South Bend News-Times, Volume 32, Number 33, South Bend, St. Joseph County, 2 February 1915 — Page 3

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THE SOUTH BEND NEWS-TIMES tu'siiav. rr.rmr.itv 2. 101.. 10)ROF. CHAB CK CHANDLER, America's most noted chemist, of Columbia University (the argest in the world), says: " eer is a wholesome, nutritions article of food. It is appetizing o and aids digestion." The famous chemist compares beer with bread which is brain food. Beer does not make drunkards. eer is food and contains lacithin,

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HAT is beer? It may be said in a few words beer is a beverage pre pared from malted barley, rarely from malted wheat. Rice or corn or their products are often used in addition to barley. The art of brewing is one of the oldest arts of which we have any knowledge, and brewers consequently represent one of the oldest guilds. Brewing was known and practiced by the Egyptians perhaps 1,000 years before the beginning of the Christian era. It was pr icticed by the Greeks, Romans and ancient Gauls. Herodotus 450 B. G, tells us how Egyptians made wine from grain. Pliny repeats the same statement and many others of those early writers refer to it. Tacitus states in the first century A. D. that it was the usual beverage among the Germans, and further the art of malting and brewing was probably introduced into Great Britain by the Romans.' Even the Kaffirs, a race in Africa, make beer from millet seed. As early as the year 1585 there were twenty-six breweries in LonCharles Frederick Chandler, professor of chemistry in Columbia university of New York, was born in 1836 in Lancaster, Mass., studied at Harvard, Goettingen and Berlin and has been connected with Columbia university, since 1864. He is the founder of the School of Mines, has been repeatedly president of the board of health of New York city and is a recognized improver of hygienic conditions and the father of modern pure food legislation. He is a life member of the chemical societies of London, Berlin, Paris and New York, don with an output of 650,000 barrels per annum. It is interesting to note that New York city produces ten times that quantity, and the entire United States produces 100 times that quantity. The term ale was used in England before the introduction of hops and probably came from the Scandinavians. Hops First Used in Germany. The use of hops was derived from Germany, and the name beer from Germany was first applied to malt liquor containing hops. It is interesting to note that when the use of hops was lir&t introduced to England in 1649 the English petitioned the king against ihe use of hops, saying this wicked weed would spoil the drink and endanger the lives of the people. At the same time they also petitioned the king against the use of coal for fuel in the city of London because of the smoke which it produced and which ir was claimed polluted the air. Ti:e manufacture of beer involves two separate and distinct operations: First, malting, and then brewing. The object of malting is to so change the chemical composition of Uie contents of the barley grain as to render

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By Professor CHARLES F. CHANDLER of Columbia University

them soluble in water, so as to produce a liquid which can afterward be subjected to fermentation. The process consists of steeping the barley in water in order to soften the husks. The barley swells in consequence and is then placed on the tloor of the malt house. It begins to heat and to germinate, and from the proteids of the malt there. is developed a curious substance called diastase, which has the property of attacking the starch and making it soluble. When the process of germination has reached a certain point the barley grains are spread over a larger field and turned over from time to time to prevent overheating, and germijiation proceeds. Vhen it has reached the proper point, as determined by inspection, the malt is subjected to kiln drying, the purpose of which is to terminate germination, because if it is allowed to go over the result would be a garden of barley plants of no further value for beer making. How the Brewing Is Done. Next comes the brewing by which the malt is converted intb beer. The crushed malt is extracted in hot water, when the diastase completes its action in changing the starch to dextrin and maltose. One part of diastase is sufficient for 200,000 parts of starch. After the malt has been sufficiently treated the solution is drawn 01T and this constitutes the wort. The remaining grains are subjected to a careful treatment with water to obtain as large a portion of soluble matter as possible, the worts are united, boiled hops are added and the wort is complete. It is then rapidly cooled to the proper temperature, the yeast is added and fermentation proceeds. During the fermentation the yeast develops, attacks the sugar and liberates carbonic acid gas and alcohol. The rise of the carbonic acid gas through the liquid causes motion and the liquid is set to work. In fact, the name fermentation was originally given to any chemical reaction in .which gases were liberated in the liquid, as for example when a piece of marble is dissolved in hydrochloric acid solution. When the fermentation is complete the beer is drawn otf and stored in suitable vessels, in which subsequent slow fermentation takes place and the liquid becomes clarified. The sediment of the yeast is found in the bottom of the vessels in the case of lager beer, while in the case of ale the yeast is found in the form of scum at the top. This leads to the terms "top fermentation" and "bottom fermentation" or "obergaerung" and llntegaerung.,' I might add that the difference is partly due to the temperature at which'the fermentation takes place. Process Like Breakmaking. It is found in practice that in order to produce either one of these different kinds of beer it is necessary to employ yeast yielded by the same variety. This kind of fermentation is the same kind of fermentation which has been employed from time immemorial for the raising of bread. Leaven has come down from the most remote ages. It is simply dough which has been kept for several days and in which the yeast spores caught from the atmosphere have been developed into yeast. . When this is added to a furnished quantity of flour and water and later kneaded together, the yeast develops overnight and inflates the dough with carbonic acid gas, at the same time, as in the case of beer, producing a corresponding quantity of alcohol. In more modern days yeast has been substituted for "leaven, but the cause and the results are the same. Some years ago when the temperance movement was running high in London it occurred to a baker to attach a condensing coil to his oven and obtain a little condensed alcohol from the vapor given off by his bread in baking. He made a" great display of this and advertised temperance bread and had quite a run of trade for a few days, until his neighboring baker displayed a sign saying that

