THE RISE OF LAGER BEER.
Lager-beer, as a product of American industry, although introduced,
as has been intimated, about the year 1842, did not gain popular
favor until the decade following its introduction; nevertheless, all
authorities agree that it tended even at that time to impart a strong
impetus to brewing. As to the exact date of its introduction, and the
person by whom it was first introduced, there still exists so much
uncertainty that no writer on the subject has ventured to go beyond
mere hypothetical assertions. Did we not live in an enlightened age,
the mystery in which the origin of American lager-beer is shrouded
might add another legend to the many mythical tales which, variously
colored by different nations, are current concerning the father of
real beer. We say _real_ beer, for, although the use of a wine-like
beverage, extracted from barley, extends far into the prehistoric
ages, _real_ beer (that is, the drink known to us by that name) is of
more recent origin; yet, as to place and date of the latter, nothing
definite can be known.
While some attribute the invention of hopped malt beer to Jan Primus
(John I), a scion of the stock of Burgundy princes, who lived about the
year 1251, others ascribe it to Jean Sans Peur (1371-1419), otherwise
known as Ganbrivius. A corruption of either name may plausibly be
shown to have resulted in the present name of the King of Beer, viz.,
Gambrinus, whom we are accustomed to see represented in the habit
of a knight of the middle ages, with the occasional addition of a
crown. Popular imagination, it seems, attached so much importance
to beer that in according the honor of its invention, it could not
be satisfied with anything less than a king; just as the Egyptians,
in remote antiquity, ascribed the invention of their barley-drink to
their benevolent god Osiris, while the ancient Germans conceived of a
brew-house in Walhalla, under the supervision of a presiding deity.
As a bit of amusing anachronism, it may be mentioned that there is a
poetical apotheosis of Gambrinus, which elevates that personage to the
dignity of a heathen god, alongside of Bacchus.
This slight digression from our subject, although showing how much
mystery has at all times clouded the origin and the originator of
beer, may not be regarded by our readers as a sufficient excuse for
our inability to supply the needed information; but, much as we may
regret this, we cannot help it. According to the testimony of the late
Mr. Frederick Lauer, who himself brewed lager-beer in 1844, the honor
of having first brewed the famous drink of to-day, belongs to one
Wagner, of whom it is said, that, shortly after his arrival in America,
in 1842, he set up a lager-beer brewery in a small building situated
in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Lauer enjoyed the reputation of a
walking encyclopedia of American brewing; as a matter of fact, he took
a prominent part in organizing the National Brewers’ Association and
bringing about concerted action by the brewers in all matters relating
to their trade, and kept himself well posted in all that concerned his
colleagues. In 1885, a few years after his demise, the United States
Brewers’ Association erected a monument to his memory in a public
square of Reading, Pa., the city in which he had spent the greater part
of his life. If lager-beer had been introduced before the date here
given, Lauer certainly would have known it.
We may take it for granted, then, on Lauer’s authority, that lager-beer
was introduced in 1842. Within six years from that date, German
immigration began to assume unprecedented proportions; the hospitable
shores of our country became the refuge of a great number of highly
educated men, of skilled artisans and comparatively well-to-do
tradesmen. The total foreign population increased from 1850 to 1860
at the rate of ninety per cent., and we may infer from the following
figures to what extent this great influx of beer-drinkers accelerated
the growth of brewing, and helped to increase the production of hops
and barley:
Production Production Number Value of
Population of Hops of Barley of Malt
Pounds Bushels Brewers Liquors
1850—23,191,876 3,497,029 5,167,015 431 $5,728,568
1860—31,443,321 10,991,996 15,825,890 1,269 21,310,933
Brewing had its earliest Western outposts on the Ohio and Mississippi
and along the shores of Lakes Erie and Michigan. Pittsburgh,
Cincinnati, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago,
Milwaukee—this is probably the order in which brewing spread out
westward, closely following the German immigrants from about the middle
of the thirties. In the fifties Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Cincinnati
had already begun their shipping trade, extending their operations as
far South as New Orleans. Even thus early that polyglot city had a few
local breweries which supplied their customers with a kind of small
beer, a beverage that had to be consumed immediately, lest it spoil
between delivery and dinner-time. It is not to be wondered at then,
that the New Orleans Germans hailed with delight the first consignments
of lager beer that reached them in the year 1851 from Pittsburgh and
St. Louis. The late J. Hanno Deiler, for many years professor of the
Tulane University and a local historian of enviable reputation, refers
to this in his “History of the German Press of New Orleans” in these
words:
“As this consignment proved to be the first movement towards a
great transformation, leading to a change in the habits of the
population, inasmuch as it affected extensive commercial interests,
abolishing numerous small businesses, and in their place calling
into existence great industrial undertakings, employing millions of
dollars as capital, the circumstance of its introduction, unimportant
in itself as it may appear, assumes the significance of an epoch in
the history of culture that brings the past into direct relation with
present conditions, and is consequently entitled to more exhaustive
consideration.”
