CHAPTER II

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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 300 B. C. and by command of Ptolemaus Philadelphus 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, Æschylus, 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.

[Illustration: VIEW OF AN OLD EGYPTIAN BREWERY,

_As described by Manathos (third century B. C.), High Priest in Heliopolis_]

The Romans had their _cerevisia_ (beer) but with them it was a special luxury. Julius Cæsar was a noted admirer of it, and Plutarch, 50 A. D., and Suetonius, each of whom wrote of Cæsar, 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 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, cœtera animalia fontes_.

In Germany beer was known about the same time, and Tacitus (54 A. D.,) says, that the Roman general Varius, 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 homage of the heathen Saxon warriors, caused many thousands of them to be baptized and then celebrated the double triumph of his arms and the Christian faith at a great feast, at which there were seated with him Eginhard, Paul Warnefried and Alcuin, the Emperor’s friends and advisers, and all drank of beer brewed by Charlemagne himself, while they discussed the great events that had just occurred. The drinking vessels were large mugs of a peculiar form which are still to be seen among a collection of relics presented to the Emperor by eastern potentates and now kept in a tower at the west end of the Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle, and exposed to public view once in every seven years. Within a few years numerous relics have been found in the vicinity of Paderborn which indicate that beer brewing must have been as common and necessary in both parties as the cooking of food.

The old Danes as far back as 860 A. D. under Gorm the Old, 936 A. D. under Harold Bluetooth, and 985 A. D. under Swend Twybeard, were acquainted with the art of brewing, and their old codes mention it as a most honorable occupation.

In Bohemia, breweries were built at Budweis in the year 1256 A. D. by direction of Ottokar II., King of Bohemia, and few cities in the world can point to an establishment of such antiquity. Budweis beer is now almost universally known and approved, though it is needless to say that it differs materially from that made six hundred years ago.

In the thirteenth century we see by an old law of France, in the reign of Louis IX., of the year 1268, how highly beer was esteemed and that laws were already made to secure the purity of beer as well as to protect the brewers in their avocation, and for curiosity’s sake we give our readers an extract of those laws as mentioned above:

1. No one shall brew beer or remove it in drays or otherwise, on Sundays or on the solemn feasts of the Holy Virgin.

2. No one shall set up in the brewery who has not served a five years’ apprenticeship, and been three years a partner with a regular brewer.

3. Nothing shall enter into the composition of beer, but good malt and hops, well gathered, picked, and cured, without any mixture of buckwheat, darnel, etc., and the hops shall be inspected by juries, to see that they are not used after being heated, moldy, damp, or otherwise damaged.

4. No beer yeast shall be hawked about the streets, but shall be all sold in the brew-houses to bakers and pastrycooks, and to no others.

5. Beer yeast brought by foreigners shall be inspected by a jury before it is exposed to sale.

C. No brewer shall keep in, or about, his brew-house any cows, oxen, hogs, geese, ducks, or poultry, as being inconsistent with cleanliness.

7. There shall not be made in any brew-house more than one brewing of fifteen septiers at the most, of ground malt in a day.

8. Casks, barrels, and other vessels made to hold beer, shall be marked with the brewer’s mark, in the presence of a jury.

9. No brewer shall take away from a house he serves with beer any vessels which do not belong to him.

10. Those who sell beer by retail shall be subject to the inspection of juries.

11. No one shall be a partner but with a master brewer.

12. No master brewer shall have more than one apprentice at a time, which apprentice shall not be turned over without the consent of a jury.

13. No one shall take a partner who has quitted his master without the consent of such master.

14. A widow may employ servants in brewing, but may not take an apprentice.

15. Master brewers shall not entice away one another’s apprentices nor servants.

16. There shall be three masters elected for jurymen, two of which shall be changed every two years.

17. Such jurymen shall have the power to inspect in the city and suburbs.

In addition every brewer had to pay duty, so that the king might not be defrauded, was obliged to give notice of every brewing to a commissioner, stating the day and hour he intended to kindle the fire of his boiler, under a penalty of fine and confiscation. As brewing necessitates the employment of a large quantity of grain, it was customary, in times of scarcity, for the king to put a stop to the manufacture of beer for a certain number of weeks. These rules and regulations, made more than six hundred years since, are interesting and curious to the brewers of to-day.

