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2:02

or whatever platform you're listening to. Clicking

2:05

these buttons is a great way to support the show. And

2:08

now let's jump into this week's

2:10

episode. Today

2:13

on the show I welcome back Dr. Greg Casey.

2:15

Greg has extensive history in brewing

2:17

including Carling O'Keeffe, Molson's,

2:20

Carlsberg, Anheuser-Busch, Stroh's,

2:22

Coors, Molson Coors and Miller

2:24

Coors. He holds a PhD in

2:26

Applied Microbiology and Food Science and

2:29

was a 2001-2002 chair of the

2:33

Education Committee of the Master Brewers Association.

2:36

He was also president of the American Society of Brewing

2:38

Chemists from 2005 to 2006. And

2:42

it's great to have him back. How are you doing Greg? Hey,

2:44

thanks for having me back Brad. You're doing great. Thank

2:47

you again for having me back. It's a pleasure.

2:49

We had you on just a couple of months

2:51

ago but today, last time you were talking about yeast which

2:54

is a lot of fun because

2:56

I really didn't know much about particularly the

2:58

yeast that the big brewers use so that was a

3:00

good episode. But this

3:02

week you wanted to visit your five volume set

3:05

that you've been working on. If I remember

3:07

right, I think it started out as a three volume set, right?

3:10

Well, you know, it

3:12

did start at nine and then John

3:15

Palmer, the editor said no way from it. Nine?

3:18

Okay. He's not going to live long enough

3:20

and he probably wouldn't want to hit it neither. So we got

3:22

it down to three a year and

3:24

a half ago but then we expanded to five

3:27

and that's locked in now. Yeah, I was looking at my notes

3:29

from a couple of episodes ago and I think you had three

3:32

at the time. Anyway, it's called the inspiring

3:34

history and legacies of American Lager

3:36

beer.

3:37

And let's

3:39

start with, you know, where are you right now with the

3:41

five volume set?

3:42

Well, you know, let me, Brad, I'd like to use a

3:45

new product development for the series. If

3:47

you view it as a product, you know, what

3:50

was the process that got us here? Or

3:53

concept in terms of coming up with the idea

3:55

for it took place probably 2007. Much

3:59

of my career is involved. and quality assurance. And

4:01

I remember trying to find, you know,

4:03

with a pissed off, can I say that, plant

4:05

manager with... I

4:08

think it's okay. It's a clean show, but you know. A

4:10

clean show. Okay. You know, I was

4:12

researching, was there anything more definitive

4:14

for caustic contaminants? Because every

4:16

brewer's got to be sensitive about it, right? You

4:19

know, sodium residues. And it's all based

4:21

on least-ven process capability

4:23

surveys. And that's kind of indirect,

4:26

even though it is helpful. But I was trying

4:28

to find, you

4:29

know, more technical

4:31

methods that are more direct. And I didn't find one. But

4:33

in the course of that,

4:34

I came across a reference called the 1890

4:37

Turner Adulteration Bill. And

4:39

it just blew me away when I read

4:41

it, because it was all about essentially making American

4:44

brewing, German brewing, Paul Mott,

4:46

right? So the concept took about, I

4:48

don't know, two minutes. The

4:51

feasibility was the next time I sat

4:53

down with Bill Coors, I said, Bill, are you aware of any

4:56

of this, you know, history, the American

4:58

history regarding to controversy or standards

5:00

of American lager? And he

5:02

said, no. So that was feasibility. And that

5:05

took another half, about another

5:07

week. And then the last 16 years

5:09

has been the development, 16 years.

5:11

The last 10 on a full-time basis, 60

5:14

to 80 hours a week.

5:17

And I'm looking at every library, Library

5:20

of Congress hearings, newspapers.com,

5:23

digital libraries, brewing journals, you name it,

5:25

you name it, you name it. It is

5:27

closing, closing in now

5:29

on 20, 20,000 primary period references,

5:31

every one of them printed, documented downstairs,

5:34

in the base to my wife's chagrin. So

5:37

the first two are going to be coming out of that.

5:40

And can I prompt you for the first two

5:42

volumes, right? Yeah, first two volumes.

5:45

Yeah. And that first image, if

5:48

I was this image here, I know it's difficult

5:51

to see, but when we were in Portugal

5:53

last fall, this was the brewing

5:55

museum in the main square there in Lisbon.

5:58

And if you could look at

5:59

it

6:00

has a flag, oh, you can't see it on each

6:03

individual glass of every

6:05

country that essentially consumes beer

6:07

on a major part of the market in

6:10

the world. And you can see it's all filled

6:12

with one type of beer, which

6:14

may not be representative, say, of Belgium or...

6:16

Laughter. No. But anyhow,

6:18

I saw that as a perfect imagery of, well,

6:21

what the heck came out of America

6:23

from 18...really 1850s, but more so the 1870s and 1920s that went

6:25

on to influence the global picture.

