37o SCIENCE PROGRESS 



capsicum (J oz.), cocculus indicus (2 oz.), ginger (3 oz.), heading 

 — a mixture of alum and copperas (\ oz.), lime (4 oz.), linseed 

 (1 oz.), salts of tartar (2 dr.), cinnamon bark (2 dr.). Truly it 

 may be said that the early Victorians were a hardy race if they 

 could quaff with steady lip and undaunted heart a beverage 

 such as this. By comparison, any product of a modern brewery 

 is harmless indeed, and ignorance alone serves to excuse those 

 who deplore the present use of harmless malt substitutes and 

 profess to desire a return to the brewing methods of our 

 grandfathers. 



Such an attitude ignores two facts, viz. that current taste 

 demands a beer of lighter gravity, and also that modern scientific 

 research has placed at the disposal of the practical brewer a 

 wealth of knowledge which his predecessors lacked. Whereas 

 formerly beers were brewed at a very high original gravity, and 

 contained a large proportion of alcohol, the modern product is 

 required to be about thirty per cent, lighter in original gravity 

 and much less alcoholic than that of the past. Public taste 

 has made an advance in the right direction, and has presented 

 to the brewer a series of problems at once commercial and 

 scientific. The success of his business demands that he shall 

 gauge and satisfy public requirements, and in his efforts to 

 do this it becomes necessary for him to enlist the aid of the 

 laboratory expert. This latter necessity has given rise to the 

 suspicion that brewing has become a kind of black magic, 

 carried on with subtle and unholy craft, to the end that the 

 producer of beer may gain vast wealth at the cost of the well- 

 being of innocent consumers. Such a view of the matter is 

 nothing more than the inevitable result of the deplorable 

 ignorance of modern science which pervades every class of 

 society, and leads the average man to suspect any process which 

 he cannot at once understand. Hence it is that the " Pure Beer" 

 question has made an extensive appeal, and has even been the 

 subject of a parliamentary inquiry, designed to enquire into the 

 alleged adulteration of beer. It is generally forgotten that the 

 government control of brewing processes is rigid and minute, 

 the excise officer being constantly at the brewer's elbow, and 

 ever on the alert to check any transgression of the law. It may 

 be counted for righteousness to the brewer that, although the 

 presence of a chemist on his staff has often resulted in public 

 odium, he has nevertheless persisted in his determination to use 