[Illustration: JACOB VAN ARTEVELDE,

“Brewer of Ghent,” Patrician, Orator and Ruler of the Province of Flanders. Killed July 17, 1345. Taken from the original oil painting in possession of Jan Van Artevelde, in Amsterdam.]

In the fourteenth century the monks were the ordinary brewers, and one brewery founded by them at Dobraw near Pilsen, Bohemia, and endowed by Charles IV. shortly before his death with a prescriptive right to brew beer, is still in existence and is probably the oldest in the world. Its five hundredth anniversary was lately celebrated with great pomp, by all classes of society in that ancient city. Bohemian beer is to be ranked with the very best known, and an idea of the annual product for home and foreign consumption may be formed from the fact that there are now no less than eight hundred and eighty-seven breweries in actual operation.

In Austria, the first brewery built at Vienna was on the Weidenstrasse and dates back as far as 1384. The oldest standing brewery in the same place is the St. Marx Brew-house, founded in 1706.

In the Provinces of Flanders and Brabant a beer brewed of malt and hops was the national beverage as early as the fourteenth century, and brewers occupied an important position and were held in high esteem. History tells us that one of them, _Jacob Van Artevelde_ the Brewer of Ghent, a nobleman by birth, became a celebrated popular leader who drove Louis I., Count of Flanders, into France, held the government of the province and supported Edward III. of England until his death, July 17, 1345.

His son Philip, who at one time was chosen ruler of the provinces and who died 1382, was as well known as a celebrated brewer as his father.

To Flanders also belongs the celebrated Gambrinus, who under his real name of Jan Primus, Duke of Flanders, ruled Flanders and Brabant wisely, and became the protector of the beer brewing fraternity. Under the popular cognomen, however, (to which many mythical attributes have been attached) he is universally known, and perhaps held in higher esteem by a greater number of adherents than all the saints, even including Saint Patrick, who have been canonized up to the present day.

In England beer was introduced by the Romans. The Saxons found it there and improved wonderfully upon the discovery. For centuries it received, in the modern literature of England, the constant attention and consideration of churchmen, historians, poets and political economists. The churchmen especially were active in the improvement of malt liquors. William of Malmsbury says that the best brewers in England at the time of Henry II. were to be found in the monasteries, and every reader of early English literature remembers frequent allusions not only to beer in general but to that of the holy fathers in particular. The monks were the first to discover the peculiar fitness of the waters of Burton on Trent for brewing purposes, and may thus be said to have paved the way for the development of the enormous establishments that now scatter their product over all the world.

According to “Tennant’s Guide to London,” published at the beginning of the present century, there were in the reigns of the Tudors great breweries at London, situated on the river-side below St. Katherine’s. In 1492 King Henry VII. licensed a Flemish brewer, John Merchant, to export a large quantity of the so-called “berre,” and that the beer had to be of good quality and was under the surveillance of the authorities, is proved by the fact that Geffrey Gate, an officer of the king, twice destroyed the brew-houses on account of the weakness of the beer.

In the reign of Elizabeth the demand for ale increased very largely, and we find mention of an export of five hundred tuns of the precious liquor at one time. This was sent to Amsterdam for the use of the thirsty army in the Netherlands. Mary Queen of Scots in the midst of her troubles seems not to have been altogether insensible to the attractions of English beer, for when she was confined in Tutbury Castle, Walsingham, her secretary asked “At what place near Tutbury beer may be provided for her majestie’s use?” To which Sir Ralph Sadler, governor of the castle made reply, “Beer may be had at Burton, three miles off.” This Burton on Trent began to be famous for its water in the thirteenth century. There is a document still extant, dated 1295, in which it is stated that Matilda, daughter of Nicholas Shoben had released to the abbot and convent of Burton on Trent certain tenements, for which release they granted her daily for life two white loaves from the monastery, two gallons of conventual beer and one penny, besides seven gallons of beer for the men.

In the fifteenth century the monks in Germany brewed two kinds of beer in the convents, one kind for the _Patres_, and an inferior beer for the convents.

In the sixteenth century the breweries in Germany were already celebrated for their malt beer.