6:32

And really, it's pretty much our heritage

6:34

that in terms of coming up with a Joe Proof lager

6:37

beer that stayed clear when ice cold, that's us,

6:39

and that's what you get around the world. So

6:42

that was that. Next...yeah, let's go to the

6:44

stuff and slide there. So

6:48

these are the first two volumes, and you see it on the

6:50

left. The first volume is

6:52

essentially an overview

6:54

of what the next four are going to present as

6:56

the history. And it's volume one, and

6:59

it looks at the period, the last

7:01

decade, the 1940s that

7:03

I cover in the book, in the series.

7:06

And it's about the beer,

7:08

our beer, our agitical beer, the beer of myths

7:11

and legacies denied. And

7:13

if you get kind of...not an

7:16

argument you'd expect to hear for

7:18

something as lowly as agitical

7:21

lager beer, right? But I've

7:23

grown to develop tremendous respect and

7:26

appreciation for their guts

7:29

and their heritage and their legacies. The

7:31

one on the right, then the second volume,

7:34

and these will be concurrent, Brad. They'll both come

7:36

out this fall. Oh, awesome. Yeah.

7:39

This is the beer of war and global famine

7:41

relief. And it covers the

7:43

period and essentially from particularly

7:46

in 1930...not pardon me, 1943, 1948, when

7:51

we were at war, but also after the war

7:53

when supply chains were all below the hell and corn

7:55

and rice were foods to

7:57

prevent global famine.

8:00

It was the most difficult

8:02

time to get adjuncts in the United States.

8:05

It's sort of 180 from the, oh

8:07

corn rice start being used because

8:09

of the war. No, no, no, no.

8:13

Malt was never, I think it was like 99%

8:15

of 1942 levels all the way to the war. But

8:20

there were times breweries shut down in summer

8:22

of 43 because they couldn't get

8:25

corn. They shut down and

8:27

make an all malt beer. Really? They

8:30

had to have the adjuncts. Yeah, they had the adjuncts.

8:32

So corn rice had been traditional since the 1870s and by

8:34

1940s. So

8:37

we were using raw barley, cassava,

8:39

sorghum, potatoes. I mean, the

8:41

huge quantities all recorded in the government statistics.

8:44

So that kind of takes a look at

8:46

that unique history of that

8:48

period, which is one of the most unique periods of

8:51

American brewing. So I'm excited by that. So

8:53

it's interesting you've actually, I mean, both

8:55

volumes cover a fairly short amount of time, 1941

8:57

to 1948, huh?

9:00

Yeah, yeah, they do. And

9:03

because 1933 was

9:05

repealed, so I do talk a little bit about that period

9:07

between the two. I

9:10

say between the two sevens, April

9:12

7th when Roosevelt said, okay, beer is legal

9:15

again in December 7th, 1941, of

9:17

course, Pearl Harbor. But during that period,

9:20

I had a, my paradigm, again, I'm not

9:22

born American, but I had assumed

9:25

when 1933 came, beer would have been

9:27

going through the roof, right, everybody? Yeah, you

9:29

would think so. And they did for a few

9:31

years, but then it was in a decline, a significant

9:33

decline from about 37 to 41. And

9:37

the war saw, particularly

9:40

in those years from 43

9:43

to 48, an explosive growth

9:46

in volume. Yeah,

9:47

I guess it's not that

9:49

surprising, right?

9:51

And it was a lighter beer. It was with the lightest

9:53

beer, particularly in 46, 47. Those

9:55

are the lightest beers we made, in terms

9:57

of adjunct ratios, right? 1970s

10:01

with the release of the modern light lard. So

10:03

there was a lesson there, the brewers had forgotten

10:06

a lesson from the 19th century came

10:08

back brewers, green brewers are going to make what they

10:10

want, right? And then

10:12

the war forced, it wasn't, you know,

10:14

deliberate. It was like, okay, we're going to meet

10:17

the volume, this is what we do.

10:19

So it was a significant period

10:21

of growth, but also learnings that

10:24

have been applied in the

10:26

lager industry. And I talked a bit the second

10:28

volume about so many of the similarities

10:31

between the craft revolution from

10:33

the 1980s to today, in

10:35

terms of what that first half

10:37

century was like in the long, ajungalari revolution,

10:40

but that's subject of another day. Well,

10:43

before we leave the first two volumes behind, which

10:45

we did cover a little bit last time, can you tell

10:48

us when they're coming out exactly

10:50

and where people can buy them? Personally, I don't

10:52

have an exact date. I am 14th.

10:54

I'm getting the they call it the

10:57

hard pass. They don't call them galleys.

10:59

I've been chastised for using that word. I'm new

11:01

to this, right? But I

11:03

would expect by the end of this month, we'll have a firm

11:06

publishing date. But at this,

11:09

you know, this hard pass,

11:10

my job is done.

11:12

Yeah, basically, it's

11:14

the MBA, taking these and coming

11:17

up with a schedule for publishing. So would

11:20

you buy them from the MBA would be available like

11:22

Amazon, that kind of thing? It would be

11:24

through the web, through the MBA

11:26

master verse Association website. Cool.

11:30

Well, let's go on to the next one. While

11:33

your series focuses on American lager, you

11:35

did end up diving into German

11:37

beer history, particularly German lager

11:40

history. What makes

11:42

German lager history so important?

