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BREWING

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 507 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BREWING , in the See also:

modern acceptation of the See also:term, a See also:series of operations the See also:object of which is to prepare an alcoholic beverage of a certain See also:kind-to wit, beer—mainly from cereals (chiefly malted See also:barley), hops and See also:water. Although the See also:art of preparing See also:beer (q.v.) or See also:ale is a very See also:ancient one, there is very little See also:information in the literature of the subject as to the apparatus and methods employed in See also:early times. It seems fairly certain, however, that up to the 18th See also:century these were of the most See also:primitive kind. With regard to materials, we know that See also:prior to the See also:general introduction of the See also:hop (see ALE) as a preservative and astringent, a number of other See also:bitter and aromatic See also:plants had been employed with this end in view. Thus J. L. See also:Baker (The Brewing See also:Industry) points out that the See also:Cimbri used the Tamarix germanica, the Scandinavians the See also:fruit of the sweet See also:gale (Myrica gale), the Cauchi the fruit and the twigs of the chaste See also:tree ( Vitex agrius See also:cactus), and the Icelanders the See also:yarrow (Achilloea millefolium). The preparation of beer on anything approaching to a manufacturing See also:scale appears, until about the 12th or 13th century, to have been carried on. in See also:England chiefly in the monasteries; but as the brewers of See also:London combined to See also:form an association in the reign of See also:Henry IV., and were granted a See also:charter in 1445, it is evident that brewing as a See also:special See also:trade or industry must have See also:developed with some rapidity. After the See also:Reformation the ranks of the trade brewers were swelled by See also:numbers of monks from the expropriated monasteries. Until the 18th century the professional brewers, or brewers for See also:sale, as they are now called, brewed chiefly for the masses, the wealthier classes pre-paring their own beer, but it then became gradually apparent to the latter (owing no doubt to improved methods of brewing, and for others reasons) that it was more economical and less troublesome to have their beer brewed for them at a See also:regular brewery. The usual See also:charge was 305. per See also:barrel for bitter ale, and 8s. or so for small beer. This tendency to centralize brewing operations became more and more marked with each succeeding See also:decade.

Thus during 1895–1905 the number of private brewers declined from 17,041 to 9930. Of the private brewers still existing, about four-fifths were in the class exempted from beer See also:

duty, i.e. farmers occupying houses not exceeding £10 See also:annual value who brew for their labourers, and other persons occupying houses not exceeding £15 annual value. The private houses subject to both beer and See also:licence duty produced less than 20,000 barrels annually. There are no See also:official figures as to the number of " cottage brewers," that is, occupiers of dwellings not exceeding £8 annual value; but taking everything into See also:consideration it is probable that more than 99 % of the beer produced in the See also:United See also:Kingdom is brewed by public brewers (brewers for sale). The disappearance of the smaller public brewers or their absorption by the larger concerns has gone See also:hand-in-hand with the See also:gradual extinction of the private See also:brewer. In the See also:year 1894–1895 8863 licences were issued to brewers for sale, and by 1904–1905 this number had been reduced to 5164. There are numerous reasons for these changes in the constitution of the brewing industry, See also:chief among them being (a) the increasing, difficulty, owing partly to lincensing legislation and its See also:administration, and partly to the competition of the See also:great breweries, of obtaining an adequate outlet for See also:retail sale in the shape of licensed houses; and (b) the fact that brewing has continuously become a more scientific and specialized industry, requiring costly and complicated plant and See also:expert manipulation. It is only by employing the most up-to-date machinery and expert knowledge that the modern brewer can See also:hope to produce See also:good beer in the See also:short See also:time which competition and high See also:taxation, &c., have forced upon him. Under these conditions the small brewer tends to extinction, and the public are ultimately the gainers. The relatively non-alcoholic, lightly hopped and See also:bright modern beers, which the small brewer has not the means of producing, are a great advance on the muddy, highly hopped and alcoholized beverages to which our ancestors were accustomed. The brewing trade has reached vast proportions in the United Kingdom. The maximum See also:production was 37,090,986 barrels in 1900, and while there has been a steady decline since thatyear, the figures for 1905–1906—34,109,263 barrels—were in excess of those for any year preceding 1897.

