered a necessity of life, and the
attempt to increase its cost an interference with the primary rights of
the community.
In Austro-Hungary, too, for many years government supervision has
secured the production of pure beer, which is sold at a very moderate
price. Some of the breweries are very large and the product is by
many held to be unsurpassed in quality. That of Vienna and Pilsen, in
particular, is universally known and esteemed. Beer is thoroughly the
national drink, and the beer gardens of Vienna are the resort of all
classes, from the Emperor down to his private soldiers.
The most important men of the empire have extensive breweries, and
among the great Austro-Hungarian brewers we find such names as Anton
Dreher of Schwechat near Vienna, Count Arco Valley of Zell, Upper
Austria, Count Arco Zinneburg of Kaltenhausen, Count Thurn Valsassina
of Sorgendorf, and in Bohemia Count Thun Hohenstein of Alt Benatek,
His Majesty the Emperor Franz Josef, Prince Carl Hohenzollern, Prince
Trautmansdorf, Prince Josef Mansfeld, Prince J. A. Schwartzenberg,
Prince Max Thurn Taxis, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Rudolf Count von
Schoteck and many others.
A correspondent says: “At Trieste the drinking of beer is universal;
from infancy to age light wine and beer are the common beverages.”
He states that on Saturday night a pretty large number of laboring
people are “jolly drunk,” but not savage drunk. The latter condition is
unknown except among English and American sailors visiting the port.
Among the better classes no instance is known of a merchant, lawyer,
physician, shop-keeper, or master-mechanic becoming an inebriate and
gradually losing position, prosperity and business, and sinking into
a drunkard’s grave. Sometimes an Englishman or American has ruined
himself by the use of spirits—not of wine or beer.
Holland has brewed good beer for centuries, and though this country
has been better known as a producer of gin, the national beverage is
certainly beer. Professors Tilamus and Swingar of Amsterdam, and the
Secretary of the “Netherlands Society for the Abolition of Spirituous
Drinks,” say that gin drinking is no longer respectable, and they
recommend beer as a daily beverage. The beer gardens of Amsterdam and
Rotterdam are very widely known. Good bands are provided and people of
all ranks congregate to sip beer, smoke, talk, or listen to the music.
On his first visit to these places the writer made careful inquiries
as to the consumption of gin and other spirits, and was agreeably
surprised to learn that their use was practically confined to the
lowest classes and that beer was the common beverage. To find a drunken
man it was necessary to go to the docks and wharves, among the Irish
and American sailors. Nine-tenths of the gin manufactured is exported
to the United States, and most of its use at home is for medical
purposes.
The little kingdom of Belgium ranks next Bavaria as a beer consuming
country. There are three kinds of beer—Mars, a light beer and generally
used by the laboring class, Lambic, strong and light, and the Faro,
a mixture of Mars and Lambic. Brussels and Antwerp have some of the
finest beer gardens in the world, which furnish music to their patrons
equal to the best, and the general habits of the people are temperate.
Drunkenness is hardly found even among the lower classes.
Spain even is becoming a beer-drinking country. The beer formerly
consumed there was imported from England, Germany and Austria, and
in 1869 all the breweries in the country did not produce 500,000
liters, equal to 132,062 gallons, while the returns of the year 1878
show a production of over 4,750,000 liters, or 1,254,594 gallons—an
astonishing increase in a wine producing country—and the beer brewed at
the Santa Barbara brewery at Madrid is taking the lead of the imported
article.
Sweden and Norway also recognize the necessity of providing a wholesome
stimulant for the people, and for more than a hundred and fifty years
their respective governments have given attention to the matter. Not
long ago patents for the manufacture of ardent spirits, which had
long been held among the nobility, were revoked, and an attempt made
to secure temperance through the more common use of malt liquors. Mr.
George Hayward, then proprietor of the celebrated Lion Brewery at
London, England,[15] was engaged by the government to superintend the
introduction of improved beer in Sweden, and the experiment proved a
thorough success. As beer increased drunkenness diminished, and both
government and people have recognized the benefits of malt liquors.