11:44

Well, you know, ignorance

11:46

is bliss, I guess, because I didn't, you know,

11:48

again, being Canadian, my birth, I really

11:50

didn't know the history of adjunct law

11:52

over the United States. And when they got into this

11:55

period, the last 16 years, it

11:57

was really early on pretty apparent that

12:00

you can't follow

12:02

our history or describe our history or understand,

12:05

know it, why it developed the way it did

12:08

without knowing Germany's, because the two

12:10

were so interconnected

12:13

on each other. If I could get a slide

12:15

up here. The first one. You

12:18

see that back up top there. Ludwig

12:20

Häker. Again, apologies in advance

12:22

to any German listeners, because I know I'm

12:24

not enunciating pronouncing things correctly.

12:27

But in July 1862,

12:30

Ludwig Häker, Altenburg, Germany, got

12:33

a US patent, improvement in brewing when the Indian Court

12:35

was used. He spent

12:38

from December 1862 to November 1863, right

12:44

behind the Civil War. He

12:46

came over here to do test brews.

12:49

This is really exciting because I've never seen this reported

12:51

before, when the first adjunct lawyers were brewed

12:54

in the United States. He came

12:56

over and four years

12:58

later, he wrote a extensive

13:00

book of his travels, talking

13:02

about where he did test brews, pilot

13:04

brews of adjunct lawyer beer, like

13:07

the vegan brewery at Dobbs Ferry,

13:11

Windish and Malhauser in Cincinnati,

13:15

the Christian Moreline brewery in Cincinnati.

13:17

He was in Kentucky, he was in

13:20

New Orleans. When

13:23

was this, I guess? That was in

13:25

between December 1862 and November 1863. To

13:33

me, I mean, he names names, he names breweries,

13:35

he describes stories

13:38

when he got run out of Indianapolis

13:43

at a brewery there,

13:45

when the locals got when they were going to make a rice

13:47

beer, a rice lager beer. He said he

13:49

had to get out of Dodge, essentially,

13:52

because it hadn't been, this is 1863, I'm sure. It

13:57

wasn't widely accepted, even

13:59

though. as this third

14:01

uncle of their Bellamy do. They were going

14:04

rice beer in Germany in 1860s, 1870s, got

14:06

a deal. So it had passed that threshold,

14:08

but yeah. So it's a fascinating,

14:12

you know, the genesis. That's the earliest

14:14

I could find it. It's considerably earlier than

14:16

St. Anton's, Ford's history of

14:18

the influence. But next

14:20

image, I think, is also helpful.

14:23

Yeah, when I was talking about, yeah, the

14:26

double-mash system. This

14:28

is beautiful. And Nicholas Balman used

14:30

it. Just describe the image for folks

14:32

that aren't. Yeah, thank you very much. It's

14:34

an image that shows the double-mash system, which

14:37

is the American system. And this was

14:39

a Bavarian

14:41

train brewer who set up shop

14:43

in Kalamazoo, Michigan, of all places, no disrespect

14:46

to Kalamazoo. But it was about

14:48

the use of Indian corn in the double-mash system.

14:50

That's 1868, I think. So

14:54

describe the double-mash system to us as

14:56

well. Well, the double-mash system

14:58

is how do you deal with... This

15:02

is before an explosion

15:05

of corn syrup. You have to be able to use the adjuncts

15:08

in the brewers to get them converted. So you

15:10

had, and this image shows which

15:16

evolved to be a cooker where a portion of the bolt

15:18

was mixed with the

15:21

corn grits in this particular pattern, gelatinized,

15:24

and put back to the main mash. So those two,

15:26

ticotchion, you take a bit

15:28

of the whole thing, boil it. But by the 10, 20 years

15:31

after this, the

15:34

second was exclusively

15:36

cookers if they didn't

15:39

use pre-gelatinized or syrups.

15:41

So they're actually cooking the corn to gelatinize

15:44

it as opposed to doing some kind of

15:46

cereal mash on it then. Yeah, in

15:48

the 1860s, they hadn't gotten to like

15:50

the equivalent of cornflakes, for example, the pre-gelatinized

15:54

or the syrups. But in

15:56

the 1860s, it was still just...

15:59

It started as...

15:59

grits.

16:00

Grits came with their own problems with

16:03

oils and things like that. So very quickly, by

16:05

the 1870s, that had been dropped

16:07

as a form of corn. Dr.

16:09

Justin Marchegiani Very cool. Dr.

16:11

John F. Yeah,

16:16

yeah, yeah. Dr. John F. Next

16:18

one, please. Dr. John F. Yup. Dr.

16:21

John F. 1881 New York

16:23

Times, and it's about how lager

16:26

bearers are made. And it was a controversial

16:28

decade in the United States. This

16:30

is New York Times. And I put it and

16:32

it– Dr. John F. This is 1881, it says, right?

