ALE, BEER, CIDER, AND PERRY.
Ale or beer are rarely if ever produced at regular set dinners
now-a-days, though at quiet family parties of three or four, or in
private houses _en famille_, table beer, ale, and stout are often
used by invalids; and occasionally are taken from choice by young,
middle-aged, and elderly people who drink both ale and wine. At the
mid-day meal called lunch, also, beer is an article not unfrequently
taken by those young ladies who exhibit so little appetite for dinner
at fashionable tables at eight o’clock.
The beers most generally consumed in London are Bass’s and Allsopp’s
bitter beer, and Guinness’s Irish stout. All these, when obtained
genuine, are excellent, and I believe wholesome, but they should
be used very sparingly indeed when wine is taken. Dr. Paris tells
us that the most useful quality in the beer comes from the hop.
“Independently,” says he, “of the flavour and tonic virtues which hops
communicate, they precipitate by means of their astringent principle
the vegetable mucilage, and thus remove from the beer the active
principle of fermentation; without hops, therefore, we must either
drink our malt liquors new and ropy, or old and sour.” The nutricious
qualities of malt liquors, for those who live much in the open air, who
hunt, shoot, or use much corporeal exercise, cannot be disputed. But
the studious and the sedentary would do well to avoid beer, if wine be
consumed by them at the same meal.
Good cider is an exceedingly wholesome beverage for persons who
exercise much in the open air, and it relieves thirst better than
malt liquors, but it is now never seen at a London dinner-table, and
is only to be met at country houses in Devonshire, Gloucestershire,
Somersetshire, or Herefordshire, or occasionally in some of the common
rooms of Oxford and Cambridge.
According to the accounts of some modern writers, it is not more than
four centuries since cider has been introduced into France. Be this as
it may, provincial academies in all parts of Normandy, Brittany, and
the higher Pyrenees, have agitated the question for years and years
together _de origine cidri_, and it seems now to be agreed by these
men, or _literati_, that the invention is due to the Biscayans, who
taught the natives of Barbary to fabricate it; who, in their turn,
taught the art to the Normans. It is certain, if we are to believe
Du Perron, that when the Normans, in the sixteenth century, had not
sufficient cider for their own consumption, they drew their supply from
Biscay; but long before the period contended for either by Normans or
Biscayans, cider was drunk at the table of the French kings of the
first race.
In France the best ciders are produced in the Pays de Caux, in the
Valley d’Auge, and in the beautiful country of the Cotentin. Francis
I., in passing by Morsalines in 1532, found the cider so good, that
he purchased a considerable quantity, of which he drank so long as
the provision lasted. The finest cider in England, taken in the
gross, is made in Herefordshire; but there is a particular kind made
in Somersetshire which, for softness, fulness, and velvety flavour,
surpasses the Herefordshire cider. It is called by the extraordinary
name of Cocky Gee. The best cider in France goes by as extraordinary
a cognomen. It is called the _Cue-Noué_, and is pronounced by Charles
Etienne unequalled for softness, _bouquet_, and beauty of colour. There
was a college in Oxford in my younger days, two of the fellows of which
used to yearly obtain hogsheads of this Cocky Gee cider from an old
clergyman in Somersetshire, who made the liquor from the produce of his
own orchard. Never was there a more delicious beverage. Full-flavoured,
soft, creamy, yet vigorous, it was preferred to any champagne.
Of perry, it is not necessary I should say much, as it has a great
affinity to champagne. The pious Radegonde, according to the legend,
drank perry water to mortify herself. The three best species of perry
are made with the _Poire de Ciré_, the _Robert_, and _Carisi_. The
first does not keep, the second flies to the head, and the third,
though it has the same effect, is renowned for its strength, limpidity,
and muscadel flavour. Two centuries and a half ago this country
imported much cider and perry from Normandy. About the same period,
great quantities were sent to Paris from the provinces; but, so soon as
it was perceived that the _cabaretiers_ made use of it to adulterate
their wines, the use of the beverage was forbidden.
It was not till about a century ago that the usage of hydromel at
dinner and dessert altogether ceased. In the thirteenth century this
beverage was made by adding twelve pints of water to one of honey;
but it was then so insipid and flat, that aromatic herbs, foreign
and domestic, were added to give it pungency. Hydromel thus prepared
was called _bogerase_, _borgerafre_, or _borgeraste_. In the monkish
houses it was used as a treat on feast-days. In the _coutumes_ of the
order of Cluni it is called _potus dulcissimus_. The clergy, in those
days, had, like the laity, their periods of festivity and rejoicing.
