Author: Your Friendly Barman

Barman’s Notes:

The following recently came to my attention while cleaning out the attic.  To put its timing into perspective, when the following speech was delivered, Kansas had just become the first state to include prohibition in its state constitution, and the Volstead Act would be passed a mere 29 years later.

Speech delivered by the Honorable Gebhard Willrich, Member of the House of Representatives of the State of Minnesota, before the U.S. Brewers’ Convention, held in St. Paul, Minn., May 31, 1888.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the U.S. Brewers Association:

The history of beer is coeval with the history of the human race,

The true greatness and wonderful influence of this drink, never revealed themselves to me, until I dived down into the shadowy vaults of pre-historic ages, and there beheld its birth in the cauldrons of gray antiquity.  Through the rolling centuries, I saw it grow dear and dearer to the heart of nations, surviving their ruin and destruction and treasured as a gift  from the gods, perfected by human ingenuity, until it became a blessing to all nations, a sustenance and solace to the weary world.

On the recorded pages of Egyptian history, we find it said that Osiris, the great Egyptian Deity, son of Saturn and Rhea, and husband of Isis, he who was the personation of all physical and moral good, and was worshipped by Egypt, Greece, Asia Minor, and Rome, first taught his Egyptian children how to make beer from barley; Egypt in her turn taught Greece, Greece taught Rome and Rome taught all the world.

We are told by Archylochos, that the ancient tribes of Africa and Spain knew how to brew a drink from barley as early as seven hundred years before the Christian era, and Virgil sings of the barley drink which northern nations drank like wine; Xenophon, the celebrated Greek General and historian, tells us in his Anabasis, that the Armenians brewed a strong barley drink, that they drank it out of mugs filled to the brim with barley kernels, by means of little straws.

When Priscus traveled with an ambassy from Greece through Panonia to the great King of Huns, Attila, there too he found a beverage made from barley, called “Kamun.”

Beer was the people’s drink during the first century of the Christian era in France, Belgium and England, and the Teutonic tribes, brewed a beer so excellent that it was highly spoken of by Caesar, Tacitus and Diodor.  Soon beer became so Teutonized all over the then known world that it was known by no other name than by its Saxon name of “Bior”; but beer in those days and beer in these days were two quite different things, for beer then was without hops; since hops first entered into beer, during the migratory period of nations, from the east, and for the first time in an old document of Pepin, seven hundred and sixty eight years after Christ, do we hear of the cultivation of hops, and hop gardens.  Thousands of years have elapsed since Osiris, the God of ancient Egypt, and taught man how to make beer; Christianity overthrew Osiris, but it preserved his beer, it knew a good thing when it saw it.

Christianity in those days was well aware of the fact, too often forgotten by well meaning Christian fanatics of the present day. that men are but men and not angels, that man must and will have stimulants. therefore it fostered beer, for beer was then, as it is to-day, the friend of peace and temperance, the enemy of riot and of war.

What wonder, therefore, that the church sanctioned the efforts of the holy monks, during their leisure hours to improve this honest drink. Thus it came to pass, that the first really good beer was brewed by the monks, and the “Clöster Braü”, soon gained a great celebrity. Once more was the gift of Osiris given to the world by holy hands, and stamped with holy approbation, soon spread to the remotest corners of the earth; such was the growth of breweries and brewers, that guilds were  formed by brewers and soon they called a convention.

History does not record what various kinds of business they transacted, but safely we may assume, that they did not struggle then with questions of high license and prohibition, but they are said to have elected King Gambrinus their Patron Saint, and longer and more triumphantly has he reigned than any other King or Saint, his subjects have grown strong and many; his scepter sways the world.

What can we say about the influence and mission of the golden drink? It is a curious coincidence. that in those ancient nations, where beer was once the national drink, it is no longer such to-day, nor even known any longer by some of them; but not the golden drink alone, it is, that left them; their glory has departed with it. There is an old proverb to this effect:  “Tell me who is your friend and I’ll tell who you are.”   I will change this to say, “Tell me what you drink and I will tell you what you will be, The man who drinks only the golden beer will ne’er a drunkard be.”  But strong, robust and manly, sound in body and in mind, as with the individual, so with the nation.

Says Hamilton in his “Intellectual Life,” “In that dear, golden drink which England has brewed for more than a thousand Octobers, and will brew for a thousand more, we may find perhaps some explanation of that absence of irritability which is the safeguard of the national character, which makes it faithful in its affections, easy to govern, not easy to excite to violence.”

Let us cross the channel and look at the nations there. What’s Spain to-day ? Where beer once was the beverage best beloved, bur now is such no more; where is the ancient glory of Egypt, Greece and Rome? Now gaze upon little Belgium, which, since the dawn of history has worshipped this same; clear, golden drink of beer, and you behold a marvel of a nation, small in extent, wedged in between great powers, yet unconquered. mistress of many colonies, a factor in the politics of Europe. Cross over Its frontier and you will find yourself on German soil.

