Embedded Files
The following are important historical references to beer as well as sage insight into the philosophy of this wonderful elixer. This page was started when my brew buddy, Jim Gramprie forwarded me the article "How Beer Gave Us Civilization". I thought it important to capture and organize these for posterity. It is about time we recognize the rich legacy of brewing. Most of what follows is not original, but has been copied from other sources.
Arnold of Soissons, Patron Saint of hop pickers and brewers
Arnold of Metz. Promoter of sanitized beer over water.
Ninkasi, Sumerian goddess of beer
Good King Wenceslas (and the penalty for exporting hop cuttings)
Reinheitsgebot (Bavarian beer purity law)
Beer Timeline (9000 years of delight)
Beer as Medicine (for diabetes, cancer and inflammation)
Ninkasi, Summerian goddess of beer
Ninkasi, Summerian goddess of beer
Ninkasi is the Mesopotamian goddess of beer and brewing. Ninkasi's name, written in cuneiform as dNin-ka-si, means "mistress of beer."
Jeremy Black described her as "one of (...) minor deities without a strongly defined personality who merely symbolise the object or phenomenon that they are associated with." But, we mustn't trust Black's scholarship since it is simply unfathomable to think that a beer deity could be "minor".While he also described her as a divine barmaid, Manfred Krebernik [de] argues that she was not connected with the sale of beer and with professions related to it.
It is possible that in the first millennium BC she was known under the variant name Kurunnītu, derived from a term referring to a type of high quality beer. She was associated with both positive and negative consequences of the consumption of beer. In god lists, such as the An = Anum list and the Weidner god list, she usually appears among the courtiers of the god Enlil, alongside deities such as Ninimma and Ninmada. She could also be paired with Siraš, a goddess of similar character, who sometimes was regarded as her sister. A possible association between her and the underworld deities Nungal and Laṣ is also attested, possibly in reference to the possible negative effects of alcohol consumption.
Beer Building the Pyramids
Beer Building the Pyramids
Dr. Patrick McGovern, an archaeologist and University of Pennsylvania adjunct professor, is an expert on ancient fermented beverages. He cracks long-forgotten recipes with chemistry, scouring ancient kegs and bottles for residue samples to scrutinize in the lab.
He has identified the world’s oldest known barley beer (from Iran’s Zagros Mountains, dating to 3400 B.C.), the oldest grape wine (also from the Zagros, circa 5400 B.C.) and the earliest known booze of any kind, a Neolithic grog from China’s Yellow River Valley brewed some 9,000 years ago.r
Dr. Pat notes, “For the pyramids, each worker got a daily ration of four to five liters. It was a source of nutrition, refreshment and reward for all the hard work. It was beer for pay. You would have had a rebellion on your hands if they’d run out. The pyramids might not have been built if there hadn’t been enough beer.”
Ninkasi, Sumerian goddess of Beer
Ninkasi is the tutelary goddess of beer in ancient Sumerian religious mythology. Her father was the King of Uruk, and her mother was the high priestess of the temple of Inanna, the goddess of procreation.
The Sumerian written language found on clay tablets in among the earliest human writings. One tablet contained a poem, "A Hymn to Ninkasi". It is a recipe for brewing beer.
The poem, from circa 1800 BC, explains that grain was converted into bappir bread before fermentation, and grapes as well as honey were added to the mix. The resulting gruel was drunk unfiltered, and was drunk through straws - used to avoid drinking the sediment from the brewing process.
The poem describes combining bread with malted and soaked grains and keeping the liquid in a fermentation vessel until finally filtering it into a collecting vessel.
This general process is used today to brew beer.
Hymn to Ninkasi
Borne of the flowing water,
Tenderly cared for by the Ninhursag,
Borne of the flowing water,
Tenderly cared for by the Ninhursag,
Having founded your town by the sacred lake,
She finished its great walls for you,
Ninkasi, having founded your town by the sacred lake,
She finished its walls for you,
Your father is Enki, Lord Nidimmud,
Your mother is Ninti, the queen of the sacred lake.