It was at about this time that the old praise of beer was again sounded
with great vigor by many reformers. The third American temperance
movement (the first being that of the early Colonials and the second
the great agitation inaugurated by Rush) had again brought out the old
arguments in favor of fermented drinks. Those who signed the pledge
between 1810 and 1840 vowed to drink beer and cider only,—and even
prohibition, which up to 1855 had been rashly adopted in seventeen
States, but as quickly revoked or annulled in all but four of
them—stopped short of cider and domestic wine and in many instances of
beer. Now that the sobriety of the great mass of German beer-drinkers
again challenged such comparisons as we have before quoted from Rush’s
and Coxe’s writings, brewing again found many able advocates in the
ranks of the foremost reformers.
Great as must have been the moral effect of these temperance
preachments, they could not, nor did they, affect the consumption
of beer which was then and really remained confined to the Germans
until after the enactment of the revenue law. Even so, however, the
territorial expansion of brewing within the decade preceding the
Civil War was truly wonderful. In 1863 there were 2,004 breweries in
operation, distributed over 31 States and Territories, and producing
over two million barrels of beer; a great part of which quantity was
retailed by the brewers themselves.
Then, as now, New York stood at the head of the list in point of
production, followed, in the order given, by Pennsylvania, Ohio, New
Jersey, Illinois, Missouri, Massachusetts, California, Maryland,
Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New Hampshire, Iowa,
Connecticut, Virginia, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Kansas, District of
Columbia, etc. Brewing was then still carried on in Maine and Vermont,
and breweries existed even in Utah and New Mexico.
During the next twenty-five years brewing developed without the least
hindrance and attained to an economic importance second to but few
American industries. True, prohibition loomed up again and had to be
met at the polls; but although it gained a firm footing in two States,
it was defeated in fourteen others. It killed brewing in these States,
but its immediate results only helped to accelerate the growth of
brewing throughout the country. In many States beer had by this time
become the common drink of the people and even in the Southern States
the people welcomed the establishment of local breweries, rendered
possible by artificial refrigeration and the great improvements in the
process of manufacture.
Just about this time, however, the prohibitionists seemed to have
realized that in so far as the consumption of beer was recommended
by the best minds as a measure of temperance, calculated to decrease
the use of spirits, in just so far did it help to counteract their
movement. From this time onward their whole agitation actually became
a fight against beer. But a majority of the newspapers and of rational
reformers still continued to advocate the use of the fermented drinks.
[Sidenote: GROWTH OF TRUE TEMPERANCE]
In 1881, Dr. Thos. Dunn English, the famous literary man, scientist and
physician, published a remarkable pamphlet in which he advocated and
justified the moderate use of beer. The eminence of Dr. English as a
writer and his unchallenged integrity as a public man, procured the
widest hearing for his views. The book was universally discussed and,
of course, called forth a storm of adverse criticism. But it made a
deep impression and in the light of the progress since achieved along
the line of true temperance, this modest little treatise by Dr. English
has prophetic as well as historical value. The following paragraph has
never been surpassed for terse wisdom and philosophic truth, in all the
literature of the subject:
“The assumption by extremists that beer represses the finer emotions,
retards intellectual activity, destroys the physical power of the race,
leads to crime and pauperism, and does many other terrible things, is
simply absurd. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Certainly the
Germans compare favorably on these points with the Mussulmans, who are
claimed as water-drinkers. The latter have sadly degenerated since
the days when their victorious hordes overran Europe, and threatened
to place the crescent in triumph over the cross. I am aware that the
followers of Mohammed are not the abstinents they are supposed to be.
