BREWING AND MALTING. Beer is one of the greatest industrial products of many of the foremost nations. America produced during a recent twelve month about 60,000,000 barrels of beer, representing a market value of about $400,000,000, and providing a revenue to the government of approximately $90,000,000 for the year.
Brewing is the process of preparing hopped, fermented beverages, such as lager beer, ale, stout, weiss beer, the materials usually em ployed being barley-malt, hops and water. Malting is the process of preparing cereals, usually barley, through germination, for pur poses of mashing and fermentation in brewing, distilling, vinegar- and yeast-making industries.
Prehistoric.— One of the earliest fer mented beverages known to tradition, mead, was prepared from honey-water, that is, the washings of honey combs, hence; according to Arnold, the Latin designation for beer, "Cere visia" originated from the Celtic Keirwysg (Keir-wax; Wysg-water), and not from Ceres-cereals and vis-vigor; ((this word was simply retained after cereals were used with the honey and even after cereals were used alone." J. P. Arnold, 'Origin and History of Beer and Brewing) (Chicago 1911).
What Beer Was and There is no legally fixed definition of the article or term ("beer"; its manufacture and sale come under the provisions of the United States Food and Drug Act of 1906, where it is classed as a National and State committees and associations on food standards have wrestled with the problem of what beer is long and often, but their labors to propose a satisfactory standard have thus far been fruitless, and all beer standards have therefore remained ten tative ones up to the present time.
Beer of Teutons, Ger mans.—From ancient times down to the present, the beverage that passed by the name of beer has been undergoing so many changes as to material employed, qualitatively and quanti tatively, equipment, processes of manufacture and character of product, that it is impossible to fix a standard from usage alone that will not allow the widest latitude as to choice of materials or processes. With the older Norse
and South Teutonic, or Germanic tribes, beer was a tart fermented beverage in which honey was a prominent constituent, and about the 11th century the employment of hops became gen eral on the Continent because of its bitter and aromatic and antiseptic principles and tonic effect. Later this ingredient became universal.
Cereal Base.— As to cereal base, barley undoubtedly took the lead from the first, as it was the great staple article of food before wheat displaced it in breadmaking. But other cereals have had their importance in beer making in ancient as well as modern times. So China made its beer 3,000 years before the Christian era from rice and millet besides barley, and in Egypt, probably as early as the building of the pyramids, millet was employed along with barley. In modern times, the variety of cereals used is much the same. In many countries, notably the United States and Great Britain, unmalted cereals like rice and corn are generally employed and sugars are favored by some. In Germany wheat is em ployed for some beers, and in France, Belgium and Scandinavian countries various cereal products besides barley malt, such additions to barley malt in these countries being made to secure, especially, better keeping quality and to tone down the satiating effect or richness of all-malt beverages.
The idea that the only pure beer is an all malt beer is thus seen to be false, both actually and historically, and beer may therefore be defined as follows: "Beer is an effervescent beverage resulting from the thorough alcoholic fermentation of a hopped solution, in potable water, of the ex tractive substances principally of barley malt, together with, if desired, other prepared cereals or their natural equivalents.° (Address before the Second International Brewers' Congress, Chicago, Ill., 1911).