24 STUDIES ON FEKMEXTATTON. 



had been suiiiinouerl, that these ales were extremely liable to 

 change, that it was liighly necessary to dispose of them without 

 delay, and that they were necessarily already faulty in flavour 

 — a fact which all admitted after some hesitation — attributable, 

 of course, to the natural reluctance which every manufacturer 

 feels to own that his produce is not above reproach. We 

 were shown some of the finings used in the brewery ; the)' 

 were swarming with the same filaments of disease-organisms. 



We then propounded to the managers certain questions on 

 the subject of the losses which a brewery may sustain from 

 changes in its beer. We had heard from several brewers that 

 the selling price of beer differed so greatly from the cost of its 

 production solely in consequence of the losses which the 

 unavoidable waste of large quantities of beer was constantly 

 causing ; several brewers have in our presence estimated these 

 losses at 20 per cent, of the total production, on the average. 



At first the English brewers returned somewhat vague 

 answers to our questions ; however, after what had taken place, 

 they doubtless recognized the fact that a mutual understanding 

 between a savant and a practical man may often be of con- 

 siderable benefit to the latter, and in the end they confessed 

 to us that they had stowed away in their brewery a large 

 quantity of beer which had gone bad in cask a fortnight or so 

 after it was brewed. Having avowed thus much they expressed 

 their great anxiety to learn the cause of so serious a change in 

 their beer, which was quite undi'inkable. We examined it 

 under the microscope, without being able to detect immediately 

 any diseased ferments, but being aware that the beer had 

 probably been clarified, by remaining undisturbed for a very 

 long time, and that these ferments might have become inert and 

 precipitated to the bottom of the enormous vats containing the 

 beer, we examined the deposits which had formed at the bottom 

 of these vats. They were composed solely of filaments of disease- 

 organisms, without even the least trace of the globules of alco- 

 holic yeast. The supplementary fermentation of this beer had 

 evidently been nothing but a diseased fermentation. 



