New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1885-08-26
LAGER BEER.
Graphic Account ofHow It I. Made

ailu Colidis turned up TO Ine1r ears,
sat in vault yesterday morning for
ty feet below the level of the Belair
road. Above them were coils of pipe
thickly coated with ice, and by the dim
light of a candle long rows ofhuge bar
rels were barely visible. A door slam
med somewhere and there was mo-
mentary fall ofsnow. Oneheld a can
die and the other drew glass ofbeer
from handy key. One was a Sun re-
porter and the other was Mr.. Charles
Mendle, who was showing the reporter
the sights of one Of the largest brewer
les in Baltimore.
Theoretically, it's very easy to brew
beer. You get your malt, grind it up,
stir it with hot water, strain it offand
boil this extract with hops, coolit off.
let it ferment and drink it. Practi-
cally, it isn't quite so easy. Itrequires
a knowledge, or a wisdom rather, that
time and experience only can bring
to know how long to stir, how much
extract to use, and how much
hops, how long to boil, and how
long to cool and fast to ferment, and
how long to keep. These are secrets
which every brewer keeps to himself,
very distinctly. But he will very cheer
fullyshow you the brewery. The malt
house is not in use this year, because
he can buy the malt as cheaply as the
barley. But he shows you the large
watts where the barley is stepped; the
long floors on which the soaked, swol-
len grain is spread out until it attains
certain growth There are the kilns
it which it is slowly dried when it has
sufficiently sprouted, and then it is
malt, ready for brewing This he only
explains, because, as stated, most
brewers found it cheeper to buy the
malt than to malt the barley.
Away up in the topmost story of
the brewery, whose tall tower and
stately front are the pride of the
neighborhood,, the malt is thoroughly
cleaned of every impurity, and the lit
tie sprout it got in the malt-house is
broken off by incricate, beautiful ma
chinery. Then it drops one floor to
the mill, and is ground to a sweet,
white flour. And now the brewing
proper begins. Into a huge circular tub
ofsheet-iron, with acapacity ofsix hun
dred gallons-the mash-tub- slides,
and athick copper pipe supplies hot wa
ter. Here ingenious machinery stirs it
round and round-how long is the
brewers secret. The color of the beer
depends much on this, and no two
breweries brew beer of exactly the same
shade. 1t varies from pale amber to
a rich, dark brown.
The extract that drips from the
mash-tub after several hours of stir
rlngls the pure extract ofmalt. 1t has
swedish taste naturally, for the du-
ty Of the nash-tub is to convert all,
OF nearly all, of the starch in the bar
ley into sugar. The residu OF grain
hulls, &c, is run out of the tub and
sold to cattle dealers. The extract
drips into a huge kettle on the next
floor below. Here the hops, first cut
up into smaller pieces, are thrown in
and the two are boiled. The brewer
knows how much hops and how
long it boils. When he stops boiling
it is beer, but, of course, not the lager
that cheers the weary at five cents a
glass. 1t has not yet fermented.
From the kettle, whose capacity is
four hundred barrels, it is run into a
large, shallow reservoir on cool floor,
where q constant current of fresh air
cools it off. The famous Muenchen
beer is said to owe much of it's repu-
tatlon to the cool air that comes
fresh, strong and fragrant from the
neighboring Hartz Mountains.
But the cool air alone is not enough,
especially in summer time, and so the
bear flows over long coil of bright
tubes, which are kept cool by a con-
slant stream of water. In some
breweries a strong brine runs through
the tubes. Completely cooled, the
beer now runs into the enormous
watts that rest in the three vault
ed cellars, one beneath the 9th
er, the third being forty feet be-
low the surface. Thick coils of
pipe run through the cellars, through
which brine carries the cold produced
by q fine ammonia ice-makine ma
chine on the ground floor of the brew
cry. The coils are everywhere COW
cred with a coating of ice an inch thick.
The temperature of the deepest cellar,
where lies the beer that has been fer
menting between two and three
months, and is consequently readyfor
market, is several points below the
freezing point. Here it is drawn off
into small kegs, and an endless chain
HOSTS the key upthe forty feet to day
light in an instant.
Such is beer, a pure fermented COM
bination of malt extract and hops.
Brewers find it desirable to add little
soda to it, because their customers so
prefer it. Some brewers bad, wicked
men-hnd It desirable to use glucose,
caramel, pepper, quassia, iquorice
molasses, honey, sulphuric acid and
aulm as cheaper substitutes, but it is
only fair to this greatindustry to state
that the authorizations have been gross
ly exaggerated.
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