Beer : its history and its economic value as a national beverage

By Frederick William Salem

• Early history of beer.
• Modern history of beer.
• How beer is made and what it is.
• The development of ale, porter and lager beer.
• The conditions and prospects of the beer trade.
• Comparative advantages of beer over distilled or spirituous liquors.
• Beer brewing a benefit to farmers.
• Prohibitory laws and their effects.
• What authorities say.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edizioni Savine
• Release date: Aug 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9791222436531

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BEER,

ITS HISTORY AND ITS ECONOMIC VALUE

AS A -

NATIONAL BEVERAGE.

BY

F. W. SALEM.

HARTFORD, CONN.:

F. W. SALEM COMPANY.

1880.

DEDICATION.

TO THE BEER BREWERS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Thinking as I do, that in the Beer Brewers of the United States we must recognize real, though perhaps unconscious, promoters of the great and glorious cause of genuine temperance, and that greater practical results may be attained through their instrumentality than in any other way, it seems fitting that this attempt to expound the true nature and value of beer should be specially dedicated to them as a body, and accompanied with the assurance of the author’s profound respect and esteem.

Frederick William Salem.

Hartford, Conn., January, 1880

PREFACE.

Our object in presenting the following pages to the public, is to call attention to the value of pure beer as a preventive of intemperance. Few persons are aware of the amount of patient investigation this question has received at the hands of eminent social economists and men of science, or of the mass of facts and testimony that has been collected, and lies ready at the hand of any one who is able and willing to work it over into a compact consecutive form, in which it shall be easy of access, and available for use in the further discussion of the subject. This we have attempted to do thoroughly and fairly. Great caution has been used in making statements and no inference has been drawn that could be considered in any way forced or doubtful.

There are doubtless many persons to whom some of the facts and conclusions here presented, may seem strange or even startling, and to such it must be said that the authorities quoted are generally men whose reputation for accuracy and sound judgment stands so high that they cannot afford to make a mistake or a loose assertion.

The work has involved much labor and historical research, and the author Relieves that the information contained in the following pages cannot fail to be of value to those who are interested in any phase of the beer question, whether as brewers, legislators or students of sociology. The end proposed to be served is that of temperance, and the method suggested is one that has been successfully tried in other countries. From the total abstinence party we ask the candid examination of our facts and arguments that is due to a fair statement from all who claim respect for their own opinions, and are honest friends of real temperance.

BEER

ITS HISTORY AND ITS ECONOMIC VALUE

AS A

National Beverage.

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY VIEW OF THE SUBJECT.

As extremes do and must perforce exist, the noblest philosophy of life is compromise.

Temperance then is the truest medium between total abstinence and excess, and in the same manner, beer occupies the medium position between ardent spirits and water. This fact is of the greatest importance, and until the public thoroughly understands the differences, whether from a moral, social, economic, or sanitary point of view, between distilled and fermented liquors, or in other words, beer and whisky there can be no hope of proper legislation as to the traffic in these articles. This legislation is now greatly influenced by the public advocates of total abstinence, among whom, if their own repeated claims be taken into account we might expect to find only disinterested, high-minded philanthropists. But it is notorious that their ranks are largely swelled by ignorant, ambitions or foolish men, whose vanity or pecuniary interest determines their action, and whose persistence and numerical strength will constitute an effective power until legislative bodies and the people at large are more thoroughly informed as to the actual experience of countries in which the problem has been dispassionately studied and brought to a successful solution. In too many of our states the liquor laws represent the triumph of ignorance and prejudice over reason and the welfare of the community. We hold that the solution of the temperance question is to be found through fermented liquors, and Beer Against Whisky is our motto.

Before coming, as we shall do later in this book, to a de- , tailed examination of the facts in regard to the use of beer, it may be well to declare briefly our position, and give some indication of the kind of testimony that will be more fully displayed under a separate heading.

