Beer

[A. S. bear, bere, barley: Ger. bier; Fr. bière. See ALE.] A fermented liquor which has not undergone the proce of distillation, prepared from any of the cereals, as wheat, beans, peas, ., but chiefly from barley flavored with hops and other bitter ingredients. The constituents of all the varieties of the B., ale, porter, ., are the same, differing only in the quantity of water, or in color, from the malt being more or le charred in the kiln-drying.-Nearly all seeds contain a large quantity of starch; and when they begin to germinate, a peculiar nitrogenous substance, called diastase, is formed. This product, acting as a ferment, converts the starch into sugar. This proce is called malting, and the subsequent partial conversion of the sugar into alcohol is called brewing. The two proce es are intimately connected together. In malting, the barley is first placed in a large tank or trough, and water is then run in, until there is sufficient to cover the grain. The barley then absorbs the water, and swells up; the amount of water absorbed showing the excellence of the barley. After remaining in the trough for about forty hours, the water is drained off, and the grain is thrown out on the floor. It lies in a heap, or couch, as it is called, for twenty-six hours. During this time more of the super flu ons water drains away, and the grain rises about ten degrees in temperature. This is caused by the incipient germination of the barley. A primitive stem and little rootlets begin to appear. This proce is technically called sweating; and as soon as the temperature rises high enough, the partial germination is stopped by a proce called flooring. The warm grain is spread along the floor to a depth of 15 inches, and is repeatedly turned and re-turned with spades over a larger space, until the layer is only six inches deep. After undergoing this proce , in which the radicles attain their greatest length, the grain is removed to a drying-kiln, and submitted to various degrees of heat, according to the quality of malt required. During the heating, the corn ings, or shoots, drop off; they are afterwards separated from the grain by wire sieves. (See MALT.) The different varieties of malt, known under the names of pale, amber, and brown, can be produced from the same kind of barley by varying the heat of the drying-kiln. Pale malt is produced at the proper temperature; amber malt is slightly scorched; and brown malt is scorched to the full extent that the kiln will permit. Pale, amber, or brown malt is selected according as the beer is to be pale ale, brown ale, or porter. Before 1730 the ordinary malt liquors in London were ale, beer, and twopenny. It was a common custom to call for a tankard of three threads,- meaning an equal mixture of three kinds of malt liquor. This was very troublesome to the publican; and a brewer named Harwood invented a beverage which united the flavors of beer, ale, and twopenny. It was called entire, or the entire butt; and as it was a healthy, nourishing liquor, very suitable for porters and working-men, it received the name of porter. In brewing, the malt undergoes six proce es: 1. the grinding; 2. the mashing, or infusing with hot water; 3. the boiling of the worts with hops; 4. the cooling; 5. the fermenting; 6. the clearing, storing, . In the first proce the dried malt is ground into a coarse powder. When ground into fine powder, it is liable to coagulate into heaps, while undergoing the second operation, namely, the mashing with hot water. This is conducted in a large receiver, called a mash-tun, made with wooden staves and hoops. Water previously heated to 160° Fabr. in a copper, is run into this mash-tun, and the crushed malt is shaken into it until there is sufficient to absorb the whole of the water, when thoroughly stirred up. either with long poles or with stirrers worked by machinery. Diastase, which was slightly formed during the proce of fermentation, is at this period of the proce again developed, and the starch contained in the grain is rapidly converted into grape sugar. As the temperature of the water falls to 140° Fahr., a fresh supply of water, at 190° Fahr., is added to the mixture; after remaining from two to three hours on the malt, the water, which a umes a very sweet taste, is run off into a ve el called an under back. This running is termed the first mash, and the tun is filled up with a fresh supply of hot water, called the second mash; these two mashes are afterwards run together. The mixed fluids in the under back are called the sweet worts. In order to brew