LAGER BEER IN AMERICA. HOW IT CAME HERE, WHAT IT SHOULD BE WHAT IT IS. THE production of beer in our country, and especially of New York claims an early date in that connection. Our Flemish forefathers of the New Netherlands inherited their traditions of beer and its manufacture more directly and legitimately than could any Bavarian or other German, for the royal patron saint of the foaming tankard, Gambrinus, was a Fleming, being Lord of Brabant, in old Flanders. It was through no left-handed birthright, therefore, that beer was among the earliest manufactures in Manhattan. In 1633, under Director Van Twiller, a brewery was erected in Bridge Street, between Broad and Whitehall. Not long afterward the "Brouwer TRAVERSING A CELLAR. Straat" was so-called from its several breweries. There Oloffe Stevensen Van Cortlandt, as a brewer, laid the foundation of his fortune and his family, and the names of De Forest, Van Couwenhoven, Bayard, Kip, Beekman, and others, were on the list of early brewers who rose to wealth and eminence. Arendt Van Corlaerthe "Corlaer" so held in honor by the aborigines and the Frenchestablished a brewery at Beverwyck, or Albany, in 1661. Even in Massachusetts there were brewhouses aleady in 1635. In that colony, when barley was scarce, they began to use molasses and sugar the practice, which may be called only an anticipation of the unnatural expedients of our day. as substitutes for malt, until the General Court prohibited | theatre for Lewis Hallam. Subsequently the old building was fitted up and occupied as a German Reformed Church for those of the Palatines who held to the faith of the Heidelberg Catechism. From one of their pastors, Rev. Mr. Kern, and through one of his descendants, there has come down to us a tradition, that among the original Palatines the real Winter-kept lager made its appearance every Spring. This is the first trace of lager beer in America that we can discover. In the general use of ale, however, their descendants followed the prevailing fashion, and so the brewing of lager became a lost art, so far as New York was concerned. The beer which was made generally at that early time in Manhattan and other parts of our country was known as "table beer," such as our "present-use ale "; or when more malt was used, as "strong beer," such as we now call "stock ale." The same kind of products continued in vogue in New York up to and after the Revolution, and they were the only form of malt liquors in common use here until 1846. Such, also, were the general malt beverages of the other Middle States, except in the Springtime; and that exception brings us to the consideration of "lager beer," and its history in America. famous interpreter, Conrad Weiser, together with the friendly chief, Quagnant, was furthering the settling cf the Upper Schuylkill. These flitting Palatines seem to have carried their "beer secret" with them, and one of their number, named Fritz, who, like Weiser, was a native of Oberant, in Würtemberg, put up a bark-shed brewery in the Tulpehocken valley, near Reading. On a visit to that place, in 1836, the writer was informed that he made Winter-stored beer. His name ought to be historic, but he was known only as Fritz of Tulpehocken. It was said, that once being lost for some time while hunting, when he returned he found that his yeast was dead. In some way he obtained a fresh supply, and found his lager-brewing as successful as before. The Palatines who had moved up the Hudson suffered annoyance from the Indians, and a portion of them left In attempting the task, we must first go back to Gam- the New York settlements there and removed further brinus and to Bavaria, for with one or the other it is gen-south, into Pennsylvania, about 1733. At that time the erally conceded that lager originated. The ancient legend relative thereto, as contained in an appendix to "Simplicissimus," runs thus: "A Bavarian nobleman, Count Forst, had been visiting the court of Gambrinus in Brabant, and, by his capacity for beer, had found favor in the royal eyes. When the count was about to return home, at a private audience Gambrinus said that as a parting gift he would teach him the secret of a new beer which he had lately discovered. He gave the count a manuscript describing the process, and especially impressed on him the condition that the beer must be brewed in the low temperature of Winter, must be stored for six months, and not tapped till the Spring. "In this stone flagon," continued the King, "you will find another arcanum of the new draught. It contains a sextarius of the true and virgin barm, derived from a Penicillium under the midnight dews. This sup of barm, after fermentation, will be the mother of more, and its succession must be preserved. Hasten, then, my son, to your home, and set this living yeast to its duty, and remember, above all, the Winter-keeping of the beer." The count hastened home to establish a brewery at Munich, and obeying the directions of the King, bequeathed the secret to his descendants. It is well known