he left all the gin in his bread and turned customers his way. How the Yeast Works. Yezst was really discovered in i68o by Anthony van Leeuwenhoeck, with his new microscope. He describes yeast as "little globules collected into groups of three and four." It attracted at that time, of course, very little attention, and it was only at the beginning of the last century that it was taken up and the investigation was made which showed that it was a living organism and that fermentation was the result of its vital action. The subject attracted great attention and the study spread in various directions. Some .scientists carried on the warfare of words as to the possibility of the spontaneous generation of organisms. Others took up the study of diseases. Other researches have led to the germ theory of diseases and the discovery oV toxins, antitoxins and imnumty. It was discovered that while the greatest variety of chemical changes could be accounted for by" the action of living organisms,' there was fermentation which took place in the absence of living organisms. Recent investigations have found that all fermentations are produced by enzymes and that the enzymes do the work. The following is the last information that lias been obtained with regard to alcoholic fermentation. After the starcli has been converted by malting into maltose the next change takes place when the yeast is added. The yeast furnishes the enzyme maltase, which converts maltose Jnto dextroglucose. Then another yeast enzyme, zymase, goes to" the front to attack the dextro-glu-cose, and convert it into alcohol and carbonic acid gas, but the zymase cannot accomplish this splitting alone. It requires another enzyme, which is furnished by the yeast called co-enzyme, and even the two together cannot accomplish the "result, and there is further required a phosphate. This phosphate unites with the sugar forming the substance hexose-phosphate, and this yields to the zymase and co-enzyme, and the result is alcohol and carbonic acid gas. Pasteur proved that the spoiling of wine, which occurred in 1864, was due to the microbes. He further found that by exposing the bottled wine to a "temperature between 122 and 140 degrees F., these microbes lost their vitality, and the spoiling of the wine was prevented. This process is called pasteurizing. In 1872 he -made a similar investigation in regard to beer, with a like result. Pasteurizing of beer increases its keeping qualities, and the same process is now applied to milk. What Beer Consists Of. To summarize, I would say that beer is a beverage in the preparation of which malted barley, rarely malted wheat, rice and corn or its products are used. The malt is extracted with hot water, an addition of hops is made and the solution constitues the wort. The wort is cooled, the yeast is added and the whole fermented to a finish. The sugar is split into alcohol and carbonic acid gas, little free acid, glycerin and aromatic bodies in small quantities result. The product is beer. The beer is then placed in vats that it may properly age and undergo slow after-fermentation and ripening. Finally it is liltered, placed in barrels or bottles. Bottled beer is generally pasteurized for the reason I have already stated. American beer usually contains from 5 to 6 per cent of extract that means soluble food products. It contains from 3 to 4 per cent of alcohol. One of the most interesting constituents that has been found in beer latelv is a pecular substance called lecithin. It has long been known that the phosphates were always present in beer, and the last discovery shows that they are absolutely "essential to the process of fermentation. But the discovery of lecithin is especially interesting because lecithin is a

substance which was found some time ago as a constituent of the brain. It is a very interesting compound of fatty constituents and phosphorus, and when its presence in the brain was first discovered it attracted a great deal of attention. It was thought, even, that it might be the source of mental action, and some suggested the proper name for it would be 'denkstort " or thinking stuff. They tell a good story about this discovery. When they first discovered tile phosphorus in the brain somebody else discovered that there was phosphorus in the ffsh, and they started a story that tish would be good food for the brain. And so a young student wrote to Oliver Wendell Holmes and wanted to know if that story was true, and if so what would be the proper dose. And so Dr. Holmes wrote him back as follows: "My son, it is quite true that the brain contains phosphorus, and it is also true that fish contain phosphorus, and after carefully persuing your letter I would say that the proper dose for you would be a whale on toast." How Beer Resembles Bread. When we come to consider the relation of beer to food we are struck by the analogy of beer and bread. Bread is made from cereals; so is beer. The bread with little water is solid, the beer with more water is liquid. The yeast is employed in both. It produces alcoholic fermentation in both. It converts both into palatable and readily digested food. Both contain alcohol and carbon dioxide. Beer contains from 3 to 4 per cent alcohol and is not intoxicating when taken in ordinary quantities. Beer also has bitter and aromatic bodies derived from hops, which give it an acceptable flavor andproduce tonic effects. Further, beer is one of the foods free from bacteria. You might be afraid of water, of milk, but the method of making beer, drying, healing, pasteurizing and tillering it completely free beer from bacteria. Beer is food and wholesjme. It contains carbohydrates and albuminoids and mineral materials required by our system. It is appetizing. It aids digestion, has enzymes. myself have been familiar w ith the use of beer as an article of food from my childhood. I remember the barrel of ale in my father's cellar. When I was seventeen I went to Germany to study and learned to use beer as an article of food at the University of Goettingen. My first experience really came soon after I reached Goettingen when I made a walking .our through the Harz mountains w i t h three other Americans, and I remember to this day with satisfaction how I enjoyed at some roadside "gasthaus" my "butterbrod, scliweizerkase and bier." I have taken beer or ale pretty regularly all my life with my lunch. I have enjoyed the most perfect health, able to do a hard day's work every day, and as I was born in 1836, I think ! am a pretty good specimen of its food value. Adulteration Talk Is Nonsense. You know we read in the papers a great deal about adulterations. Of course most of it is nonsense. I have had occasion to investigate the question, and I find that adulteration in beer is gross exaggeration. There may be misbrandings, but there is no adulteration. Beer does not make drunkards. The effect -of prohibition would drive beer out of the household. It would deprive a large percentage of our population of a perfectly honest, wholesome, nutritious article of food. There is drunkenness, there is intemperance, but it does not come from teer. If we are to have laws let those laws be intelligent laws, laws that will discriminate between what does harm and what does not do harm. I think I have given reasons enough why beer has become a national beverage in this countrv.

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