16:35

Dr. John F. 1881, yeah. And it

16:37

describes, you know, they

16:39

use a corn meal, they use the cornstarch, rice,

16:41

grape sugar, which by the way

16:43

was, you know, there

16:46

was glucose and grape sugar. Grape sugar

16:48

was powdered

16:51

glucose extracted from corn after it been

16:53

hydrolyzed to yield glucose. Dr. John

16:55

F. And that's– Dr. John F. Yeah.

16:57

Is that it? Dr. John F. Yeah. Well, back then,

17:00

there was corn and rice, I think, fairly equally. But

17:03

here's it for this one, and people can't see it, but if you

17:05

get a chance on YouTube, first you have every

17:07

name on that list of brewers.

17:09

They saw, I called it American Beer Manifesto.

17:11

They're all Germans. And I've

17:13

gone in and part of the 16 years, I've

17:15

gone in, each one of these individuals, you

17:18

know, MyHeritage and Ancestry.com

17:20

and other sources. Where did their

17:23

journey start as Americans? How

17:25

did they get here? And in this

17:27

time, most of them weren't even citizens

17:29

yet. Dr. John F. It's interesting. I just noticed the Yingling brothers

17:31

around there, so. Dr. John F. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's

17:33

one of the Yingling. He set up a logger brewery in New York

17:36

City. And he was one of–and apparently

17:38

he was a, I want to say a rogue son.

17:41

You come across some family history that could be interesting

17:43

and you start digging. But he was a bit

17:45

of a rogue in New York. He did build a very

17:47

nice logger brewery, an

17:50

adjunct logger. But he

17:52

fell in the–anyhow, let's just leave

17:54

family history as family history. Dr.

17:56

John F. So, I mean, by 1881, clearly adjunct

17:59

logger.

17:59

taken off, right? Oh yeah, I really had.

18:02

I mean, it really, the 18-7, the last ones,

18:06

you know, the German, Austrian, Hungarian,

18:08

these Germans here in New York City,

18:11

Staten Island, Brooklyn, everywhere you see

18:13

there. I mean, they had

18:15

run and started to run with this

18:18

style. Yeah, it had already

18:20

by the early 1880s

18:23

as a category become the single

18:25

largest in the United States by far.

18:28

By the 1890s, it was like

18:30

nearly 90% of the market. So,

18:32

I mean, that's pretty amazing at a period of what,

18:34

less than 20 years it pretty much made the market.

18:37

Yeah, and we'll conclude this session

18:39

with a slide that shows that very

18:42

directly.

18:43

Okay, do you want to go into that then?

18:46

No, let's just go to the

18:48

next slide, I think. Yeah, this, go

18:52

ahead.

18:53

Now, this one here, what in

18:55

the heck is the picture? We're now switching

18:57

over to Germany, right? Yeah. And

19:00

I love history. I've always loved European

19:02

studying European history. And I remember

19:04

as a young, I think it was

19:07

like 16 or 17, learning Germany

19:09

because my parents' generation at Second

19:11

World War, right, that's fine. I don't always assume

19:14

Germany was Germany, had been for a long time.

19:16

You know, and the German

19:20

Empire was only

19:22

really created the predecessor to

19:24

the Third Reich and the predecessor, you

19:26

know, to remove from the current democratic,

19:30

the German, Germany. That

19:32

picture there shows it was little

19:34

that I know, because when I was an 18 year old, I would

19:36

stay on them right there.

19:38

Back in 1974,

19:40

that picture shows

19:41

two events that

19:44

really profoundly impact the Ryan

19:47

Heitzkaboch conversation. Okay, go ahead.

19:50

The guy in the white there, that's Count Bismarck.

19:52

He started the Machiavelli of Germany. He was

19:54

the head hunch from Prussia. The guy standing

19:56

up is the first Kaiser and on that day

19:59

in Germany. January 1871, two

20:02

things happened. The German Empire was created

20:04

and Kaiser

20:07

was installed

20:09

as its first...the

20:11

Wilhelm was his first Kaiser.

20:14

You fast forward this guy in the white.

20:17

In April 1872, he

20:20

opens the Reichstag Building

20:22

in Berlin, famous building, right? Yes. And

20:26

it's a new empire. The Reichstag was just

20:28

commissioned. And in his very

20:31

first paragraph in

20:33

his speech to the assembled

20:37

representatives in the Reichstag, he talks

20:39

of the need to tax both substitutes.

20:42

Interesting. I

20:43

mean, I read this. I went, what?

20:46

And he was very

20:48

explicit about that because until that point

20:50

in time, only malt had been taxed,

20:53

right, as a brewing

20:56

material. Any brewer, and there are a lot of them, using

20:58

rice or sugars or syrups,

21:01

from particularly the latter to from beets

21:03

or potatoes, as extract, it

21:06

wasn't taxed. And what does an empire need,

21:08

especially in the 1870s when it's competing

21:10

with France, Britain, Russia,

21:14

and a nation, the United States, soon

21:16

to...through four decades after that. But it

21:19

needs mining. And they had to...they set

21:21

up their taxation laws based on

21:23

a finite number of buckets

21:25

that would generate revenue for the

21:27

empire. And next slide, please. After

21:31

this one, Freddie Mercury.

21:35

We'll get into a second here.

21:37

Yeah, a little pop up there. Okay.

21:39

No problem.

