Hence, with the exceptions already adverted to, brewing relapsed
into the primitive state in which we found it at the beginning
of its Colonial career, again becoming a domestic industry
wherever a lingering taste for malt beverages induced the people
to set up the discarded kettles, and to brew their own beer,
from time to time. In like manner, tavern keepers recommended
brewing in order to supply those of their customers who still
preserved a taste for beer; and the quantities thus brewed for
home consumption, in the narrowest sense of the term, may not
have been inconsiderable; but we have no way of determining,
even approximately, how large this production was. Such beers
were not, of course, of a very good quality; and this explains
the well authenticated fact that the few regular brewers who
still continued to brew were overrun with orders from the
tapsters. Of a certain Quaker brewer it is reported that, toward
the end of the eighteenth century, he used to hold receptions in
the old Rainbow Inn, in Beekman Street, New York, whither came
his customers, with hat in hand, to pay their respects and
solicit a supply of ale!
During the war, when commercial intercourse with England was
completely shut off, and the importation of merchandise from
other countries hampered by many dangers, domestic brewing
revived in a measure; but the unsettled state of affairs
prevented anything like a complete resuscitation of the trade.
>From all we can learn it appears that the increased activity in
this field of labor was confined to an effort to produce the
quantities of malt liquors which before the war had been
imported from England; but even this object was not, in all
probability, fully accomplished, because other more pressing
needs confronted the struggling people.
For a short time after the re-establishment of peace, the slight
impetus thus given to brewing derived an additional force from a
pretty general movement in favor of malt liquors, based alike
upon moral considerations and economic requirements. We refer to
the movement begun by Dr. Benjamin Rush and carried forward by a
strong organization for many years after its inauguration. It
was during this period that many small breweries were erected in
the towns along the Hudson in the State of New York, and in
Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, where the movement referred to
originated, at once became the greatest brewing city in America,
the brew houses there exceeding in number and the quantity of
manufactured beer, those of all the seaports of the United
States.
| State/Territory | Population |
Beer, Ale, and Porter in Barrels of 31-1/2 gallons) |
| Massachusetts | 700,745 | 22,400 |
| New York | 959,049 | 66,896 |
| New Jersey | 245,562 | 2,170 |
| Pennsylvania | 810,091 | 71,273 |
| Delaware | 72,674 | 476 |
| Maryland | 380,546 | 9,330 |
| Virginia | 979,622 | 4,251 |
| Ohio | 230,760 | 1,116 |
| Georgia | 252,433 | 1,878 |
| District of Columbia | 24,023 | 2,900 |
| Totals | 4,655,505 | 182,609 |
The per capita production of malt liquors in the States names
(the total amount produced being 5,754,737 gallons) amounted to
almost one and one fourth gallons, or, to be precise, to 4.98
quarts. This does not include what in the Digest is styled
ancient fermented liquors, made of honey---the old German meth,
here called metheglin and mead---of which considerable
quantities are said to have been produced and consumed by
private families. Surely, this is a gratifying development of a
new industry within so brief a period, and under difficulties of
which the present followers of the trade can scarcely form an
adequate idea. We quote the Digest:
"The difficulty and expense of procuring a supply of strong
bottles, and peculiar taste for lively or foaming beer, which
our summers do not favor, have been the principal causes of the
inconsiderable progress of the manufacture of malt liquors,
compared with distilled spirits. The absence, or the infrequency
of malting, as a separate trade, has also operated against
brewing in a small way and in families. The great facility of
making and preserving distilled spirits has occasioned them
exceedingly to interfere with the brewery. The liquor of
peaches, hitherto deemed incapable of use without distillation,
greatly prevents the use of beer in a very extensive region of
our country, where the peach tree grows with the freedom of a
weed, and where its fruit is of the best quality. Cider, which
is abundantly produced in another very extensive region, rivals
fermented malt liquors as a common drink, and as a material for
a customary concoction (the cider royal) and for distillation."