The Turks not only indulge in opium and tobacco, but in brandy—brandy
is not wine—the Eastern tribes in lagmi, and the strictest believers
in various alcoholic stimulants not coming from the grape, and so
outside of the letter of the prophet’s prohibition. But the Mussulmans
do not drink beer, and the Germans certainly do. The Anglo-Saxon
race rose to greatness under the consumption of vast amounts of ale,
and with indulgence in that stimulant kept up the steady vigor and
intellectual power of a race that has imposed its ideas and language
over a larger share of earth than any other people. In this country,
where the consumption of malt liquors has risen in seventeen years
from less than a million and three-quarter barrels to over thirteen
and three-quarter millions, have we degenerated as a people? Last year
over fourteen millions. Have we not manifestly gained by the partial
substitution of a beverage containing a small portion of alcohol and a
larger portion of nutritive matter for one containing fourteen times as
much stimulation and no nutritive element at all? If you could create
man over again, and make him other than his Maker has made him, you
might constitute him without a craving for stimulants or for heat-food
in its most concentrated form. As it is, the best you can do is to
lead his instinct and direct his habits into the safest channel for
both, and keep him in that as in all other things, within the bounds of
moderation.”
Time has but strengthened the force of Dr. English’s argument,
while the production of beer has risen to over fifty-eight million
barrels and the consumption of whiskey has markedly decreased. This
extraordinary increase of production has been accompanied by a
pronounced gain in temperance and general well-being on the part of the
working classes, the chief consumers of beer.
Dr. English’s conclusions as to the comparative virtue of malt liquors,
so furiously disputed on the publication of his little book, would
challenge very little controversy to-day. We have been making progress
in the interval, as witness these figures of beer production in the
United States:
Barrels Barrels
1880 13,347,111 1894 33,362,373
1881 14,311,028 1895 33,589,784
1882 16,952,085 1896 35,859,250
1883 17,757,892 1897 34,462,822
1884 18,998,619 1898 37,529,339
1885 19,185,953 1899 36,581,114
1886 20,710,933 1900 39,330,849
1887 23,121,526 1901 40,517,078
1888 24,683,119 1902 44,478,832
1889 25,119,853 1903 46,650,730
1890 27,561,944 1904 48,265,168
1891 30,021,079 1905 49,522,029
1892 31,855,626 1906 54,651,636
1893 34,591,179 1907 58,622,002
1908 58,814,033
[Sidenote: A REVOLUTION IN DRINKING HABITS]
The lesson conveyed by these figures is irresistible and as such is
accepted by all impartial students of the drink question. Prof. Henry
W. Farnam says, in his preface to “Economic Aspects of the Liquor
Problem,” published under the auspices of the Committee of Fifty:
“Since 1840 there has been a steady substitution of malt liquors for
distilled liquors in the consumption of the people. While there has
been an increase in the total quantity consumed, the substitution
of light drinks for strong drinks has brought about a diminution
in the amount of alcohol consumed per capita. Moreover, though the
_per capita_ consumption of malt liquors has been nearly stationary
since 1890, the consumption of distilled liquors has fallen by nearly
one-third in that time. How far modern methods of production have
influenced this change, how far it is due to German immigration or
other causes, cannot be stated with certainty. The fact remains that
our progress has been in the direction of moderation.”
Although the statement that the per capita consumption of beer has been
nearly stationary since 1890 is no longer correct, we have nevertheless
quoted these words because they reflect the views of unbiased students
as to the rôle of beer.
