The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-09-11
BEER nfFN N A EIGHT.
Rival Breweries Making Things Lively
for One Another.

Rival Breweries Making Things Lively
for One Another.
A big fight is being waged in beer circles
in this city, in which the excitement has
run so high that agents Of some Of the rival
beers have come to blows. but the price OF
glass Of beer has not yet been affected by
the rivalry.
Before the Savannah brewery put IFS
beer on the market, the saloonkeepers paid
81 5O per keg OF eight gallons for all the
northern beer in the market, except the
! Milwaukee beer, which was sold at 81 IS.
The Savannah brewery put It's beer on tine
| market at 81 % per keg, and furnished 100
| pounds or Ice at 25 cents with each keg of
beer, which prices it has maintained.
The Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company
OF 81. Louis, which has never before per-
United the sale of the Faust beer ON draft
In this city, now seeks TO run the Savannah
beer to the wall by putting the Faust beer
ON draft, although it is sold at so cents
higher on the key, and has displaced the
Gerke brand in the big saloons, which is
sold at 81 80 per keg. The popular way the
Faust beer is put on draft is to place the
key on the counter and draw from a spigot,
the keg bearing in huge lettering the word
Faust"
The Moerlen brewery of Cincinnati per-
mits its agent to compete in price with the
Savannah beer, and the Moerlein beer is
sold at 81 p per keg.
Milwaukee beer is held firmly at SO so, a
drop OF % cents per keg, and the Tannhau-
ser Of Philadelphia is held at 81 so, but the
agents OF these beers, like the agents of all
the others, have redoubled their efforts to
hold their trade, and various devices are
resorted to advertise them The relative
worth OF the different brands of beer are
heatedly discussed in English and German
at the salOops and halls.
Although there is no cutting Of rates. the
big breweries not caring to make ruinous
hight OF that kind, the excitement is as great
as year or tao ago when the agents got
into war OF rates and the price of beec
dropped from 81 % per key down to 81 rs.
w hen this war was on, r chester beer was
on draft here, but the brewery would not
permit It's agent to cut rates. and he threw
up the agency, since which time mono but
ST. Louis, Ciuc innati aud Milwaukee beer
nave been on draft in Savannah until the
Savannah beer was put on the market.
A beer drlnker said last night: There
are so many kinds of beer in Savannah that
you don't know what kind of beer you are
getting when you go to bar and call for
beer. The saloon-keeper will give you any
kind OF beer you call for, or purport to do
so, but you don't know what you are drink
ing"
You don't know what stuff YOU are
drinking" said another, "because the beer
Is adulterated, and especially SO when it is
TO be shipped. 1t generally has to be, to
stand shipment 1t is different in Germany.
Ihere the government supervises every
brewery, and no adulteration is allowed.
The saloons must be provided with mugs,
stamped with the quantity they contain,
and you get what they are represented to
md nv rVaf n 1. IL
seller TO give you less than the
standard measure OF the glass or mug
IS an otfe se punishable under the law.
Brewers are graduated from "a regular
school which teaches the science of brew
ing, and no breweries are permitted to en-
ploy brewers who are not graduates of such
SCHOOLS, just as druggists are not permitted
to compound medicines without having
passed an examination in pharmacy. The
beer IN Germany is pure and is sold at
about one-third of the price demanded
here. The ordinary American glass of beer
would cost less than cents in q saloon in
Germany"
An agent Of one of the out-of-town brew
cries said last nigh, in discussing the beer
question, that head brewers command a
prlncely salary, and the company for which
he Is the agent paid its head brewer $1,000
per annum for long time, and finally
found it better to to take MIN into the firm
to insure keeping him,
The profit in the brewing business is very
great, aud the propriators of the princip Il
| brewerles in the north are millionaires, and
| some of them are many times nillionaires.
The ingredients entering into the compost
tSon OF pure heer are few and cheap. AS q
well-posted man says: Beer is nothing but
wafer, hops and malt" The successful
conversion Of these three cons ituents into
lager Is the science. Nothing
cheaper than water can be substituted,
but various substitutes can be and are
used for the hops and malt, or rather
| authorizations are practised which lessons
the proportion of hops and malt. This is
the American style of cheapening proddc-
ton, which the German brewer readily
adopts here, but would not be permitted to
do in the old country
The inspectors in Germany are always on
the alert They will drop into a saloon, call
for glass of beer in the ordinary way, and
then SUI Ject it to a critical analysis. If it
is not pure, the government is strict in
dealing with the brewer. The brewery is
confiscated and sold, and by lis arbitrary
course the brewers are compelled to brew
pure beer.