Ninkasi, your father is Enki, Lord Nidimmud,
Your mother is Ninti, the queen of the sacred lake.
You are the one who handles the dough [and] with a big shovel,
Mixing in a pit, the bappir with sweet aromatics,
Ninkasi, you are the one who handles the dough [and] with a big shovel,
Mixing in a pit, the bappir with [date] - honey,
You are the one who bakes the bappir in the big oven,
Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,
Ninkasi, you are the one who bakes the bappir in the big oven,
Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,
You are the one who waters the malt set on the ground,
The noble dogs keep away even the potentates,
Ninkasi, you are the one who waters the malt set on the ground,
The noble dogs keep away even the potentates,
You are the one who soaks the malt in a jar,
The waves rise, the waves fall.
Ninkasi, you are the one who soaks the malt in a jar,
The waves rise, the waves fall.
You are the one who spreads the cooked mash on large reed mats,
Coolness overcomes,
Ninkasi, you are the one who spreads the cooked mash on large reed mats,
Coolness overcomes,
You are the one who holds with both hands the great sweet wort,
Brewing [it] with honey [and] wine
(You the sweet wort to the vessel)
Ninkasi, (...)(You the sweet wort to the vessel)
The filtering vat, which makes a pleasant sound,
You place appropriately on a large collector vat.
Ninkasi, the filtering vat, which makes a pleasant sound,
You place appropriately on a large collector vat.
When you pour out the filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.
Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.
Although the craft of brewing would eventually be practiced across the region, it seems to have began in the small village of Godin Tepe, a Sumerian outpost, first inhabited c. 5000 BCE,. This outpost became a significant town and fortress along the Silk Road trade route. That evidence for the brewing of beer should be discovered there is not surprising as beer was the drink of choice among the ancient Sumerians; one of the most common pictographs found in Sumerian cuneiform is the one for beer.
Beer was a staple in Mesopotamia and its surroundings from prehistoric times, as the fermentation process was an effective method of killing bacteria and waterborne disease.
Beer was also the drink of the gods. This is evident from a number of myths such as the poem Inanna and the God of Wisdom where the goddess Inanna and the god of wisdom Enki get drunk together and Inanna is able to trick him into giving her powerful elements she needs for her city.
How Beer Gave us Civilization
How Beer Gave us Civilization
By JEFFREY P. KAHN
Published: March 15, 2013 - The New York TImes
Drawing by Anders Nilsen
HUMAN beings are social animals. But just as important, we are socially constrained as well.
We can probably thank the latter trait for keeping our fledgling species alive at the dawn of man. Five core social instincts, I have argued, gave structure and strength to our primeval herds. They kept us safely codependent with our fellow clan members, assigned us a rank in the pecking order, made sure we all did our chores, discouraged us from offending others, and removed us from this social coil when we became a drag on shared resources.
Thus could our ancient forebears cooperate, prosper, multiply — and pass along their DNA to later generations.
But then, these same lifesaving social instincts didn’t readily lend themselves to exploration, artistic expression, romance, inventiveness and experimentation — the other human drives that make for a vibrant civilization.
To free up those, we needed something that would suppress the rigid social codes that kept our clans safe and alive. We needed something that, on occasion, would let us break free from our biological herd imperative — or at least let us suppress our angst when we did.
We needed beer.
Luckily, from time to time, our ancestors, like other animals, would run across fermented fruit or grain and sample it. How this accidental discovery evolved into the first keg party, of course, is still unknown. But evolve it did, perhaps as early as 10,000 years ago.
Current theory has it that grain was first domesticated for food. But since the 1950s, many scholars have found circumstantial evidence that supports the idea that some early humans grew and stored grain for beer, even before they cultivated it for bread.