that by the time of the Thirty Years' War, or about 1650, lager beer had become a common beverage in Germany. We may regard this old German legend as a mere fable, though there are some here who still accept the Gambrinus "barm" as a verity, as we shall yet note. The Winter keeping of the beer, however, is no fable, but an old and essential fact in the production of true lager, for until it is Winter-brewed and Winter-stored it cannot be genuine, natural lager beer. "Lagern" is the German verb "to lay up," or to store. In the old Lexicons lager beer is defined as a beer for keeping. It cannot, therefore, be the genuine article until it has been stored through the Winter months, ripening to its best under the subtle and slow chemistry of nature. After that matured supply is exhausted there may be beer, but it is not "lager," for it belies its name in not having been laid. Now to proceed. In the year 1710 there was a large immigration of German Palatines to America, some of whom remained in the City of New York, while others passed on up the Hudson to settle in Dutchess County, in the Schoharie County, and at the German Flats in Herkimer County. Those who made their homes in the city were wont to meet socially in a stone brew-house which belonged to Rip Van Dam-perhaps not brewer, but ówner-and which stood on the rear of the lot now occupied by Nos. 64 and 66 Nassau Street. For forty years these Germans and their children continued to quaff their beer in this brew-house, until, in 1750, it was altered to a A few years after this, in the region still further south, there was another stream of German immigrants seeking the neighborhood of the lower Susquehanna. They were attracted to settlements just beginning to be made a few miles west of that river. Possibly some of these immigrants were of the Palatines of New York City, while others were of later arrival. Among them were two brothers, who were brewers, named Daniel and Leonard Bernitz, whose first venture was to buy or to lease lots in York Town, a place then scarcely yet surveyed. Their intention was to brew beer there, and there is evidence that they did. But they found that the place was too far. inland, and also that the land titles were somewhat uncertain, owing to disputes between the Penns and Calverts as to the boundary, afterward celebrated as Mason and Dixon's line. The brothers then determined to remove fifty miles further south, to a rising settlement at tidewater, which was just then attracting attention, under the name of Baltimore Town. In that town they settled in 1748, when it had a population of only 200, and but twenty-four houses. They soon built a brewery, the site of which was on the present southwest corner of Baltimore and Hanover Streets. They were among the first German settlers who so greatly aided that infant city with their capital and industry. Their building is a feature in the sketch of Baltimore drawn in 1752, the original of which is preserved in the historical records of the city. These brothers were eminently successful in their business, and were the chief contributors to building the earliest Lutheran Church in Baltimore, on Fish, now Lexington, Street. They accumulated a large landed estate in the heart of the city, and a street running through it was named after them, though in later years the name has been Anglicized. We have before stated that lager beer was in common use in Germany at that time, as the older Lexicons of the language prove, and all brewers immigrating thence must have been acquainted with the process of its manufacture. It is fair, therefore, to believe that the two brothers above named, enterprising and successful in brewing as they were, were not ignorant of the mystery of making it. They were among the earliest brewers of the Susquehanna region, and fifty years ago in that region, among the German population there abounding, lager beer was no new thing. It was called "lager," too, as the writer knows, but it was the lager of that day-Winter-brewed, Winterstored, natural, genuine and wholesome, and not sold until Spring. Its use was not general except among those of German tastes, and therefore the demand was not great. Its supply was also limited, for lack of extensive premises and appliances such as are now common. It came and went with the Spring, making no special sensation or record, and therefore the existence of that early American lager has been overlooked and forgotten. As part of that early venture in brewing, the following traditional incidents may be interesting, especially as they were the early household talk of a region now historic. When, about 1742, the two Bernitz brothers, as related, reached the proposed town of York, in the wilds of Pennsylvania, they found that only a few lots had been taken up on the site, and that there had been no church of any denomination yet erected. The most of the settlers were Germans, and of the Lutheran faith. By the united efforts of those of them in the town, and those in the clearings around, a congregation