According to figures lately furnished by Dr. Ellis Sodenbladh of the
Swedish statistical bureau, beer brewing has attained the position of a
leading industry in that country. The annual product exceeds twenty-six
million gallons, and this result is largely due to an increased tax on
spirits and the remission of all taxation on beer, which may now be
fairly considered the national beverage.
[15] Mr. Hayward died a short time ago at Albany, N. Y.
Denmark formerly consumed great quantities of ardent spirits, the
amount used in proportion to the population being even greater than in
the prohibitory state of Maine. The introduction of the excellent beer
made by Jacobsen at Carlsberg brought about an entire change. Beer is
now the drink of the country and public feeling is strongly opposed to
the use of whisky. The people have become remarkable for quiet and good
order, and the police magistrates of the larger cities, as Copenhagen
and Elsinore report that for a long time no cases of murder, homicide
or theft brought before them have been traced to the influence of
strong drink. Arrests for street disorder are very rare and chiefly
confined among the foreign seamen. The consumption of beer is about
twenty gallons annually to the individual, and this amount seems to
produce only favorable effects, as the people are a strong, hardy race
with an average longevity far above that of the United States. The
advantages of all kinds that have followed the general introduction of
beer are very remarkable.
In Russia, a commission was some time ago appointed to investigate
the question of drunkenness in the empire. The use of strong ardent
spirits had been almost universal. Drunkards were not to be reckoned by
individuals or even families. Whole districts were plunged in habits
of brutal intoxication and this national pest demoralized the armies,
filled poor-houses and hospitals, the lunatic asylums and the prisons.
As a result of the labors of this commission, and in accordance with
the unanimous report of its members, the Czar has recently conferred
very valuable privileges on those who establish breweries in his
dominions. The object being to secure for the people good beer at a low
price, all taxes on beer and articles used in its manufacture have been
abolished, while the use of ardent spirits is still further checked by
the imposition of heavy duties on all introduced to the country, and
severe taxes on its manufacture or sale; and[16] whenever the crop of
barley turns out to be light, the government prohibits exporting the
same.
[16] Owing to a light crop the Russian government has prohibited the
export of barley for the current year, 1879.
In Greece, breweries are springing up about Athens and the Piræus, and
all over the Levant and the neighboring islands, and the _ek krithon
methu_ (barley wine) of olden times is going to be the ordinary
beverage of the people instead of the rather strong wines that the
country produces.
In France during the reign of Napoleon III., it was discovered that
the ardent spirits most in use were so adulterated as to produce
serious injury to consumers apart from that which always attends the
free use of these liquors. Spirits were used to a much greater extent
than could be justified on any sound principle. The Emperor, whose
practical judgment was excellent in matters not immediately affecting
his own ambition, offered inducements to English and German brewers to
establish themselves in the country and the consumption of beer was
increased with very advantageous results. The change has already gone
so far as to alarm the wine merchants, and according to the “British
Mercantile Gazette” the consumption in Paris alone now reaches one
hundred million _liter_ bottles _per annum_ or nearly half a pint a day
to every Parisian, which is not bad for a beginning. The beer used,
however, is still chiefly of foreign manufacture, the lager beer coming
chiefly from Vienna and Bavaria, and the ale from Alsopp and Bass. Some
American brewers of New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis received gold
medals at Paris for the excellence of their beer, and are now shipping
considerable quantities to that place.
Americans who have lately been in France must usually have been
surprised to notice how _bogk_ (lager beer) is already the common
beverage in the fashionable _cafés_ of the chief cities.
Some leading French savants trace a direct connection between the free
use of beer and the national greatness and indomitable personal courage
of their opponents in the late war, and hope by the development of
the brewing interest to add to the traditional virtues of Frenchmen
some of those displayed in the neighboring empire. The notion may be
rather fine spun, but the actual benefit of the development of a home
industry in beer will be none the less, and it cannot be doubted that
their end will be at least partially attained, though perhaps not in
so direct a fashion as they suppose. Monsieur Lunier has just brought
before the French Academy of Medicine, some very interesting statistics
on the use of fermented and other liquors. According to him, wine is
still the national drink. The consumption of cider is diminishing,
although still large, and brandy is much used to facilitate the
digestion of cider. The more cider, the more brandy. The quantity of
beer used, has considerably increased in most of the Departments,
and he proves conclusively that most cases of accidental death in
consequence of excess, occur in the departments where there is most
drinking of spirits, that apprehensions for drunkenness are five times
as numerous in these Departments as in those where wine is chiefly
used, that drunkenness in the beer-drinking regions is hardly known,
and that alcoholic insanity is almost everywhere in proportion to the
consumption of ardent spirits. The only exceptions are La Vendée and
Charente Inferieure where they drink only white wines, but use them in
immoderate quantities.
