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The Story of Beer
from an essay by HL Morrigan Graham, 1st in a series
Beer defined:
The Encyclopedia Britannica defines beer as "an alcoholic beverage
produced by extracting raw materials with water, boiling and fermenting."
(Britannica on line) While I admit that there are beers made with things
like Sassafras root, (root beer) birch sap, (birch beer) and others, what we are
talking about here is what most folks throughout the world call beer: an
alcoholic drink made by extracting sugars and starches from grain (usually
malted barley), adding something to make the liquid less cloyingly sweet
(usually hops), and fermenting it with yeast. While this seems to be a very
simple idea, the variations on the theme are astounding, in 2001 there were
approximately 2800 malt beverage brands manufactured in the United States alone
(Beer Institute 1), Each brand being at least slightly different than it
competitors, and each designed for a different taste.
A Brief History of Beer
Beer in Prehistory through the Middle ages
Archaeologists have found proof of beer being brewed from barley
before 6000B.C. In Sumaria, and Babylonia. (Britannica on line) In fact,
Professor Solomon Kats of the University of Pennsylvania, among other noted
anthropologists credits the accidental discovery of beer as the primary cause of
civilization for early man. They suggest the following scenario: Early man
(actually, early woman) having harvested grain that grew wild in the
Fertile Crescent, would store it in clay jars. At some point, the jars were
rained on, which allowed the grain to start to sprout. Not knowing any
better, the owner of the grain went ahead and baked it (thus making the first
Malted barley). The resultant loafs of bread would have been much sweeter
than normal (more on this later) and thus very popular. If the jar that the
loves were stored in then got rained on, and some of the wild yeast that is
found in virtually every corner of the world got into the liquid, and voila, the
first beer. With this as motivation to harvest more grain, grain went from being
an occasional supplement to the diet, to a major motivation on where to
live. This went on to drive the shift from hunter-gatherer, to crop cultivation
and commodity living, according to Dr. Katz. (Smith 5-7) Recent
archaeological digs have provided additional support for Dr. Katz's
theories.
A glimpse of this early form of community can be found at Hacinebi
Tepe, a site investigated by Dr. Guillermo Algaze, an Anthropologist at
the University of California-San Diego specializing in the colonialism of
ancient civilizations. (Smith 8) There is further evidence that the record
keeping involved in the earliest trading of grain and beer was the driving force
behind the first cuneiform alphabet; and we have found records of loaf type
beer, as described earlier, to include at least 19 different types complete with
recipes dating from over 4500 years ago.
The Babylonians, who conquered the Fertile-Crescent, took over the brewing
business when they took over the Sumerians. They also traded in grains and
beers, and interestingly developed the first "Premium Beer", which they
differentiated from black beers, fine black beers, red beers, spiced
beers, and wheat beers. The Babylonians also developed the first Purity laws for
beer, violation of which brought a sentence of death. (Smith 11)
Beer was also developed in the area that would one day be known as
Egypt, at the same time period. A fact that lends further credence to the theory
that beer was discovered by accident. The Egyptians became masters of the
brewer's art, and documented their recipes heavily. They also were the first
civilization to add the step of boiling the wort (the liquid that will become
beer after the yeast has had a chance to work) to concentrate the sugar, the
same technique used today. (Smith 12) The history of beer in the Egyptian
Kingdom is long and rich, documented in such varied places as King Tuts
Tomb, The Talmud, and the works of Herodotus, the Greek Father of History.
Egyptians also passed their knowledge of brewing on to the Greeks, Romans,
and through them, the rest of Europe.
The next major development in beer history came during the reign of
Charlemagne. The Emperor seemed to place a large importance on brewing,
and imported a priest named Gall, (later Saint Gall) to refine the brewing
process. St. Gall introduced methods for Mashing, Fermenting, Storing, and
Caring for beer that revolutionized the industry; most of these techniques
are similar to the ones used today. It is important to note that the
Church had a major influence through out the early history of brewing.
This Influence started with the Egyptians and would continue through the
Middle Ages, having a great impact on what was put in beer, and how it was made.
The Church used beer for two reasons; one was as a "Cash Cow". The
control of the market in the items needed to make beer, as well as some of
the finest breweries produced a large financial benefit. The Second reason
was personnel control, by being able to regulate beer production and
consumption, the Church had a powerful weapon in its battle to control the
hearts and minds of the "flock". This strangle hold on the raw materials
included the only sources of items called Gruits. Gruits were things added to
the beer during the boiling process that helped preserve the beer and
removed some of the cloyingly sweet taste that pure malt liquid had.
All of this came to a halt during the later Middle ages, when in
eastern Europe someone discovered that hops, a plant first grown in the
area now known as the Czech Republic would preserve beer much better than
the Gruits sold by the Church, and were a lot cheaper too. Hops could be
grown anywhere in Europe, instead of being imported from the Holy Lands,
and while they produced a more bitter beer than most of the Gruits
currently in use, they weren't under the Church's control. This caused
such a hue and cry that hops were declared anathema in many places, and
small wars were even fought over the issue of "to hop or not to hop"
(Gayre75-80) (Smith 20-25) While there is much more to the story that
could be told, it doesn't really bear on brewing in America, until we get
to the colonization of North America.
Beer in America
Beer was very important to the American colonists, so much that a brew
house was one of the Priorities of the first winter's construction at
Plymouth colony. Beer went on to be of such importance that in 1667 in
Massachusetts one of the countries first consumer laws dealt with how beer
could be made, and what could go into it. (Smith 33) As the history of the
Colonies went on, more and more government influence was seen in the
brewing, taxing, and regulation of beer, including the licensing of
brewers, and the hated Stamp, and Townshend acts. Thus you could make a
point that regulation of beer played an important part in the move to
revolution! We Americans decided that if King Gorge wanted our beer and
our guns, he could pry them from our cold dead hands! Well, we of course
won our revolution, and beer drinking and making was a vital part of our
culture for the next 130 plus years.