Brian Hayden and colleagues at Simon Fraser University in Canada provide new support for this theory in an article published this month (and online last year) in the Journal of Archeological Method and Theory. Examining potential beer-brewing tools in archaeological remains from the Natufian culture in the Eastern Mediterranean, the team concludes that “brewing of beer was an important aspect of feasting and society in the Late Epipaleolithic” era.
Anthropological studies in Mexico suggest a similar conclusion: there, the ancestral grass of modern maize, teosinte, was well suited for making beer — but was much less so for making corn flour for bread or tortillas. It took generations for Mexican farmers to domesticate this grass into maize, which then became a staple of the local diet.
Once the effects of these early brews were discovered, the value of beer (as well as wine and other fermented potions) must have become immediately apparent. With the help of the new psychopharmacological brew, humans could quell the angst of defying those herd instincts. Conversations around the campfire, no doubt, took on a new dimension: the painfully shy, their angst suddenly quelled, could now speak their minds.
But the alcohol would have had more far-ranging effects, too, reducing the strong herd instincts to maintain a rigid social structure. In time, humans became more expansive in their thinking, as well as more collaborative and creative. A night of modest tippling may have ushered in these feelings of freedom — though, the morning after, instincts to conform and submit would have kicked back in to restore the social order.
Some evidence suggests that these early brews (or wines) were also considered aids in deliberation. In long ago Germany and Persia, collective decisions of state were made after a few warm ones, then double-checked when sober. Elsewhere, they did it the other way around.
Beer was thought to be so important in many bygone civilizations that the Code of Urukagina, often cited as the first legal code, even prescribed it as a central unit of payment and penance.
Part of beer’s virtue in ancient times was that its alcohol content would have been sharply limited. As far as the research has shown, distillation of alcohol to higher concentrations began only about 2,000 years ago.
Today, many people drink too much because they have more than average social anxiety or panic anxiety to quell — disorders that may result, in fact, from those primeval herd instincts kicking into overdrive. But getting drunk, unfortunately, only compounds the problem: it can lead to decivilizing behaviors and encounters, and harm the body over time. For those with anxiety and depressive disorders, indeed, there are much safer and more effective drugs than alcohol — and together with psychotherapy, these newfangled improvements on beer can ease the angst.
But beer’s place in the development of civilization deserves at least a raising of the glass. As the ever rational Ben Franklin supposedly said, “Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
Several thousand years before Franklin, I’m guessing, some Neolithic fellow probably made the same toast.
Jeffrey P. Kahn, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, is the author of “Angst: Origins of Anxiety and Depression.”
Reinheitsgebot (Beer Purity Law)
Reinheitsgebot (Beer Purity Law)
Reinheitsgebot, the Bavarian beer purity law enacted by Duke Wilhelm IV in April 1516, is credited with standardizing the ingredients for beer which has remained consistent for half a millennium. In the original law, below, the only allowable ingredients were water, hops and malt (barley).
There was no mention of yeast in the original text. It was not until the 1800s that Louis Pasteur discovered the role of microorganisms in the process of fermentation; therefore, yeast was not known to be an ingredient of beer. Brewers generally took sediment from the previous fermentation and added it to the next, the sediment generally containing the necessary organisms for fermentation. If none were available, they would set up a number of vats, relying on natural airborne yeast to inoculate the brew.
Reinheitsgebot was introduced in part to prevent price competition with bakers for wheat and rye. The restriction of grains to barley was meant to ensure the availability of sufficient amounts of affordable bread, as the more valuable wheat and rye were reserved for use by bakers.
The Reinheitsgebot formed the basis of legislation that spread slowly throughout Bavaria and Germany. Bavaria insisted on its application throughout Germany as a precondition of German unification in 1871, to prevent competition from beers brewed elsewhere with a wider range of ingredients. The move encountered strong resistance from brewers outside Bavaria. By restricting the allowable ingredients, it led to the regretable extinction of many brewing traditions and local beer specialties, such as North German spiced beer and cherry beer, and led to the domination of the German beer market by pilsener style beers. Only a few regional beer varieties, such as Kölner Kölsch or Düsseldorfer Altbier, survived its implementation.