We hold that the production and sale of beer is so far from being subversive of public morals, that experience in all countries where beer is the national beverage, demonstrates precisely the opposite of this position. We hold too, that the use of beer is not merely indifferent, but, within the limits of temperance (i. e. moderation), a good and rational means of developing the mental and bodily powers of man.

We cannot join in the gratulations of those who now—as they say—so enthusiastically enjoy the blessings of total abstinence. .During the last thirty years we have seen something of the operation of this enthusiasm, not only in Great Britain, but in the native state of the originator of the movement in this country, and we find it impossible to assent to the famous proposition that a pledged abstainer is a drunkard saved. We have been convinced that a pledged abstainer is too often a man who drinks in secret and thus adds hypocrisy to his other sins.

Notice this passage from evidence given before a state committee appointed to inquire into the action of the restrictive laws. The Hon. James H. Duncan of Haverhill, says :

My observation and convictions are, that temperance has not been promoted by the prohibitory law; that the temperance of our people is not so good now as before the passage of the law; it has no efficacy in checking intemperance and the evils that result from it; it has been productive of more mischief than good, and I think it an unwise act. It is impossible to make that a crime which is not made a crime by the divine law, and the use of beer, wine and cider cannot by any effort be made a crime per se, yet the prohibitory statute makes it a crime to sell either, and worse, it is a crime for a carrier to carry them. No wonder that such a law demoralizes the community, for a vast amount of lying and fraud have been called into existence through its agency.

The Rev. George Putnam, D.D., said; I believe and know that the prohibitory law produces demoralization, and disrespect for a law that cannot be enforced. It demoralizes jurors and witnesses. It demoralizes the buyers and sellers of liquors, inducing them to resort to all manner of frauds, tricks and evasions to do that unlawfully which they cannot do lawfully. It is injurious to the conscience of the people to be always violating this law; and so far as liquor selling is concerned the law has done no good.

These extracts and many others to be given later, go to prove that it is most unwise to interfere with the social habits of a people, that it is dangerous for a state to do so, and that, as a matter of fact, temperance is not promoted by a prohibitory law. Public testimony that such laws are a blunder, or worse, has been given by such men as John Quincy Adams, Professor Agassiz of Cambridge, Rev. Leonard Bacon, D. D., of Connecticut, Professor Bigelow of Boston, Professor Edward Clark of Boston, ex-Governor Clifford, the late Right Rev. M. Eastburn, D. D., the late Governor Andrews, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, all of Boston, ex-Governor Washburn of Massachusetts, Professor Bowen of Cambridge, General Burrell of Roxbury, Hon. Joel Parker of Cambridge, Judge Patch of Lowell, Hon. James II. Duncan of Haverhill, Mass., Rev. George Putnam, D. D., of Mass., Dr. Garcelon, Governor of Maine, Dr. Willard Parker of the Inebriate Asylum at Binghamton, N. Y., A. Schwartz, Esq., the distinguished editor and publisher of the Americanischer Bierbrauert and many others, comprising eminent statesmen, judges, and divines of all the states of the Union.

Our legislators should consider it their solemn duty to protect and foster the manufacture and sale of pure beer, and should frame such laws as will protect the people against imposition and secure the manufacture of an article that shall not only be made from good materials, but be thoroughly well brewed and wholesome, and sold at a moderate price.

Such a course will prove a blessing to mankind, and we do not hesitate to say, that notwithstanding what fools or fanatics may say, preach or write, Americans, and particularly those of the Eastern States, who are probably the most practical people on the face of the globe, will before long adopt beer as their national beverage. In doing so they will but follow the example of the most civilized countries of Europe ; and it will soon be recognized that every brewery and every beer saloon helps to loosen the grasp which alcohol has on any country where distilled liquors are habitually used. Thomas Jefferson, writing Dec. 13, 1818, to M. de Neuville in reference to intemperance and the use of light wines as a substitute for spirits, says, No nation is drunken where wine is cheap. Beer is yet less alcoholic than wine of any sort and has advantages of its own which will be discussed in due place. Experience shows that sound, wholesome beer at a moderate cost is the best catholicon yet discovered for intemperance. It weans a people gradually but surely from strong drink and brings happiness, content and morality in the place of dissipation and suffering. But it must be good, cheap and accessible, and the responsibility of making it so rests with our lawgivers. The poorer classes are those who need it most and cause most injury and loss to the state when for lack of it they consume ardent spirits—and these cheap and adulterated.