21:40

Okay. Now this one

21:42

here. Again, you get for the audience, basically...

21:45

The big table. ...if the German Reichstag

21:47

and Treasury was going to collect taxes,

21:50

they kept great records, right? And

21:52

I, you know, so for every year from 1872, and

21:54

Bismarck said, this is how it's

21:57

going to be, this

21:59

one shows... you can't really see it in but

22:01

it shows I

22:19

mean what we can see is there's clearly a lot of adjuncts

22:21

being used in the third. Not as much as the United

22:23

States. We'll get into that a little bit later. But you know

22:25

depending upon it because it was something like 26

22:27

different duchies kingdoms states

22:30

you name it I mean that coalition that became

22:33

the Empire Bavaria down the south

22:35

was just one of them all malt but everywhere

22:37

else they had their own you know their

22:39

own laws and so the Empire had to standardize

22:42

it that's why they couldn't just do malt would

22:44

have been fine at Bavaria was all the Germany but

22:46

it wasn't everywhere else particularly Prussia

22:48

in the northern German areas and

22:52

other areas as well about Reisling

22:54

content you know in terms of rice. Well

22:56

it's interesting we tend to focus on the Bavarian

22:58

purity law you know the Reinheitskobot but

23:02

Germany actually had a long history brewing

23:04

outside of that right?

23:05

Yeah the earliest and

23:08

again you know my attempt was to study United

23:10

States but it's very clear

23:12

that you know by the 1850s

23:14

and not just Germany it wasn't Germany

23:16

in the 1850s right as I'm learning it

23:19

was something else. Yeah

23:22

it was in but you know also in the

23:24

Austro-Hungarian Empire in terms

23:26

of the use you know bawling everybody

23:29

knows bawling. Reisling bawling right well read

23:31

his papers on the use of potato starch as an

23:33

adjunct and he was very glowing of the use

23:35

of this adjunct to

23:37

brew water beer as

23:40

was Anton Ludwig Hecker

23:42

ten years later in terms of coming over America

23:44

with corn so there was a considerable

23:47

it wasn't it was Central Europe I would

23:49

say and parts of Germany for sure

23:52

that they were using adjuncts easily

23:55

the early 1850s maybe late 1840s and it you know

24:00

And it's interesting because

24:03

it costs more in those early decades

24:05

for the rice beer in particular for

24:08

the consumer to brew it and for the to

24:10

buy it and the brewer to brew it. As

24:12

it was, in the United States,

24:15

consumers charge a dollar more, which was a

24:17

big chunk back in 1870s and early 1880s

24:23

for adjunct logger beer brew with rice.

24:26

That changed with the advent of technology

24:28

and new types of sources. But

24:30

out of Genesis, both

24:32

in Germany, it cost a certain

24:34

number of settings more to buy

24:36

it, you know,

24:38

at their pub of beer stup, Stuba,

24:41

I guess. Yeah, so it's

24:43

a fascinating history. Do you think

24:46

the adjunct logger predated the

24:48

all malt logger or not?

24:51

In the United States. I should get more

24:53

in Europe, actually.

24:55

No, absolutely the all malt

24:57

was king for many, many

24:59

centuries. For sure. Yeah. You

25:01

know, from that period between St.

25:04

Michael's Day, whatever it is, between September and

25:06

the spring, we get only brew in the winter months, 1523. Yeah,

25:10

so at least three and

25:12

a half centuries, almost, almost, almost,

25:14

particularly because it was it was,

25:17

you know, Southern Germany, Bavaria was where

25:19

the lager was. Northern Germany had

25:21

all these top fermented

25:23

styles of beer. That, you

25:25

know, they know the history

25:27

of using adjuncts there goes back earlier.

25:30

But, you know, they even

25:32

have many of this, you know, the Belgian style

25:34

beers that we associate with Belgium, but there are

25:36

parts of ours in Germany where just as portfolio

25:39

styles was just as vibrant. Lager

25:41

didn't really become a generic

25:43

German, if you will, until after

25:46

the Pilsner Revolution and Helles. And,

25:48

you know, they realized this style is

25:51

killing it. We better start brewing it.

25:55

Well, you mentioned before the podcast that you're focused

25:57

on the period kind of 1850 to 1920. with

26:00

this work which

26:03

is really when the continental loggers started to grow rapidly

26:05

in the US and particularly adjunct loggers.

26:08

But why is this period important really

26:10

across the board for the development

26:13

of American beer? Yeah

26:15

because that's when it happened.

26:17

I mean that's, we

26:19

were pre-1850s beer as

26:21

a category. It was just a

26:24

pimple on a butt of an elephant.

26:26

I mean it wasn't much. Hard

26:28

liquor, ciders, I mean we were

26:30

drinking everything but beer by and large. I mean

26:32

yeah it was important. I pay and all that. But

26:35

as a percentage of the market is pretty small. Then

26:38

when the Germans came over, the

26:41

Russian public, when they didn't

26:43

get to March 1848, you read this so

26:45

many times in their biographies, they

26:47

came over here to be free. They came

26:50

over here to do what

26:53

they felt was the best for their family

26:56

to provide for their family.