The wording of the law is:
How Beer Should be Brewed and Served in the Country during the Summer and the Winter
We and Our Regional Parliament hereby decree, request and require that, throughout the cities, market towns and rural districts of the Principality of Bavaria having no special bye-laws for the purpose, one Maß (Bavarian unit of volume = 1.069 Litres) or one Kopf (semicircular drinking bowl holding slightly less than a Maß) of beer shall henceforth - from St. Michael's Day to St. George's Day - be served and sold for not more than one Pfennig in Munich currency and that the Maß shall henceforth - from St. George's Day to St. Michael's day -be served and sold for not more than two Pfennig of the said currency, the Kopf for no more than three Heller (= usually one half Pfennig). Failure to comply shall incur the penalty stated hereunder. Where, however, no strong light Märzen but some other beer is brewed or otherwise to be had, the Maß shall in no wise be served nor sold for any price exceeding one Pfennig. We more specifically request and require that, henceforth, no beer served or sold in Our cities, market towns and rural centres shall contain nor include any ingredients other than water, hops and malt. Whosoever should wilfully contravene or fail to comply with the present Law shall see his barrels of beer forthwith confiscated by the local legal authority as often as necessary. Where, however, a local brewer purchases two or three Eimer (= contains 60 Maß) from a beer-brewing in Our cities and towns or rural districts or in Our market towns in order to sell the same on to the peasants, he alone, and no-one else, shall be allowed, without let or hindrance, to present, sell and serve the Maß or Kopf of beer for one Heller more than specified in the foregoing.
Decreed by Wilhelm IV
Duke in Bavaria
St. George's Day,
Ingolstadt, anno 1516
Ben Franklin on Beer
Ben Franklin on Beer
Martin Luther on Beer
Martin Luther on Beer
Extracted from an article by Nina Martyris.
Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation changed not just the way Europeans lived, fought, worshipped, worked and created art but also how they ate and drank. For among the things it impacted was a drink beloved throughout the world and especially in Luther's native Germany: beer.
Every hip craft brewery today peddling expensive hoppy beers owes a debt of gratitude to Luther and his followers for promoting the use of hops as an act of rebellion against the Catholic Church. But why did Protestants decide to embrace this pretty flower, and what did it have to do with religious rebellion?
Therein foams a bitter pint of history.
In the 16th century, the Catholic Church had a stranglehold on beer production, since it held the monopoly on gruit — the mixture of herbs and botanicals (sweet gale, mug wort, yarrow, ground ivy, heather, rosemary, juniper berries, ginger, cinnamon) used to flavor and preserve beer. Hops, however, were not taxed. Considered undesirable weeds, they grew plentifully and vigorously — their invasive nature captured by their melodic Latin name, Humulus lupulus (which the music-loving Luther would have loved), which means "climbing wolf."
"The church didn't like hops," says William Bostwick, the beer critic for The Wall Street Journal and author of The Brewer's Tale: A History of the World According to Beer. "One reason was that the 12th century German mystic and abbess Hildegard had pronounced that hops were not very good for you, because they 'make the soul of a man sad and weigh down his inner organs.' So, if you were a Protestant brewer and wanted to thumb your nose at Catholicism, you used hops instead of herbs."
Even before the Reformation, German princes had been moving toward hops — in 1516, for instance, a Bavarian law mandated that beer could be made only with hops, water and barley. But Luther's revolt gave the weed a significant boost. The fact that hops were tax-free constituted only part of the draw. Hops had other qualities that appealed to the new movement; chiefly, their excellent preservative qualities. "All herbs and spices have preservative qualities, but with hops, beer could travel really well, so it became a unit of international trade that symbolized the growing business class, which was tangentially connected with the Protestant work ethic and capitalism," says Bostwick.