In the repasts of the northern nations, beer was always served with
dessert, and, even in the present day, in Hamburg, Lubeck, Altona,
Kiel, Dantzic, and many other of the northern parts of Germany, nuts
and ale are considered a rare treat. It is a mistaken notion to think
that beer is a modern beverage, or that its use is exclusively confined
to England. The Egyptians had two sorts of beer, one called _zythus_,
the other _curmi_ or _carmi_. Belon, in his “Observations sur les
Singularités trouvées en Grèce et en Asie,” inclines to the opinion
that the _curmi_ was made with the whole grain, and that the _zythus_
was, like the _posca_ of the Latins, a species of _orgeat_, made with
the flour of the grain, which was kept in paste and diluted for the
occasion. The ancient Gauls knew but two beverages, wine and beer.
The use which they made of beer is attested by Diodorus Siculus, by
Athenæus, by Theophrastus, and by Pliny. Diodorus and Theophrastus
state that the Gauls called their beer _zythus_. If this be true, it
is not improbable that they received from the Egyptians both the name
and the beverage. Be this as it may, it is certain that the insensate
order which Domitian gave, to tear up all the vines in Gaul, rendered
the use of beer but the more general. Nor did the permission of Probus
to replant the vine cause a more general use of the juice of the grape;
for, about eighty years after his reign, the Emperor Julian complains
of the general use of beer, and even condescends to brew an epigram
against the bitter and wholesome beverage. To Probus, however, every
lover of wine is indebted. The wines of Burgundy, Champagne, and
even Tokay, owe to him their existence.[27] Speaking of this emperor,
Crevier says:--“Je m’étonnerais que ce prince n’eût pas été célébré
par les buveurs comme un nouveau Bacchus, si les buveurs étoient
savans.[28] Il prit soin lui-même de faire planter en vigne par les
soldats le Mont Alma près de Sermim sa patrie, et le Mont d’or dans le
Moesie supérieure, et il donna ces vignobles aux habitans du pays, en
les chargeant du soin et des frais de la culture.”
Julian, on the contrary, affected or followed sobriety, disdained the
use of beer, and, though he praises the severe and simple manners of
his beloved Paris, την φιλην Aευκετιαν,[29] yet he austerely chides
the intemperance of the Gauls, while admitting the excellence of their
vines. That the vines were rare in his time, and wine dear, is plain
from the fact that the Parisians of that early day were in the habit
of drinking beer, as the middle classes of England do in the year of
grace, 1864. Thus, 1500 years ago, to speak in round numbers, the
Parisians commenced their repasts with beer, and finished with wine.
The custom still subsists both in England, Flanders, and Germany,
though it may be said to be nearly fallen into disuse in France. At
the table of the Burgundian kings it was customary to serve both
wine and cider at the same time; and if Thierri, King of Burgundy,
drank both wine and cider at the same meal, who will deny that the
French kings may not have drunk wine and beer? Charlemagne, in his
capitulary _de villis_, directs that among the workmen to be employed
on his farms there shall be some who know how to make beer. It is a
remarkable fact, that the fairest and most favoured countries of the
earth--the countries producing the best wines, Greece, Gaul, Italy, and
Spain--have simultaneously used beer. The council of Aix-la-Chapelle
regulated the quantity of beer and wine which should be consumed
by both sexes in religious houses. In a rich house, situated in an
abundant wine country, each regular canon was daily allowed five
pounds’ weight of wines, and each _chanoinesse_ three. If it were a
country not thickly studded with vines, the allowance was three pounds
of wine with three of beer for the canon, and two of beer and two of
wine for the _chanoinesse_. There were brewhouses in all the ancient
monasteries. In going through Picardy, Normandy, and Brittany, even in
our own day, the spot where the brewhouse formerly existed is always
shown. When the monks drank beer they were wise enough to brew it
themselves, and were not tributary to the Barclays, Meuxs, Calverts,
Guinnesses, Basses, Hodsons, and Allsopps of the day. Within the walls
of the convent were the ovens, the vats, and even the mills necessary
for the grain. There exists a charter of Henry I. (1042) in favour
of the monastery of Montreuil-sur-Mer, by which the monarch grants to
that house two of those mills _cerevisiæ usibus de servientes_. In our
own country the custom of brewing in religious houses survived the
Reformation, and the beer of Trinity and Christchurch is now just as
good as it was in the time of William of Wykeham, Archbishop Chichele,
Hugh de Balsham, or William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich.
