260 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



flavor, but it favors the formation of the poison- 

 ous alcohols grouped together under the general 

 term of fusel-oils. The distiller produces even 

 more of these poisonous alcohols, because he 

 uses large quantities of raw grain with his malt, 

 and as he desires to convert as much as possible 

 of the original starch into alcohol, he makes thin 

 infusions, and employs a high temperature in the 

 fermentation process. He sacrifices delicacy of 

 flavor and wholesomeness for the gain of more 

 alcohol ; and though he attempts by fractional 

 distillation and other means to eliminate the poi- 

 sonous alcohols — the fusel-oils — he only partially 

 succeeds in his object ; hence, unless submitted 

 to the slow oxidation of years through the pores 

 of the cask, the unfortunate consumer suffers for 

 the improper fermentation employed. 



It is beside our present purpose to pursue the 

 remaining technical operations of cleansing and 

 racking, but we will assume that the final product 

 is in the hands of the consumer. It may be one 

 of England's best products, a dry alcoholic beer, 

 or it may be a badly-fermented beer ; in all cases, 

 however, it is rather to be considered an article 

 to be consumed with food than as a summer bev- 

 erage, or as a pleasant, slightly exhilarating stim- 

 ulus to conversation. 



Having seen how the Bavarian prepares his 

 wort, let us examine the method of fermentation. 

 Instead of cooling the wort, after the boiling pro- 

 cess with hops, down to the ordinary tempera- 

 ture of the atmosphere, or such a temperature as 

 cold water will produce, as is general in England, 

 he refrigerates it by the aid of ice to a tempera- 

 ture of 5° C. or 6° C, and by the liberal employ- 

 ment of ice he succeeds in producing a very slow 

 fermentation, throughout which he never permits 

 the temperature to rise above 8° 0. The yeast 

 sinks to the bottom in place of rising to the top, 

 as in the English process, and some twelve to 

 sixteen days, and even more, elapse before the 

 first stage of the fermentation process is com- 

 pleted. The beer is then removed from the fer- 

 menting-vessel and placed in store-vessels, where- 

 in during weeks and months the fermentation 

 slowly continues until the beer is required for 

 consumption. Throughout this long period of 

 secondary fermentation the beer is kept below 

 8° C. by being surrounded by large masses of 

 ice ; in the larger breweries many thousand tons 

 being employed to effect the object in view. The 

 process for preparing lager, or store beer, is 

 therefore expensive, not merely in consequence 

 of the masses of ice consumed, but also on ac- 

 count of the slowness of the fermentation, which 



necessitates a greater amount of room and of 

 vessels employed. 



Though this be so, yet the very dextrinous 

 character of the beer enables the Bavarian brew- 

 er to be very liberal in the use of water, without 

 producing thinness, and hence, while the manu- 

 facturing process is more expensive than that 

 pursued in England, beer is cheaper in Germany 

 than with us. 



It will be seen from this brief exposition of 

 the methods followed by the English and Bava- 

 rian brewers respectively that the essential points 

 of difference are that the German aims at obtain- 

 ing infusion products rich in dextrine, so as to 

 secure a substance which does not readily undergo 

 alcoholic fermentation, and which therefore re- 

 mains in the beer, giving a fullness in the mouth 

 not attained by English ales having the same ori- 

 ginal gravity — or strength— of the wort. The 

 Bavarian beer is consequently less alcoholic and 

 less intoxicating ; indeed, it requires much in- 

 dustry on the part of the German beer-drinker to 

 get beyond the stage of pleasant animation ; and, 

 as a matter of fact, the German workman runs 

 no risk of intoxication so long as he refrains 

 from drinking the poisonous rye-schnapps. This 

 dextrinous and less alcoholic character of the 

 foreign product is, moreover, not the only advan- 

 tage which it possesses over English ales : owing 

 to the low temperature employed and the neces- 

 sarily slow progress of the fermentation, there is 

 produced but little of those poisonous alcohols 

 already referred to. In England, as before stated, 

 some English brewers employ rapid fermentation, 

 and all, or nearly all, distillers use still higher 

 temperatures. This it is which causes the crude 

 and bad spirits sold throughout England and 

 Germany to be so intoxicating in their effects. 

 Thus our ill-fed workman, who consumes some 

 bad beer and finishes with still worse spirits, 

 even though the actual amount of alcohol taken 

 be not great, becomes intoxicated — poisoned, in- 

 deed — and is maddened, to the danger of those 

 around him ; or becomes utterly stupid, until 

 roused next day with fever, a parched skin, and 

 a racking brain. Knowing that the amount con- 

 sumed was vastly incommensurate with the evil 

 effect produced, he maintains that the beer and 

 spirits were drugged. In some cases he may be 

 right, yet in many the publican may be innocent 

 of having contravened the Adulteration of Food 

 raid Drugs Act beyond the addition of common 

 water, and in some instances of a little molasses. 

 The act takes no note of injurious substances 

 produced by ignorance or by neglect in the manu- 



