DECLINE OF BREWING.
Up to the Revolution the decline of brewing in the Colonies continued
until scarcely a vague recollection of its former flourishing condition
lingered in the minds of the people. Here and there, widely scattered
over an immense extent of territory, a few brew-houses whose product
had acquired an uncommon reputation—like the porters and ales of
Philadelphia—remained in operation; but their output was infinitesimal
as compared with the quantities of other inebriating liquors produced
and consumed in the country. True, the lawmakers improved every
available opportunity to hold out inducements to brewers and never
failed on such occasions to lament the total decay of the industry; but
however alluring the exemption from duties and excises, premiums on
domestic hops, and the protection of malt and beer may have been, they
were insufficient to counterbalance other economic factors—such, for
example, as the cheapness and popularity of rum, which the legislator
could not neutralize.
Hence, with the exceptions already adverted to, brewing relapsed
into the primitive state in which we found it at the beginning of
its Colonial career, again becoming a domestic industry wherever a
lingering taste for malt beverages induced the people to set up the
discarded kettles, and to brew their own beer, from time to time. In
like manner, tavern-keepers recommenced brewing in order to supply
those of their customers who still preserved a taste for beer; and
the quantities thus brewed for home consumption, in the narrowest
sense of the term, may not have been inconsiderable; but we have no
way of determining, even approximately, how large this production
was. Such beers were not, of course, of a very good quality; and this
explains the well-authenticated fact that the few regular brewers who
still continued to brew were overrun with orders from the tapsters.
Of a certain Quaker brewer it is reported that, toward the end of the
eighteenth century, he used to hold receptions in the old Rainbow Inn,
in Beekman Street, New York, whither came his customers, with hat in
hand, to pay their respects and solicit a supply of ale!
During the war, when commercial intercourse with England was completely
shut off, and the importation of merchandise from other countries
hampered by many dangers, domestic brewing revived in a measure; but
the unsettled state of affairs prevented anything like a complete
resuscitation of the trade. From all we can learn it appears that the
increased activity in this field of labor was confined to an effort
to produce the quantities of malt liquors which before the war had
been imported from England; but even this object was not, in all
probability, fully accomplished, because other more pressing needs
confronted the struggling people.
For a short time after the re-establishment of peace, the slight
impetus thus given to brewing derived an additional force from a pretty
general movement in favor of malt liquors, based alike upon moral
considerations and economic requirements. We refer to the movement
begun by Dr. Benjamin Rush and carried forward by a strong organization
for many years after its inauguration. It was during this period that
many small breweries were erected in the towns along the Hudson in
the State of New York, and in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, where the
movement referred to originated, at once became the greatest brewing
city in America, the brew-houses there exceeding in number and the
quantity of manufactured beer, those of all the seaports of the United
States.
[Sidenote: PROGRESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES]
That the brewing industry progressed considerably in those localities
where it was introduced, shortly before and after the Revolution, is
evidenced by a number of circumstances. As early as 1807 the production
of malt liquors, according to Gallatin’s statement, was nearly equal
to the consumption, yet the importation of malt into Pennsylvania had
already ceased in 1793; thus showing that the adjuncts of brewing in
the large establishments were rapidly being perfected. In Philadelphia,
where the agitation in favor of the substitution of fermented liquors
for ardent spirits had found most favor, the use of beer had become
very general, and soon extended into the larger cities of adjoining
states. The state of the brewing industry in 1809-10 appears from the
following table, taken from the _Digest of Manufactures_:
Beer, Ale
and Porter
States and Territories. Population. in Barrels
of 31½
Gallons.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Massachusetts 700,745 22,400
New York 959,049 66,896
New Jersey 245,562 2,170
Pennsylvania 810,091 71,273
Delaware 72,674 476
Maryland 380,546 9,330
Virginia 979,622 4,251
Ohio 230,760 1,116
Georgia 252,433 1,878
District of Columbia 24,023 2,900
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
4,655,505 182,609
The _per capita_ production of malt liquors in the States named (the
total amount produced being 5,754,737 gallons) amounted to almost one
and one-fourth gallons, or, to be precise, to 4.98 quarts. This does
not include what in the _Digest_ is styled ancient fermented liquors,
made of honey—the old German meth, here called metheglin and mead—of
which considerable quantities are said to have been produced and
consumed by private families. Surely, this is a gratifying development
of a new industry within so brief a period, and under difficulties of
which the present followers of the trade can scarcely form an adequate
idea. We quote the _Digest_:
“The difficulty and expense of procuring a supply of strong bottles,
and a peculiar taste for lively or foaming beer, which our summers
do not favor, have been the principal causes of the inconsiderable
progress of the manufacture of malt liquors, compared with distilled
spirits. The absence, or the infrequency of malting, as a separate
trade, has also operated against brewing in a small way and in
families. The great facility of making and preserving distilled
spirits has occasioned them exceedingly to interfere with the brewery.
