BREWING IN PENNSYLVANIA.
In New Castle and Delaware River the Duke of York’s laws remained in
force until 1682, when they were superseded by the acts passed by
Penn’s Assembly. William Penn introduced brewing into Pennsylvania at
a very early date. He built a brewery near his house at Pennsbury, and
all his acts and ordinances indicate a decided preference for malt
liquors. It was under his fostering care that the “infant industry”
prospered for a time and made Quaker beer quite famous.
To the excellent quality of this beer and the abundance of it may
be attributed the fact that brewing had not, at that time, gained a
foothold in West New Jersey, the colonists there drawing their supply
from the Quaker brewers in the adjoining Colony. Deputy-Governor Gowen
Laurie, one of the proprietors of West New Jersey, made an effort,
in 1683, to have a brewer sent to him from England. A malt-house had
already been established at Amboy, “but”, wrote Laurie, “we want a
brewer, and I wish thou wouldst send one to set up a brew-house.” The
Swedish settlements on the Delaware seem to have reaped a sufficient
harvest from the vines which they had planted to secure them an ample
supply of wine.
It seems that all the colonists had conceived the idea that it would be
very easy to make their new home a wine-country, and it was but natural
that the German settlers, by far the greater number of whom came from
the Palatinate and the Rhine provinces famed for their wines, should
have thought so. The seal of Germantown bears a bunch of grapes,
among other symbolical devices, and the inscription _Vinum, Linum et
Textrinum_; but although the city became famous for its linen, its
wine never amounted to much. Here, however, as in Philadelphia and all
succeeding settlements, brewing prospered for a while.
When Penn assumed control of his colony, he probably found but a single
tavern within his domain, _i.e._, _The Blue Anchor_, located at what
is now known as Dock Street. The records show that with increasing
population the number of taverns also increased, and early laws and
regulations seem to indicate an excess of supply over demand. A law
enacted in 1699 authorized the governor to license taverns and suppress
disorderly houses. Subsequently, other regulations, conceived in a
spirit of paternalism, aimed at the fixing of prices and of the quality
and quantity of food and drink to be served at taverns. From these
regulations it appears plainly that beer was considered a regular and
indispensable part of every meal, and this fact explains why brewing
flourished in the early part of the colony’s history.
Not all beers, however, were of the kind referred to before. Neither
domestic malt nor hops could be procured in sufficient quantities to
supply so large a demand and as a consequence the colonists fell back
upon the manufacture of what might be styled a new kind of mead. We
have it on the assurance of Penn himself that “molasses when well
boiled with sassafras or pine infused into it” makes a very tolerable
drink.
Beer-drinkers probably preferred hops and malt, and when the
short-sighted policy of the lawmakers imposed exorbitant duties upon
imported hops and malt before enough of these materials could be raised
at home, and at the same time fixed the price of domestic malt-beer and
its quality at a rate which made the business unprofitable, brewing
naturally declined, and in the logical course of things molasses was
then transformed into rum or the latter article imported in the place
of the former.
The evil effects of this policy must have become manifest almost
instantaneously for as early as 1713 Governor Gordon deplores the
decadence of brewing and the almost total discontinuance of the
cultivation of hops and barley. After various futile experiments to
remedy the evil the lawmakers in 1722 imposed a duty upon molasses,
primarily to discourage the manufacture of rum, and enacted several
laws designed to encourage the brewing of beer made of grain (not
necessarily barley) and of hops. One of the principal inducements was
the entire separation of the sale of beer from the liquor traffic and
the exaction of a very low license-fee from the keepers of ale-houses.
The use in brewing of molasses, sugar or honey was absolutely
forbidden, and both the brewers and the brewing tavern-keepers were
compelled to give security ($500.00) for the faithful observance of the
provisions of the act relating to permissible materials.
The law distinctly sets forth that one of its objects is to induce
“the brewers to take special care to bring their beer and ale to the
goodness and perfection which the same was formerly brought to, that
so the reputation which then was obtained and is since lost, may be
retrieved.”