was at length formed. In 1744 a frame church was built, and it is probable that it was adorned with the altar and candles permitted by the Augsberg Confession. But they had no bell, and that was not only an ecclesiastical adjunct but a special necessity for a widely-scattered rural congregation. The Palatine Lutherans in New York were then worshiping in a church on the corner of Broadway and Rector Street, on the site afterward occupied by Grace Episcopal Church. The Palatines had two bells, and, mindful of their distant brethren, they sent to Pennsylvania one taken from their Broadway belfry. It was a small one, but sufficient to echo over the woodlands. The bell had a tedious journey on its way west of the Susquehanna to York Town. It arrived there late on a Saturday evening in the Spring of 1745-too late to leave it in safety at the church. The weary teamsters then sought help to unload it at the brew-house on the east bank of the Codorus. The brew-house was then a homelike evening exchange for the gossips of the hamlet. In those days of leather breeches it was the custom to test the excellence of strong beer by spilling a spoonful on the wooden bench and then sitting down in it. If the brewing was weak in malt they could easily rise, but if it was lusty and nourishing they would stick fast. On this evening the strong beer had been tested and found tenacious, but the news of the bell's arrival brought the customers from their seats. It was brought inside, and its chime was hailed with delight. In the cool cellar there was a store of "lager beer" not yet tapped. To honor the occasion, the bell was upturned, a keg of lager was poured into it, and the whole hamlet was summoned to drink a welcome. The next day the bell was carried in procession to the church, where Pastor Schaum duly christened it. For ninety years this bell summoned the people to church or tolled for the passing soul. It was known as the "lager beer bell," or in later years as the "little bell," because it was used to toll the death of a child. When the Lutheran Theological Seminary was established at Gettysburg, Professor Schmucker was its first president, and he had been brought up under the sound of the ancient bell. About 1835 he had it transferred to the cupola of the building on the ridge just west of the town. There, beside the little monitor, stood Lee, the Confede rate general, while he directed the charge of his army at the battle of Gettysburg. Such is the history of the bell, and | although partly traditionary, it is inserted here as incidental evidence relative to American lager beer. But there are those who deny the early manufacture of that beverage here, and the question was a topic among delegates to the late National Convention of Brewers at Chicago. Those of German birth assert that it was first introduced during this generation, and we quote a published statement derived from them that "lager beer was not even heard of in this country prior to 1846." Now, considering the large German population early settled in America, and considering the continual German immigration up to 1846, we have often asked, Why should a beer so long common in the Fatherland not have been known here prior to that year? To this query the editor of a prominent American brewers' gazette makes reply that it was necessary first to bring a peculiar living yeast from Germany; that on a long voyage this yeast would lose its strength and be dead before its arrival; and that it was only when the Baltimore clipper-ships made the voyage in three weeks that the yeast was imported, and thus lager was first produced in America. This he states as the explanation given by the present German brewers. Truly, this is merely a resurrection of the living yeast, or barm, of the Gambrinus legend. It sounds strange to hear the old fable gravely revived in the nineteenth century, and its refutation might safely be left to the traditions and facts we have narrated. But let us further reply that if the clipper-ship yeast was necessary to introduce lager, it has strangely failed to do so, because the result of it is, the lager of to-day is not lager beer. It does not at all fulfill the meaning of the term, which has already been given. That it is not the genuine Winter-ripened beverage is plain from the fact that it is brewed and consumed all the year round. Brewing rapidly succeeds brewing, in order to turn and turn over again the capital invested; and to do this at the required low temperature, ice-houses have become a main feature of every establishment. If to this are added the more reprehensible practices of using drugs and chemicals, such as malt-extract, grape-sugar, aloes, or coculus indicus, we may very earnestly call upon Gambrinus to vindicate his original patent and save us from our present lager. As to its introduction in the City of New York, our modern lager was first sold here in 1847, in a basement at Broadway and Worth Street, and at one or two other places, having been brought here from a Philadelphia brewery. In 1848 