French brewers are now engaged in forming an association and the first
meeting has been announced to take place at Toulouse, in the late
autumn of the present year (1879). The _Industriel de Lyon_ speaks of
the matter as follows:
“In consequence of their number, and as representing forty-two
departments, the brewers who should support this association are most
influential. They would, by means of combination, be able to properly
protect their important industry, and struggle against errors of the
past, such as excise regulations, octroi, etc. Besides the meetings of
the Syndicate, whether held at Toulouse or Lyons, might take up general
economical questions of interest to its members, and also deal with
the fabrication of beer, malting, and the scientific phenomena, which
are more numerous and complex than is imagined. Brewing, it is further
asserted, is an industry of the future. Beer is a drink of progress
on account of its refreshing and especially nutritive qualities.
To produce beer cheap, appetizing to the eye, and agreeable to the
stomach, is the program which the brewers of the South have in view,
and which they must strive energetically to carry out if they wish
to compete at all successfully with the German beers. The phylloxera
is not an eternal enemy. Sooner or later science will neutralize its
effects.
“In the South of France, therefore, the opinion is held that the
greatest care should be given to the production of beer. Besides,
people in the South do not drink the good wine which they produce; they
export it. Money is more valuable to them than good wine. Inferior
wine, however, remains, and is consumed to a great extent. We are of
opinion that beer would offer to all considerable advantages; and
therefore it is desirable that the brewing industry in the South of
France should be developed in the fullest possible manner.”
In England about the year 1833 the use of intoxicating liquors had
increased to such a point that government applied itself to the
discovery of some means of diminishing the consumption. The Duke
of Wellington, whose long career as a soldier on the continent and
elsewhere had taught him the beneficial influence of beer, and who
saw clearly the amount of misery and degradation caused among his
countrymen by the use of distilled liquors, introduced while Prime
Minister, the well known “Beer Bill.” Its passage was urged distinctly
on the ground that a free consumption of beer would greatly diminish
the use of spirits. The Duke himself strongly advocated the bill and
instanced the continental beer-drinking countries as the happiest and
most temperate on the globe.
On the other hand the so-called temperance men appeared in large
deputations to urge (against all reason) that whatever beer might be
consumed would be in addition to the previous consumption of ardent
spirits and not in place of it, or any part of it, that intoxication
would be increased in a ratio correspondent to the amount of beer used,
and in short that the proposed plan of reform was much like an attempt
to quench fire by pouring on oil. The bill, however, was at last passed
by a large majority and has proved very successful. The consumption
of beer has largely increased, distilled liquors are less used, and,
notwithstanding the assertions of some over-zealous partisans of total
abstinence, we can prove by statistics carefully collected that the
amount of drunkenness in the country began to decrease immediately
after the passage of the bill. William E. Gladstone, the great English
statesman who, in the year 1868-9, carried through Parliament an act
intended to promote the cause of temperance by cheapening wine and
beer and making their sale part of the business of restaurants and
confectioners’ shops, wrote a short time ago as follows: “I am opposed
to coffee and tea palaces as I believe they are more deteriorating than
beer shops. The stimulating properties of coffee or tea are greater and
more injurious than those of malt liquors.”
The course advocated by the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Gladstone has
been fully justified by the results. Drunkenness has decreased and
breweries have multiplied. The measure of advantage is to be found in
the increase of large breweries whose product is distributed through
many channels, for these furnish what is to take the place of the
ardent spirit formerly consumed when one was away from home or wanted a
change from the home-brewed ale to which he was accustomed. They also
attract the favor of the poorer classes because they furnish so much
more in bulk and nutritive power at the same or a less price.