The want of bottles was pointed out during the discussions in
the first Congress, as an impediment to brewing; but the brewer
of the present day will scarcely appreciate the stress laid upon
this want, unless a full account could be given him of the
character of the malt liquors brewed in those days.
Unfortunately, no such account can be obtained; yet a conclusion
may be ventured from the statement that, until a Philadelphia
brewer of the name of Robert Hare, invented in 1809, a
peculiarly constructed cask and faucet, no method was known of
preserving beer, on tap, in partly filled vessels. What the word
"preserving" means in this connection will appear from the
following passage of the Digest:
"The want of a head, or top of foam, is now observable in the
tap beers of Europe, and it is presumable that this object of
fancy or taste will not, therefore, be in future deemed
indispensable in American tap houses and families. We have been
used to consider the want of this foam as an evidence of
badness."
That the use of the liquor of peaches prevented the introduction
of the brewing industry into the Southern States, is an
observation of as much force today as it was nearly a hundred
years ago; but later experiences have demonstrated the fact,
that the influence of climatic conditions, coupled with the high
price of ice, is quite as unfavorable to the industry as the
abundance of fruit and the tastes of the people. In addition to
a scarcity of bottles, there was also a want of cork and wire
for bottling purposes. Establishments for manufacturing these
three articles were just beginning to grow into some importance,
and, of course, demanded protection, which was granted, at least
to one of them. By the Act of March 27, 1804, quart bottles,
which, in order to foster the brewing industry, had therefore
been exempt from the duty upon glassware, were taxed sixty cents
per gross; yet the home supply remained behind the demand.
All these impediments, however, would not so materially have
retarded the progress of brewing, if laws tending to restrict
country distilling could have been maintained; and, from the
standpoint of true temperance, nothing could have appeared so
desirable as a judicious restraint upon what might be styled
rural distillation. All authorities concur in the
opinion---confirmed by the voluminous report of the Statistical
Bureau of Switzerland---that in Sweden unrestricted distillation
in the rural districts rendered intemperance a national vice of
consequences all the more pernicious as, owing to the
unavoidable deficiencies of a primitive mode of distillation,
the spirituous liquors produced were of an extremely ardent
nature. But it was precisely in respect to country distilling
that our first restrictive laws were only partially successful.
Those persons who distilled for the trade cheerfully obeyed the
laws from the very beginning; and had they not elected to do so,
little difficulty could have been experienced in controlling and
coercing them. It was not the trade distiller, if this term may
be allowed, but the distilling farmer from whom the opposition
to excises emanated, and with him, the question resolved itself
into one of personal rights, on the one hand, and of a
limitation of the taxing power of the Federal Government on the
other.
Insufficient, both as to time and mode, as had been the test to
which the excise system was subjected, it was nevertheless,
proved beyond question that, coupled with a sufficiently high
import duty, it could have fully realized the ethical objects of
its framers, if the Government had been able to execute it
rigorously, and the people had been willing to live up to it.
At the end of the first decade of the last century rural
distilling recommenced with renewed vigor in all grain producing
states. From this time onward the brewing industry developed
somewhat more rapidly in Pennsylvania and New York on account of
the great influx of immigrants from beer countries; while in the
other States it either remained stationary or progressed very
slowly, constantly struggling against great difficulties and
impediments. The extent of the progress of brewing within forty
years, i.e., from 1810 to 1850, is clearly stated in these
figures:
- 1810: 129 breweries producing 5,754,737 gallons of beer
- 1850: 431 breweries producing 23,267,730 gallons of beer
- 1850: Production of beer in Penn. and N.Y. 18,825,096 gallons
of beer
- 1850: Production in all other states 4,442,634 gallons of beer
During all this time, and up to 1842, or thereabout, the beers
produced in this country were of the kind known as ale and
porter, and some of these had acquired a reputation for
palatableness and strength which rendered them formidable
competitors of English ales in foreign markets.
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