The same law directs that the proper officers in fixing the prices of
commodities “shall allow higher prices than common to be taken for
such beer and ale as shall excel in quality.” Economically considered,
the laws fixing the price as well as the quality of the commodity,
frequently without regard to cost of raw material and labor and almost
always without due consideration of the condition of crops and the
market, was a serious error and the very text of the quoted Act seems
to indicate that the lawmakers had begun to understand the far-reaching
effect of this blunder.
One other object of the law, as stated therein, was to encourage the
cultivation of hops and of wheat and barley. We know that Pennsylvania
ultimately became an important grain-growing country, but we also know
that partly as a result of such unwise legislation as has already
been referred to, the surplus grain found its way into distilleries.
Subsequent legislation, such as the act forbidding the sale of liquors,
_excepting beer_, to iron-workers within two miles of a foundry, or the
one permitting only the sale of beer and cider on the muster-fields of
the militia, had little effect upon the drinking habits of the people,
in many parts of the colony. In 1733 the Pennsylvania _Gazette_,
dilating upon this condition of things, stated that Philadelphia women
“otherwise discreet, instead of contenting themselves with one good
draught of beer in the morning, take two or three drams, by which their
appetite for wholesome food is destroyed.”
Between the rum or molasses imported from the West Indies in the
earlier periods and the subsequent spread of rural distillation,
brewing had scarcely any chance of a healthy development; nevertheless,
it continued to be practiced in the principal towns, particularly where
the German element preponderated. It was an economic fallacy of the age
that in grain-growing countries agriculture could not possibly prosper
without the distillery—a fallacy which prevailed in the northern
countries of Europe and could not but find universal approval during
the pioneer period of a new country where the means of transportation
were exceedingly scant. In the rural districts the number of stills
increased in proportion to their remoteness from the centers of
civilization and in some parts whiskey actually took the place of money
as a medium of barter, just as in a previous period rum had been the
main stay of foreign commerce.
In 1790 there were no less than 5,000 stills in operation in the
State of Pennsylvania, that is to say, one still for every 86 of the
population. Long before this period public attention had been directed
by public writers and speakers to the temperate drinking-habits which
prevailed in most of the German settlements, and naturally enough,
on all such occasions, brewing was advocated as a means of promoting
temperance.
In his “Account of the manners of the German inhabitants of
Pennsylvania,” Benjamin Rush dwells with particular emphasis upon the
fact that these people, whom he praises for their probity, frugality,
economy, love of liberty and country, commonly drink beer, wine and
cider, and he makes this fact one of the principal arguments in favor
of his famous temperance scheme. Many other writers then and thereafter
coincided with him in this view; among them Tench Coxe who “considered
it a fact strongly in favor of the industry, sobriety and tranquillity
of Philadelphia that its breweries (at the beginning of the nineteenth
century) exceeded, in the quantity of their manufactured liquors, those
of all the seaports of the United States.”
This may seem all the more remarkable on account of the growth of the
distilleries after the abolition of the first Federal tax on spirits,
brought about in a measure by the Whiskey Rebellion; but it will not in
any way appear astonishing, if the character of the population of that
city be borne in mind.
Philadelphia beer had retained its reputation for excellent quality
even during the era of free whiskey, when brewing throughout the
country seemed to be in the last stages of hopeless decline; but it
must not be supposed that in even this city of beer-drinkers the
production kept anything like an equal pace with the increase of
population.
Enough has already been said on this subject in the chapters on brewing
in New England and more will be said in the two chapters on the decline
of brewing and on the rise of lager beer to render unnecessary a more
detailed account.
In 1810 there were in operation in Pennsylvania 48 breweries with an
aggregate annual output amounting to 71,273 barrels; New York had only
42 breweries and an annual production of 66,896 barrels. The output
of all the other States of the Union amounted to but 44,521 barrels.
Pennsylvania remained in the lead during about 20 years, when it had to
yield first place to New York. The marvellous growth of brewing in the
West did not change the relative position of these two States in point
of production, but it changed completely the status of the industry, as
we shall presently show.