Another virtue in hops' favor was their sedative properties. The mystic Hildegard was right in saying hops weighed down one's innards. "I sleep six or seven hours running, and afterwards two or three. I am sure it is owing to the beer," wrote Luther to his wife, Katharina, from the town of Torgau, renowned for its beer. The soporific, mellowing effect of hops might seem like a drawback, but in fact it offered a welcome alternative to many of the spices and herbs used by the church that had hallucinogenic and aphrodisiacal properties. "Fueled by these potent concoctions, church ales could be as boisterous as the Germanic drinking bouts church elders once frowned on," writes Bostwick. "And so, to distance themselves further from papal excesses, when Protestants drank beer they preferred it hopped."
If the Catholic Church lost control over the printed word with the invention of the printing press — the technological weapon that ensured Luther's success — it lost control over beer with the rise of hops. "The head went flat on monastic beer," says Bostwick. "Did Protestantism explicitly promote hops? I don't think so. But did it encourage the use of hops? I would say, yes, probably."
Luther would have relished his role in promoting hops. If anyone loved and appreciated good beer, it was this stout, sensual and gregarious monk. His letters often mentioned beer, whether it was the delicious Torgau beer that he extolled as finer than wine or the "nasty" Dessau beer that made him long for Katharina's homebrew. "I keep thinking what good wine and beer I have at home, as well as a beautiful wife," he wrote. "You would do well to send me over my whole cellar of wine and a bottle of thy beer." Days before he died, in February 1546, in one of his last letters to his wife, he praised Naumburg beer for its laxative properties. Luther suffered excruciating agonies from constipation, and it was therefore with immense satisfaction that he announced his "three bowel movements" that morning.
When the excommunicated Luther married the runaway nun Katharina von Bora, the town council gave the couple a barrel of excellent Einbeck beer. It was a fitting gift. Beer was soon to assume an even more central role in Luther's life, thanks to his wife. The intelligent, talented and exceptionally competent Katharina not only bore six children and managed the Luthers' large household with its endless stream of guests but also planted a vegetable garden and fruit trees, raised cows and pigs, had a fish pond, drove a wagon, and — to her husband's undying delight — opened a brewery that produced thousands of pints of beer each year. Her initial shaky attempts produced a thin, weak brew, but she soon got the hang of it and learned exactly how much malt to add to suit her husband's taste. Luther was ecstatic — Lord Katie, as he affectionately called her, had assured him a steady supply even when Wittenberg's breweries ran dry.
Luther's favorite spot to hold forth on theology, philosophy and life in general was not the tavern but the table. The long refectory table in the cavernous Luther home seated up to 50 people. "This was Luther's especial domain," writes Andrew Pettegree in his elegant biography Brand Luther: How an Unheralded Monk Turned History. "The day's labors past, he would sit with his friends and talk. Fueled by his wife's excellent beer, conversation would become general, discursive, and sometimes unbuttoned."
Beer as Medicine
Beer as Medicine
Beer’s bitter compounds could help brew new medicines
By Vince Stricherz
Researchers employing a century-old observational technique have determined the precise configuration of humulones, substances derived from hops that give beer its distinctive flavor.
That might not sound like a big deal to the average brewmaster, but the findings overturn results reported in scientific literature in the last 40 years and could lead to new pharmaceuticals to treat diabetes, some types of cancer and other maladies.
“Now that we have the right results, what happens to the bitter hops in the beer-brewing process makes a lot more sense,” said Werner Kaminsky, a University of Washington research associate professor of chemistry.
Kaminsky is the lead author of a paper describing the findings, published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
There is documentation that beer and its bittering acids, in moderation, have beneficial effects on diabetes, some forms of cancer, inflammation and perhaps even weight loss.
Kaminsky used a process called X-ray crystallography to figure out the exact structure of those acids, humulone molecules and some of their derivatives, produced from hops in the brewing process. That structure is important to researchers looking for ways to incorporate those substances, and their health effects, into new pharmaceuticals.
Humulone molecules are rearranged during the brewing process to contain a ring with five carbon atoms instead of six. At the end of the process two side groups are formed that can be configured in four different ways – both groups can be above the ring or below, or they can be on opposite sides.