26:58

These guys got it in terms of pursuit

27:00

of liberty and living

27:02

the dream, right? They lived it to

27:04

the fullest. They started

27:06

growing all-mall, lager. This was about

27:09

the earliest. I have found it, I think 1842 is

27:12

most commonly referred to in online

27:14

sites which because online must be true. Everything's

27:18

true. Everything I read online

27:20

is true. I've got it back to

27:22

the late 1830s in

27:24

terms of brewing lager beer and that was

27:26

a duckel. That was basically a duckel all-mall,

27:29

the very brown, right? That was pretty much American

27:31

lager beer from late 1830s, 1840s, 1850s. It's

27:33

only when you start getting into the late 1860s and early

27:40

1870s, the lager beer that's brewed

27:43

using adjuncts, typically about 30% adjuncts, that's

27:46

when it starts to take off. That's

27:48

when it became the beer of when the German-American

27:51

brewers, when they're testifying in front of then

27:54

Senator McKinley about why

27:56

do you use rice and corn to

27:59

brew beer? because they point and say,

28:01

we brew it for you Americans. It became the

28:04

beer of the United States. And I'll

28:06

get into a little bit of that later. But that's, it

28:08

really took off. It just took off, it

28:11

became our national beverage. You see

28:13

reference to it as national beverage.

28:17

You see nice, you read anecdotal

28:19

stories about, reporter

28:21

for the New York Times saying when he trailed

28:24

the Union Army during the war, there were empty

28:26

bottles of whiskey that said, yeah,

28:29

we had passed through here. He said, but when he

28:31

was in the Philippines and Puerto Rico and

28:34

China, the Boxer Revolution, he said they

28:36

were trailed by empty bottles of beer.

28:39

We can come up here drinking nation and it

28:41

was adjunct barber beer that fueled

28:44

that phenomenal rise.

28:46

Awesome.

28:47

Well, let's go back to Germany for a minute. What were some

28:49

of the key milestones in Germany? You

28:51

mentioned the Kaiser obviously and after that, but what

28:54

happened after that? Because obviously at some point

28:56

the Rheinheiskobot took over, right?

28:58

Let's go to the, yeah, let's go to the next slide. There's

29:00

two really intriguing dates. This

29:03

one here, it says in June

29:05

3rd, the Rheinheiskobot I

29:07

think is commonly assumed in many ways

29:11

to be German way of making

29:13

lager beer forever, since 1500s, but

29:16

then it was still various. And on June

29:18

3rd, 1906, my grandfather was alive,

29:20

so to me it's not that long ago. The

29:23

Reichstag on June 3rd, 1906 passed a law and

29:27

it says in this title, you can get

29:29

all again, a lot of this was war booty by

29:31

the way, after digital libraries

29:33

in the first world war, the Yanks

29:35

came back with stuff from libraries

29:37

and put it into Stanford and Harvard and

29:40

all these other places, you see that stamp, basically

29:42

war booty. But anyhow, laws

29:45

concerning the order of the Reichst budget and

29:47

Reichst debt and the brewing tax

29:50

act was passed as

29:52

a means of generating revenue

29:55

and changing that 1872 law that

29:58

I showed you with the Kaiser. Right. Yes, this

30:01

made the, for Lagerbier at least,

30:03

this made the various way, the

30:06

empire's way. So all these other,

30:08

you know, only malt was attached and

30:11

allowed, only malt hops, water yeast,

30:14

right? So I mean, 1906 is basically when they

30:16

nailed down Rennheitskopod across

30:18

the whole empire. Across, exactly.

30:22

And that started then. It

30:25

just blew

30:27

my mind when I was reading, well, you know, why was

30:29

it passed? You know, there's a lot of controversy. Why

30:31

did the Bavarian Ryan High School pass the 1518? It

30:34

was quality, or was the dukes

30:36

trying to save their ass from, you

30:38

know, population that was starving?

30:40

You know, there's just a gazillion. And

30:43

we'll never know. But this one,

30:45

the German empire's to me, there

30:46

is no doubt when you read,

30:48

and I hope that's what people see in the third volume,

30:51

it was all about money. And it was specifically

30:54

geared, these taxation laws, and

30:56

the buckets like cigarettes, and you

30:58

know, changing the beer tax law to be just malt

31:00

with a massive increase. It

31:02

was the race funds for a new,

31:05

for a Kaiser's navy. And it

31:07

was 1906, remember 1914, 1918, the first World War. This

31:10

march pretty busy at this time, if I recall. Yeah,

31:12

this, extremely. And you know, they, Prussians

31:15

had a great land army, you know, they didn't worry about

31:17

that. Their Luflafa, the Genesis, was

31:19

doing well. They didn't have a navy. And they knew

31:21

to be a global superpower in 1906. And

31:24

the day when the Reichstag was passed

31:26

that June 3rd, 1906, you know what was in

31:28

the lobby of the Reichstag?