It is interesting in this connexion to See also:

note that the writer of the See also:article on Brewing in the 9th edition of the See also:Encyclopaedia Britannica was of the See also:opinion that the brewing industry—which was then (1875) producing, roughly, 25,000,000 barrels—had attained its maxi-mum development. In the year ending 3oth See also:September 1905 the beer duty received by the See also:exchequer amounted to £13,156,053. The number of brewers for sale was 5180. Of these one See also:firm, namely,'Messrs See also:Guinness, owning the largest brewery in the See also:world, brewed upwards of two million barrels, paying a sum of, roughly, one million See also:sterling to the See also:revenue. Three other firms brewed See also:close on a million barrels or upwards. The quantity of See also:malt used was 51,818,697 bushels; of unmalted See also:corn, 125,671 bushels; of See also:rice, flaked See also:maize and similar materials, 1,348,558 cwt.; of See also:sugar, 2,746,615 cwt.; of hops, 62,360,817 lb; and of hop substitutes, 49,202 lb. The See also:average specific gravity of the beer produced in 1905–1906 was 1053'24. The quantity of beer exported was 520,826; of beer imported, 57,194 barrels. It is curious to note that the figures for exports and imports had remained almost stationary for the last See also:thirty years. By far the greater See also:part of the beer brewed is consumed in England. Thus of the See also:total quantity retained for See also:consumption in 1905–1906, 28,590,563 barrels were consumed in England, 1,648,463 in See also:Scotland, and 3,265,084 in See also:Ireland. In 1871 it was calculated by See also:Professor Leone See also:Levi that the See also:capital invested in the liquor trade in the United Kingdom was £117,000,000.

In 1908 this figure might be safely doubled. A writer in the Brewers' Almanack for 1906 placed the capital invested in limited liability breweries alone at £185,000,000. If we allow for over-capitalization, it seems fairly safe to say that, prior to the introduction of the Licensing See also:

Bill of 1908, the See also:market value of the breweries in the United Kingdom, together with their licensed See also:property, was in the neighbourhood of £120,000,000, to which might be added another £20,000,000 for the value of licences not included in the above calculation; the total capital actually sunk in the whole liquor trade (including the See also:wine and spirit See also:industries and trades) being probably not far short of £250,000,000, and the number of persons directly engaged in or dependent on the liquor trade being under-estimated at 2,000,000. (For See also:comparative production and consumption see BEER.) Taxation and Regulations.—The development of the brewing industry in England is intimately interwoven with the See also:history of its taxation, and the regulations which have from time to time been formed for the safeguarding of the revenue. The first duty on beer in the United Kingdom was imposed in the reign of See also:Charles II. (1660), namely 25. 6d. per barrel on strong and 6d. per barrel on weak beer. This was gradually increased, amounting to 4s. 9d. on strong and Is. 3d. on weak beer in the last decade of the 17th century, and to 8s. to 1os. in the year 1800, at which See also:rate it continued until the See also:repeal of the beer duty in 1830. A duty on malt was first imposed in the reign of See also:William III. (1697), and from that date until 183o both beer duty and malt tax were charged.

Phoenix-squares

The rate at first was under 7d. per See also:

bushel, but this was increased up to 2s. 7d. prior to the first repeal of the beer duty (1830), and to 4s. 6d. after the repeal. In 1829 the See also:joint beer and malt taxes amounted to no less than 13s. 8d. per barrel, or 41d. per See also:gallon, as against 2+d. at the See also:present See also:day. From 1856 until the abolition of the malt tax, the latter remained See also:constant at a fraction under 2s. 81d. A hop duty varying from id. to 21d. per See also:pound was in existence between 1711 and 1862. One of the See also:main reasons for the abolition of the hop duty was the fact that, owing to the uncertainty of the See also:crop, the amount paid to the revenue was subject to wide fluctuations. Thus in 1855 the revenue from this source amounted to £728,183, in 1861 to only £149,700. It was not until 1847 that the use of sugar in brewing was permitted, and in 185o the first sugar tax, amounting to Is. 4d. per cwt., was imposed.