Cities not having good cellars, on account of which good beer could not be produced, were provided with the beverage through their city fathers from other places, stored and sold in the cellars of the city hall, hence the origin of the name Rathskeller. The most celebrated beer at that time, was the Braunschweiger Mumme, and the beer of Eimbeck, Merseburg and Bamberg. Beer before it could be sold had to pass a strict examination by a committee consisting of brewers of the greatest reputation, appointed by the burgomaster under and by advice of the city fathers; and a “Brauherr,” (proprietor and brew-master of a brewery) was a man of importance. In the principality of Brandenburg—afterwards the kingdom of Prussia—it was thought as early as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that beer was the most wholesome of all beverages, and the electors of Brandenburg, later the kings of Prussia, fostered breweries by the concession of numerous privileges which were increased from time to time. Grants of this character and of no small advantage were held by brewers in Cottbus,[1] Province of Brandenburg, and were considerably enlarged by Frederick the Great in favor of Huguenots who had at his invitation settled in the kingdom after being forced by the revocation of the edict of Nantes to leave France. These privileges, enjoyed by the Toussaints, Salems and others for many years, were abolished by the declaration of the freedom of trade in 1838.

[1] Celebrated for the famous white beer which was at that time largely exported to Upper Silesia, Bohemia, Berlin, Hamburg, etc.

[Illustration: MYNHER JACOBUS,

Brewer and First Burgomaster of New Amsterdam (the present New York), 1644.]

After the year 1721 coffee began to be extensively used, and at last Frederick the Great in order to check its introduction erected large coffee roasting establishments which had a monopoly of the business, and where the coffee was sold at an enormous price, only the nobility, having the right of roasting their coffee beans. “Coffee smellers” or spies were appointed to look out for evaders of the law, just as we have now beer and whisky smellers. On the 13th day of September, 1777, the great king issued his celebrated “coffee and beer manifesto.” It was particularly addressed to the provincial members (_Landstande_) of the provinces of Pommerania and Brandenburg, which were called the nurseries of his armies, and read as follows: “It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects and the amount of money that goes out of the country in consequence. Everybody is using coffee. If possible this must be prevented. My people must drink beer. His majesty was brought up on beer and so were his ancestors and his officers and soldiers. Many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer, and the king does not believe that coffee-drinking soldiers can be depended on to endure hardship or to beat his enemies in case of the occurrence of another war.” This proclamation had the desired effect, and coffee was thenceforth used merely as a luxury, while beer became the usual drink of the people.

In the United States the pioneers in the brewing business were William Penn and Jacobus, a Dutch brewer of whom Irving tells us that he left the States General of Holland to settle on Manhattan Island in company with Hendricks, the Kips and others. It will be remembered that Manhattan Island was discovered by Hendrik Hudson in 1609 when he passed inside Sandy Hook in search of a northwest passage, and that it was granted by charter of the States General to the West India Company to colonize the island. The company was not slow to discover the advantages of such a concession and immediately set at work to build forts, a church, a mill and a bakery while Jacobus, who thoroughly understood the good effects of beer and the benefits that would follow its introduction in the colony, established a brewery (in 1644) and a beer garden on what is now the corner of Pearl street and Old Slip. He afterwards became the first burgomaster and is said to have dispensed beer and justice with equal gravity and impartiality, and to the complete satisfaction of the inhabitants of new Amsterdam.

It may be interesting to some readers to know that while Jacobus settled near the lower end of the present city the Kips were established in the neighborhood of Bellevue Heights, and that on a part of that settlement—in East 38th street—stands now the well known and justly esteemed lager beer brewery of A. Huepfel’s Sons.

Somewhat later the same business was undertaken by Israel and Timothy Horsfield, who came from England, one in 1706 and the other in 1720, and settled in Brooklyn, L. I. Their brewery was near the ferry in what is now Wallabout.

William Penn, 1644-1718, a man of Dutch extraction on his mother’s side, founder of Pennsylvania and the leading spirit of its settlement—so justly celebrated for his virtues—brewed and sold beer at Pennsbury, Bucks County, Pa.

Good Quaker as Penn was, he was no ascetic. He was a great lover of beer, and accustomed to praise his own brewing—he was not averse to society, in his house was no lack of comfort, his table was well provided, and his taste for good living could never be impeached—dancing did not shock him, for both he and his family patronized country dances and country fairs, and William Penn’s beer was the beverage used on such occasions.

