BEER 



315 



Boer in its perfect condition is an excellent and healthful beverage, combining, in 

 some measure, the virtues of water, of wine, and of food, as it quenches thirst, stimu- 

 lates, cheers, and strengthens. The vinous portion of it is the alcohol, proceeding 

 from the fermentation of the malt-sugar. Its amount, in common strong ale or 

 beer, is about 4 per cent., or four measures of spirits, specific gravity 0'825, in 100 

 measures of the liquor. The best brown stout porter contains 6 per cent., the 

 strongest ale even 8 per cent., but common beer only one. The nutritive part of 

 the beer is the undecomposed gum-sugar, and the starch-gum not changed into 

 sugar. Its quantity is very variable, according to the original starch of the wort, 

 the length of the fermentation, and the age of the beer. 



The main feature of good beer is fine colour and transparency ; the production of 

 which is an object of great interest to the brewer. Attempts to clarify it in the cask 

 seldom fail to do it harm. The only thing that can be used with advantage for fining 

 foul or muddy beer, is isinglass. For porter, as commonly brewed, it is frequently 

 had recourse to. A pound of good isinglass will make about 12 gallons of finings. It 

 is cut into slender shreds, and put into a tub with as much vinegar or hard beer as 

 will cover it, in order that it may swell and dissolve. In proportion as the solution 

 proceeds, more beer must be poured upon it, but it need not be so acidulous as the 

 first, because, when once well softened by the vinegar, it readily dissolves. The 

 mixture should be frequently agitated with a bundle of rods, till it acquires the uniform 

 consistence of thin treacle, when it must be equalised still more by passing through a 

 tammy-cloth, or a sieve. It may now be made up with beer to the proper measure 

 of dilution. The quantity generally used is from a pint to a quart per barrel, more or 

 loss, according to the foulness of the beer. But before putting it into the butt, it 

 should be diffused through a considerable volume of the beer with a whisk, till a 

 frothy head be raised upon it. It is in this state to be poured into the cask, and briskly 

 stirred about ; after which the cask must be bunged down for at least 24 hours, when 

 the liquor should be limpid. Sometimes the beer will not be improved by this treat- 

 ment ; but this should be ascertained beforehand, by drawing off some of the beer 

 into a cylindric jar or phial, and adding to it a little of the finings. After shaking 

 and setting down the glass, we shall observe whether the feculoncies begin to collect 

 in flocky parcels, which slowly subside ; or whether the isinglass falls to the bottom 

 without making any impression upon the beer. This is always the case when the 

 fermentation is incomplete, or a secondary decomposition has begun. Mr. Jackson 

 has accounted for this clarifying effect of isinglass in the following way. 



The isinglass, he thinks, is first of all rather diffused mechanically, than chemically 

 dissolved, in the sour beer or vinegar, so that when the finings are put into the foul 

 beer, the gelatinous fibres, being set free in the liquor, attract and unite with the 

 floating feculencies, which before this union were of the same specific gravity with 

 the beer, and therefore could not subside alone ; but having now acquired additional 

 weight by the coating of fish-glue, precipitate as a flocculent magma. This is Mr. 

 Jackson's explanation ; to which we might add, that if there be the slightest disengage- 

 ment of carbonic acid gas, it will keep up an obscure locomotion in the particles, 

 which will prevent the said light impurities, either alone or when coated with isinglass, 

 from subsiding. The beer is then properly enough called stubborn by the coopers. 

 The true theory probably of the action of isinglass is, that the tannin of the hops com- 

 bines with the fluid gelatine, and forms a flocculent mass, which envelops the muddy 

 particles of the beer, and carries them to the bottom as it falls, and forms a sediment. 

 When, after the finings are poured in, no proper precipitate ensues, it may be made to 

 appear by the addition of a little decoction of hop. 



Mr. Richardson, the author of the well-known brewer's saccharometer, gives th-J 

 following as the densities of different kinds of beer : 



