Captain Clapperton (Expedition to Africa, i., 133, 187) found at Wow-wow, the metropolis of Borghoo, a kind of ale bearing the name of pitto, obtained from the same grain as that used for the same purpose in Dahomey, and by a process nearly similar to the brewing of beer in England from malt, only that no hops were added, a defect which prevented it keeping for any length of time. The people of the countries from the Gambia to the Senegal use a kind of beer called ballo. At a village called Wezo there is a beer called otèe, a sort of ale made from millet, of a very enlivening nature. Another sort of beer, called gear, is found at Ragada. At Whidah an excellent beer is made from two sorts of maize. The Jews at Taffilet use beer of their own brewing. Isaacs (Travels in Africa, ii., 319) says that the Zoola nation, between Delagoa Bay and the Bay of Natal, has a description of beer, with which the natives are wont to get drunk. This beer is made from a seed called loopoco, something in size and colour like rape. It has powerful fermenting properties, and forms a beverage of a light brown hue, potent and stimulating. In Sofala a beer is made from rice and millet; also in Abyssinia is to be found a drink of many names—tallah, or selleh, or donqua, or sona—commonly brewed from wheat, millet or barley, mixed with a bitter herb called geso. According to Bruce, Abyssinian beer of an inferior kind is made from tocusso. This is really a variety of bouza, which is also made from teff, the poa abyssinica of botanists.
America.
Persimon beer, from the fruit of the date plum (Diospyros Virginiana), is drunk in North America. In South America, long before the Spanish conquest, the Indians prepared and drank a beer obtained from Indian corn, called chica or maize beer. The process followed in making chica is very similar to that of beer brewing in Britain. The maize is moistened with water, allowed partially to germinate and dried in the sun. The maize malt so prepared is bruised, treated with warm water, and allowed to ferment. The liquor is yellow, and has an acid taste something like cider. It is in common demand on the west coast. In the valleys of the Sierra the maize malt is subjected to human mastication, not invariably by the young and beautiful girls, but by old ladies and gentlemen who still retain, by the indulgence of nature, the requisite dental arrangement. The saliva mixed with the chewed morsel is supposed to produce a more excellent chica. Indeed, the result is so choice that this kind is commonly called Peruvian nectar. Chica can also be made from barley, rice, peas, grapes, pine-apples, and manioc. The Brazilians have a beer called Vinho de Batatas, from the Batata[106] root. Sora, a Peruvian beer, was formerly forbidden by the Incas because of its extremely intoxicating nature.
Austria.
The most famous beer is perhaps the Pilsener, or white beer, from Pilsen in Bohemia, the favourite drink in Vienna. Gratzer is brewed from wheat malt.
Bavaria.
The peculiar flavour of the Bavarian ale is perhaps a result of the very free use of pitch or resinous matters to protect the wood of the fermenting tun, but it seems more probable that it is due to the commixture of pine tops. Schenk beer is draught beer, in contradistinction to Lager, or store beer. The one is drunk in summer, the other in winter. Bock beer[107] and Salvator, dark heavy kinds of stout, are both well known. Kaiserslautern is the name of a famous brewage in Rhenish Bavaria.
Belgium.
White beers, the result of a mixture of oats and wheat, called Walgbaert and Happe, were made in Brussels in the fifteenth century. Roetbier and Zwartbier were, as their names tell us, red and black beers. Cuyte was at one time a favourite and aristocratic drink. It has since fallen from its high estate. There are some forty kinds of beer, at least, now manufactured in Brussels. The white beer of Louvain in South Brabant is the most esteemed; but an Englishman has described it as having the flavour of pitch, soapsuds and vinegar. The winter brew is termed Faro, the summer Lambic. The Faro is by some said to be prepared from the strong Lambic and a small beer called Mars. All Belgium beers, according to the opinion of some experts, have a certain stamp of vinosity. In addition to the Lambic and Faro, which are distinguished in this particular, may be mentioned the Uitzet of Flanders, the Arge, of Antwerp, and Fortes-Saisons of the Walloons. The white sparkling beers of Louvain are the best of summer beers, they are succeeded by those of Hougaerde and Diest. The brown beers of Malines and the Saison of Liege possess good reports. Latterly the Grisettes of Gembloux, the beer of Dinant, the blonde of Buiche, and the ale of Oppuers have been creditably mentioned.