It varied from this figure up to 6s. 6d. in 1854, and in 1874, when the general duty on sugar was repealed, it was raised to i Is. 6d., at which rate it remained until 1880, when it was repealed simultaneously with the malt duty. In 1901 a general sugar tax of 4s. 2d. and under (according to the percentage of actual sugar contained) was imposed, but no See also:

drawback was allowed to brewers using sugar, and therefore—and this obtains at the present day—sugar used in brewing pays the general tax and also the beer duty. By the See also:Free Mash-See also:Tun See also:Act of 1880, the duty was taken off the malt and placed on the beer, or, more properly speaking, on the wort; maltsters' and brewers' licences were repealed, and in lieu thereof an annual licence duty of £t payable by every brewer for sale was imposed. The chief feature of this act was that, on and after the 1st of See also:October 1880, a beer duty was imposed in lieu of the old malt tax, at the rate of 6s. 3d. per barrel of 36 gallons, at a specific gravity of 1.057, and the regulations for charging the duty were so framed as to leave the brewer practically unrestricted as to the description of malt or corn and sugar, or other description of saccharine substitutes (other than deleterious articles or drugs), which he might use in the manufacture or colouring of beer. This freedom in the choice of materials has continued down to the present time, except that the use of " See also:saccharin " (a product derived from See also:coal-See also:tar) was prohibited in 1888, the See also:reason being that this substance gives an apparent See also:palate-fulness to beer equal to roughly 4° in excess of its real gravity, the revenue suffering thereby. In 1889 the duty on beer was increased by a reduction in the See also:standard of gravity from 1.057 to 1.055, and in 1894 a further 6d. per barrel was added. The duty thus became 6s. 9d. per barrel, at a gravity of 1.055, which was further increased to 7s.

9d. per barrel by the See also:

war See also:budget of 1900, at which figure it stood in 1909. (Sec also LIQLOR See also:LAws.) Prior to 1896, rice, flaked maize (see below), and other similar preparations had been classed as malt or corn in reference to their wort-producing See also:powers, but after that date they were deemed sugar 1 in that regard. By the new act (1880) 42 lb See also:weight of corn, or 28 lb weight of sugar, were to be deemed the See also:equivalent of a bushel of malt, and a brewer was expected by one of the modes of charge to have brewed at least a barrel (36 gallons) of worts (less 4% allowed for wastage) at the standard gravity for every two bushels of malt (or its equivalents) used by him in brewing; but where, owing to lack of skill or inferior machinery, a brewer cannot obtain the standard quantity of wort from the standard equivalent of material, the charge is made not on the wort, but directly on the material. By the new act, licences at the annual duty of £1 on brewers for sale, and of 6s. (subsequently modified by 44 Vict. C. 12, and 48 and 49 Viet. C. 5, &c., to 4s.) or 9s., as the See also:case might be, on any other brewers, were required. The regulations dealing with the mashing operations are very stringent. Twenty-four See also:hours at least before mashing the brewer must enter in his brewing See also:book (provided by the Inland Revenue) the day and See also:hour for commencing to mash malt, corn, &c., or to dissolve sugar; and the date of making such entry; and also, two hours at least before the See also:notice hour for mashing, the quantity of malt, corn, &c., and sugar to be used, and the day and hour when all the worts will be See also:drawn off the grains in the mash-tun. The worts of each brewing much be collected within twelve hours of the commencement of the collection, and the brewer must within a given time enter in his book the quantity and gravity of the worts before See also:fermentation, the number and name of the See also:vessel, and the date of the entry.

The worts must remain in the same vessel undisturbed for twelve hours after being collected, unless previously taken See also:

account of by the officer. There are other regulations, e.g. those prohibiting the mixing of worts of different brewings unless account has been taken of each separately, the alteration of the See also:size or shape of any gauged vessel without notice, and so on. Taxation of Beer in See also:Foreign Countries.-The following table shows the nature of the tax and the amount of the same calculated to See also:English barrels.

End of Article: BREWING

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