As the number of vineyards increased in France, the use of beer
diminished, until it became at length uncommon to see it at the table
of a layman. In the thirteenth century that very Paris, which under
the Emperor Julian had scarcely any other beverage than beer, could
hardly count a brewer. But the fraternity who delight in gentian,
coculus Indicus, mazerion, liquorice root, and grains of paradise,
again appeared in numbers towards 1428. The author of the “Journal de
Paris,” composed under the reigns of Charles VI. and VII., attributes
this descent from wine to beer to the oppressive taxation and heavy
exactions of Charles VI. Among the memoirs furnished to the Duke of
Burgundy in 1698 by the different intendants of the kingdom, on the
state of France, the memoir of the intendant of Paris remarks that
the misery and distress of the people had considerably diminished the
commerce of wine in his district; whilst the consumption of beer, on
the contrary, increased in proportion, so that in the same year the
brewers had consumed 80,000 _setiers_ (the _setier_ was twelve bushels)
of barley, without counting the corn employed for white beer. At this
period beer in France was made of barley and rye, but meslin, corn,
vetches, and lentils, were also added. The seeds or flowers of hops
were added only when wheat or barley was used.
The use of hops was entirely unknown to the ancient Gauls, and how
they, under these circumstances, contrived to keep their beer is a
secret lost to us moderns. In the thirteenth century the French had a
better species of double beer, which they called _godale_, probably
from the English words good ale, or the Frisian _gut ael_. The wisest
of men has said, “There is nothing new under the sun;” and a further
illustration of the truth of this remark is afforded by the fact that,
even thus early, the Parisian brewers were accustomed to put spices,
bay-leaves, and pitch, into their beer to give it flavour. The statutes
of Boileve, exclusively meant for brewers, say that these practices
“ne sont ne bonnes ne loyaux.” Some there were who, according to
Charles Etienne, added tares to the beer, at the risk of rendering the
beverage not only intoxicating, but dangerous. But, as if to excuse
this Parisian practice, the author adds, “The English mix in their beer
sugar, cinnamon, and cloves, and afterwards clarify it.” Schookius,
who wrote in 1661, tells us that it was the custom to salt the beer at
Minden, in Westphalia; and that in Flanders they added besides the
hops, the bay-leaf, gentian, sage, lavender, and clary, which is after
all a species of sage.
There was a more agreeable beer, which was made sweeter with honey,
and which was much in vogue in France among the rich. In Germany no
other beer was drunk, and it became so popular in that country that
it was forbidden to penitents, excepting on the Sunday, because, says
the Council of Worms, “it was too voluptuous a drink.” This sweeter
beer prevailed in France till the end of the sixteenth century, when
_liqueurs à l’eau de vie_ became the rage. The beer-brewers, not
wishing to be behindhand, tried to make a species of _liqueur_ out of
their beer-vats. They produced an article called _à l’ambre_, in which
there was a decoction of coriander seeds, and another _à la framboise_;
but neither of these were successful. The beer of Cambrai was the best
Continental beer in the sixteenth century, but it is beaten in the
nineteenth by the brown beer of Bavaria, the white beer of Berlin, and
the _alembique_ of Brussels. It is in no respect wonderful that the
inhabitant of the more northern regions should excel in this beverage
the native of the sweet south. The German, the Fleming, the Dutchman,
who drinks beer, and beer only, wishes it strong, nourishing, and
malty; the Parisian, on the contrary, whose ordinary drink is wine, and
who resorts to beer as we do in warm weather to soda water, pop, and
ginger-beer, merely requires that the liquor shall be light, brisk,
sparkling, and agreeable. I have no means of knowing the number of
brewers in Paris at present, but there were forty 120 years ago, who
annually made about 75,000 _muids_ of beer (the _muid_ is 300 pints).
Little more than seventy years ago there were but twenty-three brewers
in Paris, of whom the revolutionary Santerre was the most celebrated in
the Faubourg St. Antoine. On the 10th of August he became commandant of
the National Guard; on the 11th of December, he conducted Louis XVI. to
the bar of the National Convention; and on the 21st of January, 1793,
he commanded with Berryer the troops that were present at the execution
of this unfortunate prince. It was the brewer Santerre who interrupted
the monarch when he essayed to speak from the scaffold, and who caused
his sovereign’s voice to be drowned by beat of drum. Santerre more than
once showed the white feather, as the epitaph written on him proves:
“Ci gît le Général Santerre,
Qui n’avait de Mars que la bierre.”
That there are now as many brewers in Paris as there were a century
ago may be well doubted. At the peace in 1815, a number of English and
Scotch brewers went over, and entered into brewery speculations in
Paris and the provinces; but the greater number of these were wholly
ruined, and repented, when too late, of their short-sighted imprudence.
In seasons of dearth, the Paris brewers were forbidden by _ordonnance_
to make beer. _Ordonnances_ of the Prévôt de Paris appeared to this
effect in 1415, and again in 1482. An _arrêt_ of the council renewed
this interdiction in 1693, and two others of the parliament to a like
effect appeared in 1709 and 1740.
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