J. W. DeForest.
BEER.
Poets, in every age since the time of Anacreon, have sung odes in praise of wine. The greatest bards of every clime have sought inspiration in its sparkling depths. But the poet, even German, is yet unborn, who, moved by sweet memories of the nectar of his fatherland, shall chant in rhyme the virtues of his national drink. Yet though its merit has inspired neither of the sister graces, poetry and song, to strike the lyre in its honor, it has had, none the less, an important mission to perform. To its plebeian sister beer, as a healthful beverage, wine must yield the palm. As a common drink, suited to human nature's daily need, it has never been surpassed. If it has nerved no hand to deeds of daring, or struck the scintillating sparks of genius from the human brain, it has added immensely to the health, long life, and happiness of many nations, and is destined to still greater triumphs, as life becomes studied more from a hygienic standpoint.
Beer is believed to have been invented by the Egyptians, and is of almost universal use; the zone of the cereals being more extended than that of the grape. Greek writers before Christ mention a drink composed of barley, under the name of zythos. This beverage was not unknown to the Romans, and we find it first mentioned by the historian Tacitus. By the nations of the West it was regarded as a nourishing drink for poor people. They prepared it from honey and wheat. Among the ancient Germans and Scandinavians, however, beer was in former times the national beverage, and was prepared from barley, wheat, or oats, with the addition of oak bark, and later of hops.
The ancients put bitter herbs in beer, and the present use of hops is in imitation. Modern beer was born at the time of Charlemagne, an epoch at which hops were first cultivated. The earliest writing in which one finds mention of hops as an aroma to beer is in a parchment of St. Hildegarde, abbess of the convent of St. Rupert, at Bingen on the Rhine. The art of fabricating beer remained for a long time a privilege of convents. The priests drank Pater's beer, while the lighter or convent beer was used by the laity. Although beer has been manufactured of all the cereals, barley only can be called its true and legitimate father.
Bavaria and Franconia were already in the fourteenth century celebrated for their excellent beer, and the German cities, of which each one soon had its own brewery, vied with their predecessors. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Upper and Lower Saxony breweries became well known. The Braunschweiger, Einbeker, Göttinger, Bremer, and Hamburger beer, as well as the breweries of the cities of Würzen, Zwickau, Torgau, Merseburg, and Goslar, were far and wide celebrated. Bavarian beer has long made the tour of the world. Bock beer from Bavaria and from the Erzgebirge is exported to Java and China.
German lager beer, as a healthy and lightly stimulating beverage, is welcome in both hot and cold countries. It is liked as well by the Russians and Scandinavians as by the inhabitants of the tropics. It is brewed by Germans in all parts of the globe—in Valenciennes, Antwerp, Madrid, Constantinople, and even in Australia, Chili, and Brazil.
The English commenced later than the Germans to make beer. In 1524, however, they not only brewed beer, but used hops in its fabrication.