THE
PERFECTED
PRODUCT
Up to 1845 brewing was confined exclusively to ale and porter, and the manipulations of the brewer were of the simplest and most primitive kind, as compared with present-day methods. What would be regarded as a very small establishment now was then looked upon as a large brewery. Concurrently with the growing popularity of lager-beer came the almost countless mechanical improvements in both brewing and malting; the utilization of the scientific researches of a host of such eminent men as Pasteur, Hansen, Delbrueck, Van Laer, Morris, Joergensen and many others; the practical application of the many thorough investigations into, and the works on, fermentation, yeast-culture, bacteriology, etc., and finally, the employment of artificial refrigeration; and it may be said that brewing entered upon a new era. These improvements did not, of course, reach the climax of their perfection at once; decades elapsed before the new methods became an indispensable requirement of success, and only in recent years have they overcome the conservatism of ale brewers, with the happy result of adding to the desirable qualities of ale some of the best characteristics of lager-beer; among others, a low alcohol-percentage, effervescence without deposit and brightness under low temperature. Since then the American brew-house has become a model of perfection not equaled in Bavaria, the “land of beer,” as has readily been admitted by distinguished foreign authorities, such as, for example, Professors Delbrueck and Van Laer, who not long ago visited a number of eastern and western breweries. In this respect the brewers of America stand in the front rank of the most progressive manufacturers, their establishments being equipped with the modern and costly appliances which have taxed and rewarded human ingenuity in this particular field for years past.
In the table of production last quoted the reader will notice remarkable increases in the years 1906 and 1907, amounting, respectively, to 5,129,607 and 3,970,362 barrels, and a very insignificant increase of 192,031 in 1908. In the succeeding fiscal ending June 30th, 1909, there was a decrease exceeding in the number of barrels the average increase of the two first-named years. The greater part of this loss is doubtless due to the panic, but it is quite certain that a considerable proportion of the decrease was caused directly by prohibition in one form or another. It is difficult to localize these losses with mathematical accuracy, but there can be no doubt that brewing has suffered in all parts of the country where the Anti-Saloon movement has succeeded. From present indications it is safe to infer that in the South the industry will in the end suffer more than anywhere else; it is equally certain, however, that, unless the adverse movement should develop greater strength than appears probable at the present time, brewing throughout the country will rapidly recover from its recent set-back and resume its former rate of development, acquiring new markets and new customers as has been the case during the fifty years.
CHAPTER VIII.
HOW BEER IS BREWED
We now proceed to give a description of the various processes of brewing, which we trust will not be deemed too elaborate, in view of the special character of this work; and to this end we shall beg leave to conduct the reader through the several departments of one of the largest breweries of our country.
It is to John Barleycorn, immortalized by Robert Burns and innumerable other poets of less renown, that we must first turn our attention; but we need not follow his career from the beginning, as poetically described by the Scotch bard, for he makes his entry into the brewery after he has already undergone a great part of his sufferings.
“They laid him out upon the floor,
To work him further woe,