Under his proprietary laws he allowed beer to be sold free of license, and this sensible enactment was continued under the state laws until the year 1847, when a ten dollar license was substituted. Such a tax certainly compares favorably with that of many other states and displays a moderation and reasonableness that does credit to the Quaker community and is in strong contrast to the spirit recently exhibited in some parts of the country.

Another celebrated promoter of early beer brewing in America was Gen. Israel Putnam, known to every child as the hero of the wolf’s den and the desperate ride down the rocks, and to an older generation as a brave soldier and marked character, the man who “dared to lead where any dared to follow,” and who has gained a higher position in history by virtue of his personal qualities and a touch of romance that clings to his name than might strictly attach to his military services.

Although generally known as a Connecticut man he was born at Salem, Mass., 1718, and in 1739, at the age of twenty-one, removed to Pomfret, Conn., and later to Brooklyn in the same state, with which latter place his name is afterwards associated. Here as a farmer and tavern keeper he passed the remainder of his life except that considerable part which was given to the active military service of his country. The change from the life of a successful soldier to these commonplace pursuits would seem to many to be near akin to a fall, but Putnam’s practical good sense found no difficulty in it. When he returned from the army he resumed his farming, tavern business and beer brewing, and seems to have had no false shame at either of the humbler avocations. Like a wise and self-contained man he did the work nearest to his hand and found honor in it whatever it might be. On the other hand, however, it is no small credit to the beer brewing fraternity to have had such a man in their ranks, even were it in a more limited and incidental way than was actually the case. The tavern sign of General Israel Putnam, which hung before his door in Brooklyn, (Conn.,) in the year 1768 and later, is now preserved in the rooms of the Historical Society at Hartford, (Conn.,) and an illustration representing it will be found on the opposite page.

The sign is made of yellow pine, painted alike on both sides. The device is a full length portrait of General Wolfe, dressed in scarlet uniform. The portrait of the young hero is quite correct.

The sign was presented to the Historical Society by Rufus S. Mathewson of Woodstock.

Aside from the early public breweries there were doubtless many in which beer was made for family consumption. “Home brewed” was common in the native homes of most of the colonists, and there is no reason to suppose that they voluntarily changed their accustomed manner of living and dispensed with a wholesome drink to which they had been used from infancy.

In leaving this branch of the subject it should be noted that the beer of the earliest periods, like the ale of England before the seventeenth century, was usually made without hops, and it is impossible to say when these were first employed, although the experiment was certainly of no very modern date. It was probably the greatest improvement ever made in the production of beer, since it gives a light, clear, and elegant product very different from anything that was produced on the other plan. The modern demand was for a drink that should be agreeable, refreshing and moderately stimulating, and it is now abundantly recognized that the fermented decoction of malted barley, clarified and preserved by the hops, best fulfills this requirement.

[Illustration: Gen^l WOLFE.

SIGN OF GENERAL PUTNAM’S TAVERN IN BROOKLYN, CONN.

_The original is now in the Rooms of the Historical Society, at Hartford. Conn._]

Beer has been considered a necessity in all generations, and only in this, the nineteenth century, have extremists arisen to condemn its use. It is worthy of note that its greatest enemies are among a class who, in the olden times, were its greatest friends. The old abbeys and monasteries were the places where the best malt liquor was brewed; and not least among the benefactors of their species were the Franciscans and Dominicans, who brewed good beer to cheer the hearts of toiling humanity. Bishops have written in its praise; universities have encouraged its production; and kings having the comfort and contentment of their subjects in view have cared for its proper provision. Under date January 27, 1617, it is noted in “Langbaine’s Collections” that one John Shurle had a patent from Abraham Lake, Bishop of Bath and Wells and Vice Chancellor of Oxford, for the office of Ale-taster to the university. “The office of Ale-tasting requires that he go to every ale-brewer that day they brew, according to their courses, and taste their ale; for which his ancient fee is one gallon of strong ale and two gallons of strong wort.”

Such a fact is enough to make the modern teetotal dominies stand aghast, but it may well be doubted if they are better or wiser men than their predecessors, one of whose distinguishing characteristics was usually a sound common sense in the ordinary affairs of life.

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