the first city-brewing of it was made by F. & M. Schaefer, at No. 85 Seventh Avenue. Soon afterward Erhardt Richter and George Gillig began its manufacture. The demand gradually increased until it became the fashion, and now the total city production may be put at two million barrels, and the proceeds at fifteen million dollars per year. Though the greater part of this modern product is not the old-fashioned lager that slept through the Winter and awoke ripe and bracing in the Spring, there are brewers here who can, and do, manufacture the true Gambrinus tonic. To that genial essence of the malt and hop we may bid all hail, yet still with the proviso, Caveat Emptor. The revived taste for lager beer led to a wonderful development of the breweries. While there was only one in New York City in 1842, there were in 1872, in and near the city, no fewer than eighty, and the product had increased from 7,000 gallons to 7,000,000 per year. The first operation in beer-brewing is the preparation of the malt. In an immense room on an upper floor are stored thousands of bushels of barley. Here the grain is steeped for forty hours, the water being drawn off when the grain has become fully swollen. It is then left to dry for six hours. Then the grain is dried upon the maltfloor in rectangular heaps of twelve or fifteen inches in depth. In this condition it is quite dry, but in the course of a day it grows moist, and acquires a temperature ten degrees higher than the surrounding air. It gives out a pleasant fruity smell, and germination begins by the shooting out of the fibrils of the young roots from the tip of every grain. This takes place about ninety-six hours after the removal of the grain from the steep. The rudiments of the future stem begin to appear about a day after the germination of the rootlet. The germination is now checked, and the couching is succeeded by the flooring operation, which is merely spreading the grain more thinly upon the floor, and turning it over with spades two or three times a day. Now that the gluten and mucilage have mostly disappeared from the grain, this becomes white and crumbly, like meal. It is then dried and freed from the roots, which sweet-wort, is drawn off into copper vessels, called underbacks, and great care has now to be observed that the infusion shall be clear and free from any particles of the grain. It is a solution of the saccharine matters principally, the mucilaginous and resinous not being yet dissolved. Then water is again let into the mash at the temperature of 190 degrees, which is immediately reduced by the cooling malt to 176 degrees. The infusion percolates through the colandered tops of the underbacks and mixes with the first, and the contents of these vessels are pumped out into large copper kettles, furnished with steam valves, which are contrived to retain the steam at a temperature higher than 212 degrees. Here the sweet beer is boiled, and in the process hops are introduced. Then the worts are drawn into a square cistern, called the hopfenseihe, or hop-back, where the liquor is strained out and the hops left behind. After remaining for a short time in the hopback, the beer is pumped up to the cooling-vats in the third story, whence, when about of the temperature of the surrounding air, it is run over the patent coolers into the fermenting-tubs down below, where it remains for three weeks. Yeast is now THE REAL LAGER WINTER CELLAR. flash? Flowers cannot smile. This is a charm which even they cannot claim. Birds cannot smile, nor any living thing. It is the prerogative of man; it is the color which love wears, and cheerfulness and joy-these three. A face that cannot smile is like a bud that cannot blossom and dries up on the stalk. Laughter is day, and sobriety is night-a smile the twilight that hovers between both. AN ANCIENT GRECIAN CUIRASS. ONE of the most interesting specimens of archaic Greek art in existence has been brought to light by Mr. Stillman, und is now exciting the keenest interest in the archæologi cal circles of Athens. This treasure is the back of an elaborately wrought bronze cuirass, and is thought to be at least as old as the sixth century before Christ. There are seven subjects engraved on it, which are thus described: The main subject, which occupies the lower part of the cuirass, consists of two groups of three figures each, and six inches high, and it has been diversely interpreted to represent either the reconciliation of Apollo and Hermes or a king consulting Apollo. On the one side is Apollo playing on the lyre, attended by Lato and Artemis, and on the other a royal or divine figure, followed by two attendants. The personages are dressed in the most elaborate costume, and every detail is rendered with finished skill, the patterns even of the stuffs of their various garments being delineated with the utmost precision. The subordinate personages are barefooted, but Apollo wears a pair of sandals, and the other principal figure high-peaked boots, such as are worn to the present day by the Epirotes. |