Beer Essay Research Paper BeerHistorically hops yeast — страница 2

Christianity the Jews carried on the art of brewing and often introduced it to many other cultures. The classical Greeks and Romans learned the art of brewing from the Egyptians. The word beer comes from the Latin “bibere” meaning simply “to drink.” The Latin word for beer is “cerevisia,” a composite of “Ceres,” the goddess of agriculture, and “vis,” Latin for “strength.” Beer was carried by many barbarian tribes in Western and Northern Europe, and by the nineteenth century, hops was cultivated for brewing purposes in France and Germany. Even though hops give beer is refreshing properties it was neglected by many countries for centuries. Instead beers were flavored with woodruff, juniper, or grenadine, and can still be found in some European beers today.

In the Renaissance period brewing was mostly done by kings and monks. Home brew was the drink of mostly lower classes. It wasn’t uncommon for children to drink beer on a daily basis. The fermentation process was very useful to destroy many malignant microorganisms in the distinctly undrinkable waters of most villages (7). As the reformation came around, the church spent more time on religious matters than on brewing. At this time commercial brewers started to pick up the slack and were licensed under kings, queens, dukes, and earls. During this time queen Elizabeth I had a brew so strong that none of her servants could handle it, even though they received two gallons per day. The New World exploration began and Elizabeth oversaw that no ship left port without a large cargo of

beer. Beer provided a clean supply of water, some food value, and a good protection against scurvy, the lack of Vitamin C. Another extraordinary example of beer’s influence on history is the case of the Pilgrims. They had first proposed to sail to Virginia but were forced to land at Cape Cod instead because they were running low on beer. When the Pilgrims arrived they saw the the Indians too had discovered their own beer made of maize, rather than barley. The Indians had learned the art of brewing from their Aztec and Mayan neighbors. Beer was being brewed by Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam as early as 1612. Harvard College ran a brewhouse on campus in 1674, and the Harvard’s first president was ousted because he failed to supply enough beer and food rations (5). Beer was

valued so high in the Colonial economy that Harvard students were allowed to pay school tuition in wheat and malted barley. Students were rationed two pints of beer a day until the end of the 1700s when they stopped brewing. Many of the Statesmen had a love for beer. William Penn had a malt house and a brewery on his estate in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Samuel Adams had the same set-up in Massachusetts. Benjamin Franklin kept very accurate records of his household expenses which allowed orders of twenty gallons of beer per month. George Washington developed his own recipes for the beer and made thirty gallons of beer at a time. Thomas Jefferson built his own brewery at Monticello in 1813 and maintained it until his death in 1826. His beer was considered by many to be some of the

best in the young country. In the 1800s a boom of breweries swept across the nation. In 1810 there were 132 breweries in the United States. By 1850 there were 431 breweries, and by 1860 there were 1,269 breweries. New York and Pennsylvania dominated the industry, brewing eighty-five percent of the country’s beer. During the mid-1800s, millions of immigrants were pouring into the United States from Europe. Many of these new Americans bringing along their art and science of brewing lager beer. Lager is made with a different kind of yeast than ale. They ferment at the bottom of the barrel and have a drier, cleaner finish than ales. Lagers provide a clearer brew that is less prone to sour in the days before refrigerators. But lagers needed to be stored for weeks, or even months, in

cold caves where low temperatures helped mature the beer. The mid-nineteenth century brought the discovery of the refrigerator, allowing lagers to be made virtually everywhere. Louis Pasteur’s studies of yeast cultures and fermentation help brewers brew lagers on more of a scientific level in the united States. He discovered the efficiency of heating liquids after they were packed in a bottle in order to prevent microbial contamination (5). The process, called pasteurization, was discovered by Louis because he was trying to preserve beer- not, as most believe, milk. The lager-brewing breakthrough, coupled with a new wave of German immigration, produced a golden age of brewing in America. Between 1870 and 1919 American brewers rivaled their European counterparts in both quality