What is Germany? The greatest nation on the continent of Europe. What is her national beverage? Beer. Which nation more inclined to peace, yet more terrible in war? Her sons industrious. temperate, strong in mind and body, first in literature and science. Germany has loved her beer since the dawn of history, still claims it as her national beverage. Beer may not be the cause, and greatness the effect, but this we certainly can claim, that beer always was and still remains the national drink of nations that: are great.

Where the consumption of beer and wine increases at the expense of stronger liquors, there we may confidently seek for prosperity, and true temperance and ‘happiness. If this were otherwise, how could the great reformer Luther say, “He who loves not wine, woman and song, remains a fool his life long.” And when he said wine, he meant beer as well; for we know that he so loved his Erfürt beer that many a mile he traveled to enjoy its cheer.

Thus I have shown how important is the great question of drink to the individual and to the nation. Bread, wine and beer, are almost pure gifts of nature, but gin and absinthe are poisonous, madness poured out from. a bottle. Kant, Goethe and Luther loved the pure Rhine wine, Bismarck loves his mug of beer ; their bodies sound, their minds how wondrous clear, to the utmost span of life.

It was not wine or beer that ruined Burns or Byron.

Says Hamilton: “That honest northern drink deserves our friendliest recognition; it has quite a peculiar effect upon the nervous system. giving rest and calm, which no other drink can procure. In it there is safety.”

It is said that beer drinkers are slow and a little stupid; that they have an ox-like placidity not quite favorable to brilliant,  intellectual display;  but there are times when this placidity is what the laboring brain most needs; after the agitation of too much thinking, there is safety in a tankard of beer. Beer drinkers may be a little heavy, but in their heaviness there is peace.

If there is one thing more than another needed by Americans of to-day, it is a mild, yet strengthening, national beverage.

Abandon whiskey, gin and mixtures worse than either and drink beer, wine or ale, and you will have done more for the cause of true, practical temperance than a thousand prohibition prayers.

It is a well known fact that the fathers of the American republic were not temperance or prohibition fanatics, and it is just as well known that their posterity of the present generation are the worst foes of the brewer. In view of this fact, it will be of great interest to the public to learn what people thought of beer one hundred years ago In the oldest Yankee state.  In the year 1789, the state legislature of Massachusetts passed-the following resolution: “In as much as the manufacture of strong beer, ale and other malt drinks promotes the purposes of agriculture, trade and commerce, since they promote the cultivation of such grains as are adapted to our soil and climate; and since they hereby at. the same time produce a valuable article of export; and because malt liquors, on account of their wholesome qualities, strongly recommend themselves for general use; since they form important means for the preservation of the health of the citizens of this state and protect and guard against the harmful effects of stronger liquors ; therefore, be it resolved, that all breweries who make yearly more than one hundred barrels of beer shall be free from taxes and duties for five years.”

This resolution, which became a law, is a brilliant proof of the sensible views of the citizens of this country, one hundred years ago, and of the folly of the temperance fanatics of the present time, of whom the majority point with pride to their descent from those great men of the last century. While the legislature of that time granted the brewers great privileges. and recognized their product as a great tonic, the brewers of to-day are looked upon by a great number of American people as the worst foes of mankind, and beer is declared to be a dangerous poison. A hundred years ago beer, which is to-day sent to all parts of the world, was highly prized as a valuable article of export, while to-day, when it is produced in a thousand times greater quantity, and pays to the government millions of dollars taxes, and gives employment to hundreds of thousands of citizens, it is to be suppressed without the existence of reasonable ground therefore.

A hundred years ago in Massachusetts, a premium in the form of freedom from taxation was offered for the manufacture of over one hundred barrels a year, and to-day, the brewers and sellers are not only heavily taxed because they produce and sell beer, but they are to be entirely suppressed and the right taken from them to manufacture beer at all. This is such a great contrast between then and now that every sensible man must see how foolish the views of the present temperance fanatics are compared with the views of their forefathers.

But reaction against this wave of prohibition already has set in. Sensible laws are being enacted to regulate the liquor traffic in the various states. Americans are learning how to drink without becoming drunk. And I hope to see the day when American legislators will appreciate the sensible and sound wisdom of their forefathers of Massachusetts just a century ago.

Let the new century usher in a new era of national temperance reform. The brewers have a mission to perform. Let every brewer mix conscience with the beer he brews. and brew it pure and free from harmful ingredients, and he may justly feel that he too has been a benefactor of mankind, a friend of poor and rich, a promoter of true temperance, and thus feel as proud of his art as did that old brewer, who, in the year 1573. wrote, “On the divine, noble gift, the philosophical, highly, dear, and wondrous art of brewing beer.”