The liquor of peaches, hitherto deemed incapable of use without
distillation, greatly prevents the use of beer in a very extensive
region of our country, where the peach tree grows with the freedom of
a weed, and where its fruit is of the best quality. Cider, which is
abundantly produced in another very extensive region, rivals fermented
malt liquors as a common drink, and as a material for a customary
concoction (the cider royal) and for distillation.”
The want of bottles was pointed out during the discussions in the
first Congress, as an impediment to brewing; but the brewer of the
present day will scarcely appreciate the stress laid upon this want,
unless a full account could be given him of the character of the malt
liquors brewed in those days. Unfortunately, no such account can be
obtained; yet a conclusion may be ventured from the statement that,
until a Philadelphia brewer of the name of Robert Hare, invented, in
1809, a peculiarly constructed cask and faucet, no method was known
of preserving beer, on tap, in partly filled vessels. What the word
_preserving_ means in this connection will appear from the following
passage of the _Digest_:
“The want of a head, or top of foam, is now observable in the tap
beers of Europe, and it is presumable that this object of fancy or
taste will not, therefore, be in future deemed indispensable in
American tap houses and families. We have been used to consider the
want of this foam as an evidence of badness.”
That the use of the liquor of peaches prevented the introduction of
the brewing industry into the Southern States, is an observation of
as much force to-day as it was nearly a hundred years ago; but later
experiences have demonstrated the fact, that the influence of climatic
conditions, coupled with the high price of ice, is quite as unfavorable
to the industry as the abundance of fruit and the tastes of the people.
In addition to a scarcity of bottles, there was also a want of cork
and wire for bottling purposes. Establishments for manufacturing these
three articles were just beginning to grow into some importance, and,
of course, demanded protection, which was granted at least to one of
them. By the Act of March 27, 1804, quart bottles, which, in order to
foster the brewing industry, had theretofore been exempt from the duty
upon glassware, were taxed sixty cents per gross; yet the home supply
remained behind the demand.
All these impediments, however, would not so materially have retarded
the progress of brewing, if laws tending to restrict country
distilling could have been maintained; and, from the standpoint
of true temperance, nothing could have appeared so desirable as a
judicious restraint upon what might be styled rural distillation. All
authorities concur in the opinion—confirmed by the voluminous report
of the Statistical Bureau of Switzerland—that in Sweden unrestricted
distillation in the rural districts rendered intemperance a national
vice of consequences all the more pernicious as, owing to the
unavoidable deficiencies of a primitive mode of distillation, the
spirituous liquors produced were of an extremely ardent nature. But
it was precisely in respect to country distilling that our first
restrictive laws were only partially successful. Those persons who
distilled for the trade cheerfully obeyed the laws from the very
beginning; and had they not elected to do so, little difficulty could
have been experienced in controlling and coercing them. It was not
the trade distiller, if this term may be allowed, but the distilling
farmer from whom the opposition to excises emanated, and with him, the
question resolved itself into one of personal rights, on the one hand,
and of a limitation of the taxing power of the Federal Government on
the other.
Insufficient, both as to time and mode, as had been the test to which
the excise system was subjected, it was, nevertheless, proved beyond
question that, coupled with a sufficiently high import duty, it
could have fully realized the ethical objects of its framers, if the
Government had been able to execute it rigorously, and the people had
been willing to live up to it.
At the end of the first decade of the last century rural distilling
recommenced with renewed vigor in all grain-producing States. From this
time onward the brewing industry developed somewhat more rapidly in
Pennsylvania and New York on account of the great influx of immigrants
from beer countries; while in the other States it either remained
stationary or progressed very slowly, constantly struggling against
great difficulties and impediments. The extent of the progress of
brewing within forty years, _i.e._, from 1810 to 1850, is clearly
stated in these figures:
1810: 129 breweries producing 5,754,737 gals. beer
1850: 431 “ “ 23,267,730 “
1850: Production of beer in Penn. & N.Y. 18,825,096 “
1850: “ “ “ all other States 4,442,634 “
During all this time, and up to 1842, or thereabout, the beers produced
in this country were of the kind known as ale and porter, and some
of these had acquired a reputation for palatableness and strength
which rendered them formidable competitors of English ales in foreign
markets.