Which of the forms the molecule takes determines its “handedness,” Kaminsky said, and that is important for understanding how a particular humulone will react with another substance. If they are paired correctly, they will fit together like a nut and bolt.
If paired incorrectly, they might not fit together at all or it could be like placing a right hand into a left-handed glove. That could produce disastrous results in pharmaceuticals.
Kaminsky cited thalidomide, which has a number of safe uses but was famously used to treat morning sickness in pregnant women in the late 1950s and early 1960s before it was discovered to cause birth defects. Molecule “handedness” in one form of the drug was responsible for the birth defects, while the orientation of molecules in another form did not appear to have the negative effects.
To determine the configuration of humulones formed in the brewing process, coauthors Jan Urban, Clinton Dahlberg and Brian Carroll of KinDex Therapeutics, a Seattle pharmaceutical firm that funded the research, recovered acids from the brewing process and purified them.
They converted the humulones to salt crystals and sent them to Kaminsky, who used X-ray crystallography – a technique developed in the early 20th century – to determine the exact configuration of the molecules.
“Now that we know which hand belongs to which molecule, we can determine which molecule goes to which bitterness taste in beer,” Kaminsky said.
The authors point out that while “excessive beer consumption cannot be recommended to propagate good health, isolated humulones and their derivatives can be prescribed with documented health benefits.”
Some of the compounds have been shown to affect specific illnesses, Kaminsky said, while some with a slight difference in the arrangement of carbon atoms have been ineffective.
The new research sets the stage for finding which of those humulones might be useful in new compounds to be used as medical treatments.
Wise Beer Sayings.
Wise Beer Sayings.
E equals mc squared is a hell of a concept, but can you use it to make beer? -- Albert Einstein
Give me a woman who truly loves beer, and I will conquer the world. -- Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941)
Give a man a beer, waste an hour. Teach a man to brew, and waste a lifetime! -- Bill Owen
Whoever drinks beer, he is quick to sleep; whoever sleeps long, does not sin; whoever does not sin, enters Heaven! Thus, let us drink beer!” -- Martin Luther
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer. - Abraham Lincon
The selling of bad beer is a crime against Christian love. -- Law, the City of Augsburg, 13th Century
From man's sweat and God's love, beer came into the world. -- Saint Arnoldus
God made yeast, as well as dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as he loves vegetation. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882
The Puritanical nonsense of excluding children and therefore to some extent women from pubs has turned these places into mere boozing shops instead of the family gathering places that they ought to be. -- George Orwell (1903-1950)
Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer. -- Henry Lawson
Thirstily he set it to his lips, and as its cool refreshment began to soothe his throat, he thanked Heaven that in a world of much evil there was still so good a thing as ale. ― Rafael Sabatini
Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer. ― Tom Robbins
For a quart of Ale is a dish for a King. -- Shakespeare (A Winter's Tale)
I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety. -- William Shakespeare (King Henry V)
All other nations are drinking Ray Charles beer and we are drinking Barry Manilow. -- Dave Barry
Draft beer, not people. -- Anonymous
You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. -- Frank Zappa
Sometimes when I reflect on all the beer I drink, I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. I think, "It is better to drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver." --- Babe Ruth
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day. --- Lyndon B. Johnson
When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading. --- Paul Horning
24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not. --- H. L. Mencken
One night at Cheers, Cliff Clavin said to his buddy, Norm Peterson: "Well, ya see, Norm, it's like this. A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members! In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine! That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers."