31:31

What? A diorama showing

31:34

the naval resources,

31:37

ships of the British Empire

31:39

and the French Empire, the

31:41

Russian Empire and America

31:44

by now, right? And it was kind of

31:46

like, oh, here's us here. We're

31:48

throughout, we got to get our butts in gear to develop

31:51

the navy. And they did. I mean, they started,

31:53

they started the war too soon, I guess. World

31:55

War I, that was fully operational because it really

31:57

didn't have that much of an impact. being

32:00

in harbor much of the war, but

32:04

it was a fascinating, you know, there's no doubt

32:07

it was part of the taxation laws. So

32:10

I'll make the argument and again I just leave

32:12

it to the reader to decide for themselves

32:14

when they read it when this third volume comes out next

32:17

year and that'll be the third.

32:20

It was a fascinating time.

32:22

Interesting. So I mean, so you believe

32:24

it was tax driven then, huh? As opposed to,

32:26

you know, they'd like to talk now about purity laws,

32:29

but...

32:29

Yeah, the June 3rd, 1906 was absolute and

32:32

there's no mention when you read

32:35

the much like the Library of Congress

32:37

and we have the archives of the Senate

32:39

hearings or whatever, you can read the transcripts

32:41

of when they are debating the legislation.

32:44

There was a hint of northern

32:47

German brewers, but they were split

32:49

in between, you know, we want to be

32:51

able to be, you know, to use

32:54

only malt like they do in Bavaria, right?

32:56

They were saying, you know, it gives us a better competition

33:00

to compete, but then you had all these,

33:02

particularly, we'll talk a bit towards the end,

33:05

brewers of... or manufacturers

33:08

of adjuncts in northern Germany, particularly the saccharine

33:10

industry, which is really surprising, were

33:13

lobbying hard against it, as were some

33:15

of the other aspects or

33:18

areas or parts of the brewing community

33:22

in northern Germany. So it was kind of split, but

33:24

from a legislative perspective,

33:26

oh yeah, 100%. They know, they

33:28

know bones about it. We need to get a Navy.

33:31

Interesting. Well, what's

33:33

going on in the US? Brewing in the

33:35

late 1800s now. Oh, can we do

33:37

one more? Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

33:39

No, no problem. Let's do this one. Yeah,

33:41

this is fascinating. Describe

33:45

this for the folks that are listening. Yeah,

33:48

this one here shows on the left. Everybody's heard

33:50

of, if you remember, the Weimar Republic after

33:52

Germany was defeated. Oh my goodness.

33:55

Yeah, and inflation took over, particularly 1921,

33:57

1922, or 24. this

34:00

is a slide

34:04

that shows the meteoric rise of the

34:06

value of one gold mark or paper marks. Remember

34:09

they're using wheelbarrows to buy a loaf of bread, that

34:11

kind of thing? Yeah. Interestingly

34:14

enough, there was September

34:16

1921 right up to 1924, that law that was 1906 in terms

34:19

of what they could use modified

34:25

to allow the Weimar Republic

34:28

to permit the use of rice and corn

34:30

in brewing lager beer for domestic

34:33

consumption. Yeah and I like the title there

34:35

says, Germany open to fake beer.

34:37

Yeah, these are pulled

34:41

from 1921. So on the right it

34:44

says, yeah the Reichstag

34:46

overrules the varying protests against adulteration

34:48

of drink. Corn in their beer, rice will

34:51

also be used, Reichstag boats for

34:53

beer. That was a three-year period and ironically

34:56

because this

34:58

was 1920 on 24, who wasn't brewing

35:00

an adjunct lager beer? Us! The

35:03

prohibition was already kicking in.

35:05

This three-year window, they were

35:09

using adjuncts at the same ratio

35:12

essentially much higher than they had in the pre-1906

35:14

because why the

35:16

republic? In terms of how to

35:18

do it more cost effectively I guess but when

35:21

you look at the Reichstag statistics and

35:23

again they're there every year, this is how much they

35:26

use the semolina or corn and rice.

35:29

It's a fascinating three-year window that

35:31

I know, you know my father was alive

35:33

when that started, you know, when that was

35:35

going on. So I'm like this is at least to me,

35:38

not ancient history. So it's a fascinating,

35:40

these are the kind of things that readers I hope

35:42

will find beyond

35:44

interesting but profoundly challenging.

35:47

And of course it was a horrible time in

35:49

the Weimar Republic you could literally start drinking

35:51

your beer and by the time you finished your beer the price would

35:53

be up, right?

35:54

Well said. It's basically

35:56

how fast inflation was rising.

35:58

Exactly.

35:59

Exactly. Yeah.

36:02

So, okay, so let's switch back to U.S.

36:04

for a minute and talk a little bit about, back it up just a little.

36:06

We'll go talk a little bit about what's going on in U.S. brewing

36:08

in the late 1800s as we, this

36:11

is before the First World War and so on, before prohibition

36:14

obviously. Yeah, let's get the 10th

36:17

slide here. Got it?

36:19

Yeah, it's the last one. Okay, this slide shows

36:21

from the readers who can't see it, but it shows the period between

36:24

1880 and 1915 in terms

36:26

of domestic production

36:29

of beer in different parts

36:31

of the world. And you see the United States

36:35

started in 1880. Our

36:37

annual production was down there with Belgium

36:40

and France and Russia. Not

36:43

a big deal, barely above Austria.