In spite of all difficulties considerable progress has been made, as is shown by a consumption last year of more than nine million (9,473,361) barrels of beer, which is the best evidence of a step in the right direction towards national temperance.

CHAPTER II.

EARLY HISTORY OF BEER.

It is impossible to say where and when the brewing of beer began, for the earliest historical records show its general use.

It is mentioned by Manathos, High Priest of Heliopolis, an Egyptian of Greek education, who lived about 800 B. C. and by command of Ptolemaus Philadelphia translated the old Egyptian history into Greek. He says that the Egyptians, thousands of years before, had beer, and that its invention was attributed to Osiris, a divinity representing all the beneficent principles, also that celebrated breweries existed at that time at El Kahirch, the Cairo of Europeans, and at Pelusinum on the river Nile.

The Greeks had their zythos (beer) as also their wine of barley, ek krithon methu, and the oinos krithinos as mentioned by Sophocles, AEschylus, 470 B. C., Diodorus of Sicily and Pliny. Xenephon in his account of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, written 400 B. C., mentions that the inhabitants of Armenia used fermented drinks made from barley.

The Romans had their cerevisia (beer) but with them it was a special luxury. Julius Caesar was a noted admirer of it, and Plutarch, 50 A. D., and Suetonius, each of whom wrote of Caesar, tell us that after he had crossed the Rubicon, 49 B. C., he gave a great feast to his leaders at which the principal beverage used was cerevisia, and the biographers of Lucullus tell us that at his magnificent entertainments

VIEW OF AN OLD EGYPTIAN BREWERY,

As described by Manathos (third century B. C.), High Priest in Heliopolis

beer was served to his guests in golden goblets of the most costly device. And at that time also the Romans were already accustomed to sing Cerevisiam bibunt homines, ecetera animalia fontes.

In Germany beer was known about the same time, and Tacitus (54 A. D.,) says, that the Roman general Yarius, who was sent by Augustus to conquer the country and subdue the inhabitants, but was defeated by Arminius the leader of the Teutons, attributed the desperate valor of the enemy and their complete success, in great measure to their free use of bior (beer).

The Allemanni, a large German tribe who were first mentioned by Dion Cassius, 213 A. D., and who occupied the country between the river Main and the Danube, were formidable enemies both to the Romans and the Gauls. They attached great importance to their beer which was brewed under the supervision of the priests, and before use was blessed with many solemn rites. In an old code of theirs we find that every member of a church (Gotteshaus) had to contribute for its maintenance fifteen seidel of beer or some equivalent. The -Emperor Julian who defeated them in the year 357 A. D., near Strasburg, where all their forces were assembled under seven chiefs, found on the field of battle numerous utensils designed to be employed in brewing.

The old Saxons in the seventh and eighth centuries when sitting in council to consider questions of high importance would only deliberate after drinking beer, which they took in common out of large Humpen (stone mugs).

Charlemagne (742-814 A. D.,) himself gave directions how to brew the beer for his court, and was as careful in selecting his brew-masters as in choosing his councilors and leaders. A single circumstance, attendant on his defeat of the Saxons at Paderborn, 777 A. D., illustrates the high respect in which brewing was then held, and in this particular, is suggestive of its semi-sacred character among the Allemanni as mentioned above. On that occasion it is related that the Emperor, surrounded by his chief leaders and councilors and by the ambassadors of distant nations, received the