Arnold of Soissons, Patron Saint of hop pickers and brewers
Arnold of Soissons, Patron Saint of hop pickers and brewers
Arnold (Arnoul) of Soissons or Arnold/Arnulf of Oudenburg (ca 1040–1087) is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, the patron saint of hop-pickers and Belgian brewers. You will have a hard time finding a Belgian brewery that doesn't have a statue of Saint Arnold sitting around somewhere; one is better safe than sorry. Arnold, born in Brabant, Belgium, was first a career soldier before settling at the Benedictine St. Medard's Abbey, Soissons, France. He spent his first three years as a hermit, but later rose to be abbot of the monastery. His church biography states that he tried to refuse this honor and flee but was forced by a wolf to return. He then became a priest and in 1080, bishop of Soissons, another honor that he sought to avoid. When his see was occupied by another bishop, rather than fighting, he took the opportunity to retire from public life, founding the Abbey of St. Peter in Oudenburg. At the abbey, he began to brew beer, as essential in medieval life as water. He encouraged local peasants to drink beer, instead of water, due to its "gift of health." During the process of brewing, the water was boiled and thus, unknown to all, freed of pathogens. This same story is also told of Arnulf or Arnold of Metz, another patron of brewers. There are many depictions of St. Arnold with a mashing rake in his hand, including the one at left. He is honored in July with a parade in Brussels on the "Day of Beer." and brewers pay tribute to Arnold on August 18 each year. Following the collapse of the roof of an abbey brewery in Flanders, the good Saint Arnold of Soissons is reported to have asked God to multiply the stores of beer which were left for the monk's consumption. When Arnold's prayer was answered in abundance, the monks and townspeople were prepared to canonize him on the spot. While Arnold of Soissons is best known for his miraculous provision of beer, he is also credited with a most practical improvement upon the brewing process. While weaving bee skeps for the abbey's apiary, the abbot realized that the straw cones could be used as a filter to further clarify the brother's beer. In remembrance of this contribution to the brewer's art, the good saint is often portrayed--as on the certificates of the Belgian Brewers Confederation--in the company of bees with one hand resting upon a bee hive.
Arnold of Soissons also is considered the patron saint of hop pickers because of the region in which he preached. Hops originated in Brabant region of Belgium. They became more widespread when a Belgian princess married a Kentish prince and the dowry included land across from the Affligem brewery. Belgians reportedly sent the first hops to England for use in making beer. Miracles that were reported at his tomb were investigated and approved by a council at Beauvais in 1121; Arnold's relics were translated to the church of Saint Peter, Aldenburg in 1131. St. Arnold's feast day is 8 July.
Good King Wenceslas (and the penalty for exporting hop cuttings).
Good King Wenceslas (and the penalty for exporting hop cuttings).
Saint Wenceslas (b. 907, d. 929) promoted the spread of Christianity in Czechoslovakia. Wenceslas became famous through a Christmas carol by J.M. Neale, "Good King Wenceslas", which has little to do with history but more with Victorian ideals. Because Bohemian hops were so valued, Wenceslas ordered the death penalty for anyone caught exporting the cuttings and obviously endeared himself to the local hop growers and brewers. He became the patron saint of Bohemia and Czechoslovakia and his crown became the symbol of nationalism for the Czechs. By extension he became a patron saint of Czech brewers. There also was King Wenceslas II in the 13th century, who convinced the Pope to revoke an order banning the brewing of beer, again endearing the Wenceslas name to local brewers.
Arnold of Metz.
Arnold of Metz.
Saint Arnold of Metz (582-640) was a Frankish bishop of Metz and advisor to the Merovingian court of Austrasia. Arnulf is canonized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.
He distinguished himself both as a military commander and civil administrator. He married a noblewoman in 596. During his career he was attracted to religious life, as was his wife who became a nun at the convent of Treves. Around 628 he became a monk and retired to the hermitage at Remiremont Abbey, a site in the Vosges mountains.
Arnold of Metz was another great believer of the superiority of beer over water, believing that polluted water caused illness and that beer was a much better bet. According to one legend he stopped an outbreak of plague by submerging his crucifix in a brew kettle and telling the locals to drink only from that.
