The Greek and Latin races, which drank wine, had but little taste for beer, which divided them from the Germanic races as a sharp boundary. Beer and wine seem to have had an influence in forming the temperament of these widely differing races. While wine excites the nervous system, beer tranquillizes and calms it. The action of a particular kind of daily drink, used for centuries, must in this respect have been more or less potent. Hence, perhaps, the Teuton's phlegm and the Gaul's excitability.
There may be said to be three principal types of beer—the Bavarian, Belgian, and English. The Bavarian is obtained by the infusion or decoction of sprouted barley; then by the fermentation of deposit, in tubs painted internally with resin. The varieties most appreciated are the Bock and Salvator beers. The beers of Belgium have the special character of being prepared by spontaneous fermentation, and the process is therefore slow. The principal varieties are the Lambick, the Faro, the March beer, and the Uytzd. In the English beer the must is prepared by simple infusion and the fermentation is superficial. On account of its great alcoholic richness it is easily conserved. The ale, the porter, and the stout are the chief varieties of English beer, which differ among themselves only by the diverse proportion of their ingredients and the different degrees of torrefaction of the barley, rendering it more or less brown. In France only the superficial method of fermentation is employed. In a litre of Strasburg beer one finds 5 1-4 grammes of albumen, 45 grammes of alcohol, and .091 of salts. The ordinary Bavarian beer contains three per cent. of alcohol and six and a half per cent. of nourishing extracts. The beers the most sticky to the touch are the heaviest in volume and the most nutritious. It is historical that in very olden days the Munich city fathers tried the goodness of the beer by pouring it out on a bench and then sitting down in their leather inexpressibles, and approved of it only when they remained glued to the seat.
In Nuremberg there is a school of brewers, where one may learn all the mysteries of beer brewing. Certain breweries, however, pretend to possess secrets pertaining to the art known exclusively to them. For example, one family near Leipsic is said to have possessed for a century the secret which chemistry has tried in vain to discover, of making the famous Gose beer.
"Good beer," says Dr. Paolo Mantegazza, a celebrated Italian writer on medicine, "is certainly one of the most healthy of alcoholic drinks. The bitter tonic, the richness of the alimentary principle which it contains, and its digestibility make it a real liquid food, which, for many temperaments, is medicine. The English beer, which is stronger in spirit than some wines, never produces on the stomach that union of irritating phenomena vulgarly called heat, and for this reason beer is often tolerated by the most weak and irritable persons, and can be drunk with advantage in grave diseases."[A] Laveran, a French physician, counsels it for consumptives, and for nervous thin people in the most diverse climates.
In the intoxication by beer there is always more or less stupidity. Beer is by no means favorable to l'esprit. It is doubtful if it has ever inspired the great poets or the profound thinkers who make Germany, in science, the leading country in Europe. Reich, Voigt, and many great writers have launched their anathemas against it. As a stimulant beer is less potent than wine or tea and coffee. The forces of soldiers have never been sustained on a fatiguing march, nor can they be incited to a battle, by plentiful libations of beer. During the late French-Prussian war nearly every provision train which left Bavaria carried supplies of beer to the Bavarian troops. It was found very favorable for the convalescent soldiers in the hospitals, but inferior to coffee or wine as a stimulant on the eve of battle.
The old chroniclers of Bavaria relate this curious tale of the origin of the celebrated bock beer. There was one day in olden times at the table of the Duke of Bavaria, as guest, a Brunswick nobleman. Now there had long prevailed at the court the custom of presenting to noble guests, after the meal, a beaker of the Bavarian barley juice, not without a warning as to its strength. The Brunswicker received the usual cup, emptied it at a draught, and pronounced it excellent. "But," he continued, "such barley juice as we brew at home in Brunswick is equalled by no other. Our Mumme is the king of beers, so that the bravest drinker cannot take two beakers of it without sinking under the table." The duke listened with displeasure to the haughty words of the knight, for he was not a little proud of the brewings of his country, and commanded his cup-bearer, with a meaning look, to challenge him.
"By your leave, Sir Knight," replied the page, "what you say is not quite true. If it pleases you and my lord Duke, I should like to lay a wager with you."
The duke nodded assent, and the knight, smiling scornfully, challenged the cup-bearer to pledge him.
"Your Brunswick Mumme," continued the page, "may pass as a refreshing drink; but with our beer you cannot compare it, for the best of our brewings is unknown to you. In case, however, you please again to make your appearance at the hospitable court of my gracious lord, I will promise you a beaker of beer which cannot be equalled in any other country of united Christendom. I will drink the greatest bumper that can be found in our court of your Mumme at one draught, if you can take of our beer, even slowly, three beakers. He who a half hour afterward can stand on one leg and thread a needle shall win the wager, and receive from the other a mighty cask of Tokayer Rebensafte."
This speech received loud applause, and the Brunswicker laughingly accepted the challenge.