Prior to the advent of prohibition in 1919, virtually every
neighborhood had it's own small brewery where beer was made in small
batches to a high quality standard. Then came prohibition, and virtually
overnight these "mom and pop" operations went bankrupt. The only breweries
to survive were the ones that could convert their production to other
items. By and large, these breweries were the few that owned their own
barley fields and their own malting ovens. They survived by making candy,
malted milk, soda, malted pancake flour, or malt syrup (from which illegal
home brew was made.) Writer H. L. Mencken said of the bootleg homebrew
industry, "...every second household has become a home brewer, in one city
with a population of 750,000, there are now one hundred shops devoted
exclusively to the sale of beer making supplies." At this time, one
proprietor of such a shop, by no means the largest, reported sales of two
thousand pounds of malt syrup a day. (qtd in Smith 130)
In 1933, the eighteenth amendment to the U. S. Constitution (enacting
prohibition) was first amended and then later revoked; repealing
prohibition, but the damage was done already. 1934 through 1938 saw the
brewing industry trying to recover, retool, and start to pick itself up.
The Federal Government, who was desperately trying to put people back to
work, supported this. The reader is reminded that this was the height of
the great depression, and any way to stimulate the economy was grabbed
with both hands.
In 1938 the brewing industry took a second shot on the chin. The U. S.
Government had been watching the events in Europe with concern, and when
war broke out, they were sure that the United States would get involved,
either by supplying the Allies with goods and material or by actually
fighting alongside the Allies. As a result, malted barley flour, which was
high in energy, relatively cheap to manufacture, and had a long shelf
life, was declared a "critical war material" by the War Department,
alongside sugar cane, sugar beets, rubber, and many other materials. This
meant that the War Department had first claim on the barley malt that the
brewers were producing to make beer. The Anheuser Bush corporation made a
deal with the war department that they would sell one half of their malt
production to the government for cost, in return for the exclusive right
to supply beer to the troops. This deal single-handedly made them the
biggest brewery in America. As the gear-up for war continued, ship,
aircraft, and war material production went in to full speed and the demand
for beer by thirsty workers rose as well.
In 1942,"Rosy the Riveter" and her sisters hit the work place, and
shortly thereafter, the bar. "Rosy" wanted a lighter beer that the men
were drinking. This was just fine with the brewers, as they couldn't keep
up malt production anyway, and more malt was used in heavier bodied brews.
Thus was born the move to add corn and rice to beer making a lighter beer
that could be made in greater quantity with the material available, and
for less money.
After the war, commercial brewers saw no reason to go back to the old
ways of brewing. After all, people were buying the stuff as fast as they
could make it, and they were making money hand over fist. This trend
continued into the 1970's when something new entered the picture.
In the 1970's, Americans started going to Europe in record numbers
as tourists. They brought back with them tales of the wonderful beers that
they had experienced overseas. Add to that the "do-it-yourself" craze that
started around then, the lack of a commercially available comparable beer,
and the apparent disinterest in change by major brewers, and you have all
the drive that was needed to start the home brew and micro-brew craze.
People demanded a beer that was more inline with traditional old-style
brewing, a beer with more body; a beer with more character; a beer that
got all of it's flavor from barley, oats, and wheat, not corn and rice.
There were of course other contributing factors, from the
"back-to-the-land" commune folks, to the entrepreneurial types that saw a
niche market and jumped at the chance to make a profit. But if the
hometown breweries hadn't been driven out of business and the big
breweries hadn't been forced by the war to change their recipes, and then
been too blinded by greed and inertia to change back, there never would
have been a reason to develop the home brew industry. In reality, we are
just returning to the roots of brewing in America, the neighborhood
brewery.
WORKS CONSULTED
Beer Institute Annual Report. Washington D.C.: 2001
Bosch, Shawn. "Steeping: The Easy Step." Zymurgy Vol. 18 No.4 (1995) 48-54
Britannica Encyclopedia on Line. Beer. (2001) O.C. Library Access 10
Oct.2002 <HTTP://www.search.eb.com/eb/article?eu=108449>
Gayre, Robert G. Brewing Mead, Wassail in Mazers of Mead. Boulder CO:
Brewers Publications, 1986
Griffiths, John R. "Single Step Infusion Techniques." Zymurgy Vol. 18
No.4 (1995) 58-62
Moylan, Mark. "All-Grain on a Shoestring." Zymurgy Vol. 18 No.4 (1995)
88-92
Papazian, Charles N. the New Complete Joy of Home Brewing. New York: Avon
Books, 1991.
Richman, Darryl. "Decoction for Beginners." Zymurgy Vol. 18 No.4
(1995) 62-66
Shaw A. H. Hops/Beer/Ale/AAAARG Online Posting.21 Nov. 1995 Stefan's
Florilegium Archive. <HTTP://www.florilegium.org/beverages/beer.>
Referencing Alcohol in Western Society from Antiquity to 1800 a
Chronological History. Austin, Gregory A. Staff of Southern California
Research Institute 1985
Smith, Gregg. Beer: A History of Suds and Civilization From
Mesopotamia to Microbreweries. New York: Avon Books, 1995
Wiemann, Charlie. "A Grain Brewer's Glossary." Zymurgy Vol. 18 No.4 (1995)
20-27
Copyright 2002 by William Lehman aka HL Morrigan Graham- previously published
in The Flames of the Dragon, The "official" newsletter of the Barony of Dragon's
Laire, Nov. 2002 Posted Jan 2003
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