St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-10-05
Is 1t Becoming the National
Drink Of the People Of
America. =
History Of the Rise and Devel-
opment Of the Brewing
Industry.
The Egyptians Were Brewers
Long Before the People Of
Germany.
BreWeries More Numerous in
England and Germany,
But Larger Here.

The land of the Teuton is rapidly los
Ing ground as the principal country for
the production and consumption of beer.
And the mantle of this distinction is
falling in graceful and easy folds about
the shoulders of our own goddess of
liberty. Fifty years ago the lager of
our German cousins was considered only
with deriSion. The idea of its ever be-
coming the national drink, as | really
think it now is, would not have been Sc
riously considered by any one. The
early Americans were an emphaticaIly
cosmopolitan lot. They came from
England, and liked their ale, from Ger
many. and liked their beer. from Nor
way, and liked their gin, from France
and Italy and Spain. and liked their
wines peculiar to their native countries,
but there was really no distinctively
/ American race, and consequently no
dlstlnctlvely national American beyer-
age.
Yankees and Rum
The nearest approach to it at that
time would probably be considered the
rum of the New England Yankee,
the descendant of the pious Puritan,
yet the hankerer for about the worst
intoxicating beverage then sold. All
this has undergone gradual change.
These early emigrantS of various ma
tionalitleS have been slowly blended int
one more or less uniform grade of peo-
pie which does not require this diver
Sltied list OF beverages to satisfy its
common wants. and the tendency has
been constantly toward the best brewed
beer from malt and hops. | think this
IS rather pleasing fact than otherwise.
for where do we find a race OF people
so worthy OF admiration from so many
StandpointS as the Germans, the Invet-
crate and enormous consumers of beer?
And there is scarcely doubt that their
national beverage has cut con-
sequential ngure in bringing about this
result.
The ale and heavy beer of the En-
gliSh has helped TO make them sor,Id,
selfish and unSocial. The wines of the
Italians, the Spaniards and the French
have assisted in making them nervous.
quick-tempered and uncertain. The
average American does not need rum
or gin or brandy to rejuvenate him. He
T. urns to the light Beer
of Germany, and it is a wise choice. Is
there another nation on the face of the
earth so far advanced in the arts, in
mans? WiseacreS have told us that
with the advance of these came cor
responding physical deterioration, yet
where would we look for more Stalwart
physlqueS; for a rounder, roster. health
Ter lot OF people than the Germans?
Where for morally better people2
And who ever saw more agreea BILE
companion than German with his mug
of beer?
More than $500 years ago the secret
OF beer or barley-Wine making was dis
covered and Immediately utilized to a
considerable extent by the best existing
nations, and its use has ever since been
increasing. The exact date of the dis
covery of beer brewing is not known,
but Archilochus, the Parian, makes ref
erence OF it some 200 years before
Christ. Herodotus, Virgil, PIiny, Tao
titus, DiOdOruS, SOphocleS and a great
many others of the ancients who are
known to the scholar wrote of it. The
first brewers were doubtless the Egypt
ianS, and the brewery barons" of those
days, If there were any, were doubtless
thin, Swarthy sort of men, not at all
like the rotund, good-natured beer
brewer of to-day. The Egyptians
gave it to the Greek, the Roman and
the ancient Gaul. The first that is
known of beer being brewed by the
Germans is during the first century of
the Christian era. and whether the idea
and the process were impaired to them
by their southern neighbors. or they
evolved it of themselves, is not known.
Germans Began Early.
Beer of a somewhat crude nature had
begun to be made by the natives when
the SaXons entered and conquered
Britain. During the past 800 years 1T
has received considerable attention
from the writers of Europe of all class
es, and slt is claimed by many that
this has done much to improve the bev-
erage. but l believe the improvement
to be simply the result of a natural
tendency.
About the year 1850, and from that
on for many years, the brewers of by
far the best beer were the monks of the
English monaSteries, and perhaps they
were, too, the largest Individual con-
SumerS. The water of the wells of
Burton-on-Trent possessed some espe-
cial merit for brewing, and, as these
wells were all held by the abbott and
monks of the adjacent WetmOre, this.
with their being connoiseurs. gave them
much advantage. Mary, Queen of Scots.
was fond OF beer, and chung to it as a
physical and mental help when in the
midst of her trouble and incarcerated in
Tutbury castle.
In 1880 there were twenty-four regular
beer brewing establishments in London
and the immediate vicinity, brewing
about 625, 600 barrels of beer per annum,
So we see that even at that time the in
dustry was quite large one in Eng
land. There was no tax on beer or any
malt liquor at that time, and the foam
ing beverage, for which we now pay
five or ten cents glass. could be bought
for the equivalent of rs cents large
barrel. So it seems improvements in
facilities and in increased production
have not, for some reason,
Made 1t Any Cheaper.
To-day the brewing industries of Eng.
land, of Germany and America are
simply enormous. England has about
9l30,000.0C0 invested in the business,
with over $4,000 licensed brewers, and
an output of about 27.000,O00 barrels a
year. This includes heavy beers, ales,
pOrterS, etc. In the brewing of the
lighter beer, the seemingly national
drink OF the American, there are more
breweries at work in Germany than in
England, though there is, COM
paratively speaking, less capital
invested, as the breweries are
more in number but smaller in.
separate outputs. America has not so
large a numberof breweries as Germany.
nor so much money invested as in Lon
don, but we have the largest brewery
and many of the largest class of brew
cries in the world. la fact. the outputs
of the seven largest lager beer breweries
of the world for the year 1890 were ap-
propriately as follows: Pabst company,
of Milwaukee, $4,000 barrels; Anheu-
ser-Busch company, of ST. Louis, 7O2,-
600 barrels; Spaten, of Munich, 49,, 600
barrels; Dreher, of Vienna, 100000 bar
rels; SchlitZ, of Milwaukee, sol, 800 bar
rels: Ehret, of New York, 100000 bar
rels: Bergner & Engel. of Philadelphia,
$4,000 barrels. While Bass, the great
London brewer. puts in the neighbor-
hood of 100000 barrels of brewed bey-
erages on the market, less than one
third of it is lager beer. SO it will be
seen that the United States is