A comparison between the consumption of beer and spirits shows at a
glance that, as a nation, we have progressed in the direction of true
temperance at a rate and to an extent unequaled in history. Instead
of being at the head of the list of hard-drinking nations—as we
undoubtedly were fifty years ago—we now rank foremost among temperate
peoples. By a singular coincidence, our Department of Commerce
and Labor lately published comparative liquor statistics almost
simultaneously with several official and private publications of
foreign origin, dealing with the same question. In all these documents
one important fact stands out in bold relief, and that is, as the
Department of Commerce and Labor expresses it, that “this country is
well-nigh at the end of the list of spirit-drinking countries.” We may
be permitted to quote the official table:
Countries Spirits Beer Wine
Gallons Gallons Gallons
United Kingdom 1.38 35.42 0.39
France 2.51 7.48 34.73
Germany 2.11 30.77 1.93
Italy .34 .20 31.86
Russia 1.29 1.13
Belgium 1.42 56.59 1.28
Sweden 2.13 8.83 .18
United States (1903) 1.33 18.04 .48
Leaving out Italy, our country should really stand at the very foot
of the list, for the Russian figures, notoriously incorrect, are not
ordinarily accepted at their face value. In fact, this is the only
official publication in which they appear without some explanatory note
casting doubt upon their correctness. The true significance of this
official table, so far as our country is concerned, will only be fully
appreciated, if it be borne in mind that the _per capita_ consumption
of beer in Bavaria, where distilled liquors are rarely used, amounts to
about fifty-nine gallons and that alcoholism is practically unknown in
that kingdom.
Commenting on the marvelously increased consumption of beer in this
country and the coincident falling off in the quantity of spirituous
liquors consumed, the New York “Sun” in a striking editorial (August
22, 1905) reaches the conclusion that “BEER DRIVES OUT HARD DRINK.” The
“Sun” also notes the fact that public drunkenness is comparatively rare
in all the cities of America to-day, among all classes of society.
Mr. James Dalrymple, Glasgow’s commissioner of municipal railways who
was recently in this country, was constantly struck by the same fact as
contrasted with conditions abroad. Drunken workingmen are rarely seen
in any American community.
Yet the time is not so far back when a different state of affairs
prevailed in this country. Hardly a generation since, whiskey was the
common drink and drunkenness the national vice. The change has come
through the substitution of malt liquors for ardent stimulants. As the
“Sun” says, beer drives out hard drink. Moderation and temperance are
supplanting excess in the use of liquors. The American people owe their
sobriety to the brewing industry.
[Sidenote: THE PERFECTED PRODUCT]
Up to 1845 brewing was confined exclusively to ale and porter, and the
manipulations of the brewer were of the simplest and most primitive
kind, as compared with present-day methods. What would be regarded as a
very small establishment now was then looked upon as a large brewery.
Concurrently with the growing popularity of lager-beer came the almost
countless mechanical improvements in both brewing and malting; the
utilization of the scientific researches of a host of such eminent men
as Pasteur, Hansen, Delbrueck, Van Laer, Morris, Joergensen and many
others; the practical application of the many thorough investigations
into, and the works on, fermentation, yeast-culture, bacteriology,
etc., and finally, the employment of artificial refrigeration; and it
may be said that brewing entered upon a new era. These improvements did
not, of course, reach the climax of their perfection at once; decades
elapsed before the new methods became an indispensable requirement of
success, and only in recent years have they overcome the conservatism
of ale brewers, with the happy result of adding to the desirable
qualities of ale some of the best characteristics of lager-beer; among
others, a low alcohol-percentage, effervescence without deposit and
brightness under low temperature. Since then the American brew-house
has become a model of perfection not equaled in Bavaria, the “land
of beer,” as has readily been admitted by distinguished foreign
authorities, such as, for example, Professors Delbrueck and Van Laer,
who not long ago visited a number of eastern and western breweries. In
this respect the brewers of America stand in the front rank of the most
progressive manufacturers, their establishments being equipped with
the modern and costly appliances which have taxed and rewarded human
ingenuity in this particular field for years past.
In the table of production last quoted the reader will notice
remarkable increases in the years 1906 and 1907, amounting,
respectively, to 5,129,607 and 3,970,362 barrels, and a very
insignificant increase of 192,031 in 1908. In the succeeding fiscal
ending June 30th, 1909, there was a decrease exceeding in the number
of barrels the average increase of the two first-named years. The
greater part of this loss is doubtless due to the panic, but it is
quite certain that a considerable proportion of the decrease was caused
directly by prohibition in one form or another. It is difficult to
localize these losses with mathematical accuracy, but there can be no
doubt that brewing has suffered in all parts of the country where the
Anti-Saloon movement has succeeded. From present indications it is
safe to infer that in the South the industry will in the end suffer
more than anywhere else; it is equally certain, however, that, unless
the adverse movement should develop greater strength than appears
probable at the present time, brewing throughout the country will
rapidly recover from its recent set-back and resume its former rate of
development, acquiring new markets and new customers as has been the
case during the fifty years.