After his death, in July 642 on a very hot day, a group of parishioners of Metz went to Remiremont to recover his remains. They had little to drink and the terrain was inhospitable. At a point when the procession became exhausted, one of the parishioners, Duc Notto, prayed “By his powerful intercession the Blessed Arnold will bring us what we lack.” Immediately the small remnant of beer at the bottom of a pot multiplied in such amounts that the pilgrims' thirst was quenched and they had enough to enjoy the next evening when they arrived in Metz.
The Great Beer Flood.
The Great Beer Flood.
Porter became immensly popular in London in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The best tasting porters were aged for months to as long as a year. To be successful the brewery needed to have the ability to store vast amounts of beer in order to keep up with demand. This was very costly and consequently porter brewing required huge amounts of start-up capital. At that time the only technology available for storing beer was coopered wooden casks which led to the development huge wood vats constructed in the same manner.
In 1736 a vat capable of holding 1500 barrels of beer (over 64,000 US Gal) was installed at Parson's, one London brewer. Ten years later, Whitbread Brewery had vats holding 4000 barrels each. Porter brewing in London became fiercely competitive and it seemed that vat size was a major indication of market dominance. A "one-up" trend developed as different breweries vied for who owned the largest vat. So large were the vats towards the end of the eighteenth century that promotional dinners could be held inside the largest empty ones. By 1790 one such vat at the Griffin Brewery was 20ft high and 60ft across; 200 people sat down to dinner inside. Richard Meux, the owner of the Griffin, constructed a bigger vat called the "XYZ" at the same location five years later with a capacity of 20,000 barrels (over 864,000 US Gal).
One of Richard Meux's sons, Henry, aquired the Horseshoe brewery on Tottenham Court Road in London.
The Toten hall manor is pictured at right. The brewery had an enormous vat with 29 reinforcing metal hoops sitting atop the building that held back thousands of liters of ale. Come October of 1814, the beer had been fermenting for months.
Suddenly, at about 6.00 pm on October 17, 1814, one of the heavy metal hoops snapped and the contents of the porter vat exploded out - quite literally - causing a chain reaction with the surrounding vats. The resulting noise was apparently heard as far away as five miles!
A total of 1,224,000 litres of beer under pressure - weighing over 571 tons - smashed through the twenty-five foot high brick wall of the building, and gushed out into the surrounding area - the slum of St Giles. Many people lived in crowded conditions here, and some were caught by the waves of beer completely unaware. The torrent flooded through houses, demolishing two in its wake, and the nearby Tavistock Arms pub in Great Russell Street suffered too, its 14-year-old barmaid Eleanor Cooper buried under the rubble.
Fearful that all the beer should go to waste, though, hundreds of people ran outside carrying pots, pans,
and kettles to scoop it up - while some simply stooped low and lapped at the liquid washing through the streets. However, the tide was too strong for many and injured people began arriving at the nearby Middlesex Hospital. The beer tsunami left nine people dead. Many had drowned (like Mary Mulvey and her 3-year-old son Thomas), others were swept away in the flood and died of the injuries they sustained (two young children: Hannah Banfield, 4, and Sarah Bates, 3), and the final victim actually succumbed some days later of alcohol poisoning. The London Times described the event as “one of the most melancholy accidents we ever remember.”
The Examiner newspaper noted that "...The site of the place is low and flat, and there being no declivity to carry off the fluid in its fall, it spread and sank into the neighbouring cellars, all of which were inhabited..."
The Caledonian Mercury reports that most, if not all, of those who died were poor Irish immigrants to London, part of a mass of people living in the slums around St Giles’s Church, the infamous St Giles “rookeries” (later to be cleaned away by the building of New Oxford Street in 1847).
The brewery was eventually taken to court over the accident, but the disaster was ruled to be an Act of God by the judge and jury. The brewery was demolished in 1922, and today, the Dominion Theatre occupies a part of the site of the former brewery.
In 2012 a local tavern, the Holborn Whippet, started to mark this tragic event with a specially crafted porter - Beer Flood Porter - at 4.9% ABV and £3.70 a pint. It may not always be available since, like all good brewers, they find predictability boring and creativity lurking in the mash kettle of each new brew day.
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