There are, however, many small breweries, such as those attached
to country inns or to private houses. Some breweries also confine
their business to supplying families with pale and table ales, stout
or porter, in small barrels of four and a half, nine, and eighteen
gallons. The number of breweries in Great Britain—aside from those
which are strictly for private use—is, according to official returns,
twenty-six thousand, two hundred and fourteen, which it will be seen is
about nine times the number in the United States. The cost of good ale
is about one shilling sterling a gallon.
[Illustration: M. T. BASS, ESQ. MP.
THE GREAT BURTON-ON-TRENT BREWER, ENGLAND.]
It is worthy of notice that the brewers of England are distinguished
for a wise generosity and public spirit, and such men as Charington,
Fox, Meux, Alsopp, Hanbury, Buxton, Mann, Truman, Guinness, Walker
and Bass,[17] will be long remembered for the magnificent charities
that ennoble and perpetuate their names. To a greater or less degree
the same characteristic comes to light in every country where beer
is established as the popular beverage. Jacobsen, a brewer of
Copenhagen, before his death set aside $280,000 to found a laboratory
of scientific research. A part of the money is to be spent in keeping
up the laboratories attached to his brewery, in which chemical and
physiological researches are carried on with a view to establish as
completely as possible a scientific basis for brewing and malting.
[17] Michael Thomas Bass, the senior member of Parliament for Derby, is
best known as the largest brewer in the world. He is now over eighty
years old, and has been engaged in the brewery business founded by his
grandfather for about sixty-two years. He was educated at the Buxton
Grammar School, and has supplemented this early instruction by a course
of reading that leaves him not at all behind many University men in
the matter of scholarly attainments. He has always been noted for the
efficient discharge of his public and private duties, and has for more
than thirty years represented the old town of Derby as senior member
of Parliament. His public and private gifts have been frequent and
munificent, the last of importance being a free library for the town of
Derby.
The generous juice of barley, seems to draw out the more kindly and
human feelings of all who have their dealings in it. Can any such thing
be said of distilled liquors?
The late Khedive of Egypt, who has done more for the advancement of
that country than any other ruler since the time of the Pharaohs,
perceived the advantages to be gained by the introduction of beer, and
granted very valuable privileges to a company of Swiss brewers, whose
establishment is now in full and successful operation at Cairo. The
consumption is chiefly in the cities which are largely inhabited by
Europeans, generally disposed to drink beer if it is good and readily
attainable, but sure to use stronger drinks if the beer is wanting, and
perhaps, from the circumstance of residence at a distance from home,
more apt to use any intoxicating liquor to excess.
Japan, a kingdom hardly known to us twenty-five years ago, and now
recognized as one of the most highly civilized in the world, has thus
far suffered very little from intoxicating drinks. Native stimulants
have been used, and in some cases have proved as injurious as strong
whisky, though perhaps more strictly harmful to the individual, and
less so to his family and the community. The people are by nature and
education gentle and polite, and their social manners are in many
particulars a lesson to Europeans. They are usually temperate in all
things, happy and contented. The Mikado, however, wisely considering
that in the growing intercourse of Japan with foreign countries, a
taste for ardent spirits can hardly fail to be developed, unless some
counteracting influence be at work, has decided to foster the erection
of beer breweries, and thus avert as far as possible an impending
danger, while at the same time he gives his subjects an innocent and
refreshing beverage. With this view, the representatives of Japan,
now in Germany, have been directed to enter into arrangements with
well-known brewers, for the erection of large breweries in Yokohama,
Tokio, Saga, Nagasaki and Shidz-u-o-ka.
The Shah of Persia also, is so far convinced of the advantages of beer,
as to have made arrangements during his last visit to Vienna, for
parties there to undertake its introduction in his kingdom.
In Turkey, there are at Constantinople six breweries with an annual
product of about one hundred and twenty thousand gallons. The hops are
imported from Germany, but the other materials are supplied by the
country. After the island of Cyprus passed from Turkish to English
rule, it is worthy of notice that the first shipment by the _Thessalia_
was fifty barrels of beer, a shipment well illustrating English
national habits.
The condition of the beer trade in the United States being part of the
general subject of this book, and especially illustrated in the chapter
under the heading “The Condition and Prospects of the Beer Trade,” and
also in the list of breweries given in Appendix C, needs no remark here.