a definite quality of beer, it is nece ary that the brewer should prepare his worts in a regular manner. The quantity of saccharine matter present is ascertained by means of an instrument called a saccha rometer, similar in principle to the hydrometer. (See SACCHAROMETER.) When the sweet worts are reduced to the proper strength, they are pumped up from the under back into a covered boiler, when they are boiled for some time, together with a certain quantity of hops. When the boiling is complete, the hops are drained off, and the boiled wort is set to cool in large shallow pans or vats, and is then ready for fermentation. For this purpose, the wort is run into fermenting-vats, a certain quantity of yeast being added. When fermentation has proceeded sufficiently far, it is stopped by skimming off the surface froth, until the beer stops working. The beer is now run into vats, or casked into casks, and nothing remains to complete the operation but the fining proce , which is effected by adding to the beer a solution of isingla di olved in acid beer. There is hardly a substance sold which is more frequently adulterated than beer. Large quantities of qua ia are annually imported for no other purpose than to replace hops in the manufacture of bitter ale. Adulteration of beer has of late become so systematized, that there are men who make a regular trade of beer-doctoring. Among the hundreds of ingredients used for this purpose may be reckoned qua ia, gentian, and wormwood, to give bitterne ; ginger, orange-peel, and caraway, to impart pungency; alum and blue vitriol, to enable the beer to preserve a frothy head; cocculus indicus, nux vomica, and tobacco, to intoxicate; and salt, to promote thirst. The natives of Aby in i a, and many tribes of Africa, brew beer from millet-seed, and also from the seeds of the Poa aby inica. Millet-seed is also used as a source of brewing beer, by the inhabitants of the lower Himalaya, the Crim Tartars, and the natives of Sikkim. Long before the landing of the Spanish in South America, the Indians brewed maize-beer, or chica ; it is still made by them, and has a bright yellow color, and an agreeable acid taste. The production of beer in the U. S. has reached 39,000,000 hectrolitres a year, as against over 6,000,000 in Canada, Central and South America, and Mexico. The number of breweries throughout the world in the year 1895 was estimated by the Viennese Gambrinus at 42,988, and their output at 214,269,958 hectolitres (or 5,659,726,670 gallons). Beer, [Heb., "a well."] ( Script .) A station of the Hebrews in Moab, where God gave them water. Beerbhoom, or BIRB'OOM, ( Virabhumi , the "land of heroes.") A dist. of Hindostan, British presidency of Bengal, lying chiefly between Lat. 23° 25′ and 24° 25' N., and Lon. 86° and 88° E.: having N. the dist. of Bhaugulpoor, E. Moor shed a bad and Nuddea; S. Burdwan and the Jungle Mehals; and W. Ramgur. Area , 3,870 sq. m. It is hilly, covered with jungle, and but thinly inhabited. Prod. Coal, iron, rice, sugar, and silk. Prin . towns. Soory, Nagore, Serampoor. Pop . abt. 1,000,000. Beer Creek, in Ind . , Jay co., flows into the Wabash. Beer'-house, n. A house or tavern where beer is sold. Bee Ridge, in Mi ouri , a village of Knox co. Beers, in Pennsylvania , a village in Alleghany co. Beersheba, (beer-she'ba,) (Heb., the "Well of the Oath." (Anc. Geog.) A city at the S. extremity of the Holy Land, 28 m. S.W. of Hebron. Few places have been noticed in history during so many centuries as Beer-sheba. Abraham called that place Beer-sheba, because there they sware both of them, when he made a covenant with Abimelech. And Abraham planted a grove in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. ( Gen. xxi. 14, 31.) About B. c. 1804, Abimelech went to Isaac from Gerar, and they sware one to another; and it came to pa the same day, that Isaac's servants came and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, we have found water. And he called it Sheba; therefore the name of the city is Beer-sheba unto this day. ( Gen. xxvi. 23, 33.) The town that afterwards rose here was first a igned to Judah, and then to Simeon. Here Samuel (Med.) Wax is a principal ingredient in many pharmaceutical preparations, entering into nearly all the kinds of ointments and plasters, and some few of the cerates, in the Pharma copœia. Its active principle is attributed to the white, crystalline substance called cerine. There are two kinds of B.-W. in the shops, the natural yellow cera flava , and the white cera alba . The latter is obtained by bleaching the former.