36:48

But then you see this line, it goes

36:50

from lower left to top right, a straight

36:53

line up, right? It

36:55

just, we became, United States of America

36:57

in 1910, 1911, became the leading producer of

37:00

beer in the world. And it had been, we'd

37:02

been in the boonies on a global basis

37:04

during that, when it started,

37:07

as recently as the late 1880s. And

37:10

it was, that was fueled exclusively

37:12

by Ajay Kallagar

37:15

beer, our national beverage. So that's

37:17

the beer that drove the rise and

37:20

what readers, or what listeners

37:22

can't see on this graph is, remember 1906

37:24

again, Germany? Yeah.

37:27

See, German, there were, they call

37:29

it beer kriegs. The consumers protested. Because

37:32

it wasn't something that was done to make... Yeah,

37:35

there was a little drop there in 1906. Oh,

37:37

gosh, got passed on to consumers. You got

37:39

these fascinating articles about beer

37:41

kriegs, beer wars, people refusing

37:44

to drink beer in Germany

37:46

because of the huge increase in taxes.

37:48

It doesn't fit the narrative very well of, oh,

37:51

it was welcomed with, oh, now all

37:54

beer is prepared. No, no, no, no. It

37:56

was, it was all the money in every aspect

37:59

of it.

39:41

early

40:00

years to brewing, 1862 on. So

40:02

like the German records, we've got the American

40:05

records. And when you look at the

40:07

stats, say late

40:09

1880s, 1989, and you compare them to

40:11

half a century later, the ratios

40:14

of multi-ducks are essentially the same.

40:17

I mean, you know, so it was

40:19

the dominant beer fairly

40:21

early during that 1880s is when it

40:24

truly exploded.

40:25

I think you mentioned this last time we talked,

40:27

but there was a push to do Rijeichska boat here

40:29

in the US at one time, right?

40:31

Huge push. And

40:33

that's pretty much the focus of the fourth

40:36

and fifth volumes. So that's where particularly

40:38

inspiring. I mean, there were, you know, I mentioned

40:40

the 1890s, the Turner adulteration bill.

40:43

There over, it was a running battle

40:45

for half a century. How

40:48

to force these German or

40:51

German American, because some are still German

40:53

citizens, to brew an old,

40:56

well, larger beer, like the Rijeichska

40:58

boat, right? I mean, but it's important

41:01

to know it wasn't called the Rijeichska

41:03

boat here then. It wasn't

41:06

even the Rijeichska boat 1906. The

41:08

first reference I could find to the term Rijeichska

41:11

boat was in 1908 when a

41:15

petitioner sued the

41:17

German Empire Treasury for compensation

41:20

because of malt processing aid they

41:23

couldn't use after the 1906 legislation.

41:26

And he pursued to get compensation, hoping

41:29

he would be compensated for his losses for

41:31

the facility he constructed, the

41:33

product he developed and he was rejected. But

41:35

interestingly, his argument in

41:38

his support, he said, well, the saccharin

41:40

industry in Germany, they got compensated

41:42

when saccharin was banned. And

41:45

it was only like as recently as 1902, for

41:47

example, as a use in

41:50

tougher metals, sweeteners, styles of particularly

41:52

in Berlin and other places. So saccharin

41:54

industry won their petition

41:57

and got compensated, but

41:59

not him. So the Ryan High School

42:01

was not until 1908. So

42:04

they were talking,

42:06

they substituted the Ryan High School, but they

42:08

called it Pure Beer. So the advocates of

42:10

all malt beers said, Pure Beer. And

42:13

universally, every institution

42:16

of power in the United States said,

42:18

this is a bad thing using

42:20

corn and rice. You just can't, you

42:23

gotta be making all malt beer. And

42:25

the Germans, again, coming back to that, well,

42:27

we make it all malt. It comes back

42:30

from many accounts. It's not sold.

42:32

We make it for ourselves. You

42:35

Americans, especially in the 1870s, 1880s,

42:37

want this beer that

42:39

when it is in a glass,

42:42

and the beer is clear when it's ice cold.

42:45

And for three, four decades,

42:48

only American breweries, only could

42:51

make an adjunct longer beer that was

42:54

chill proof. I mean, it was our

42:57

contribution, but that's because of our culture. It

43:00

wasn't a reflection of costs

43:02

or anything. It was delivering to the consumer

43:05

the American pension for ice cold

43:07

beverages. And we've always

43:09

had, I remember when we came down to the United States

43:13

in 1987, the first fridge I saw

43:15

had this hole in the front of it. You put

43:17

a glass and you just put

43:19

a little pressure on this thing and ice

43:22

cake. I've never seen it before. I

43:24

mean, because I don't care. I don't know. But

43:27

it was just little things like that that helped me

43:29

get at a gut level. We've always liked our beverages

43:32

like cold as well as our beer. It was

43:35

no different.

43:37

Well, really quickly, I run it low on time,

43:39

but I want to talk about World War I. And of course,

43:42

led eventually into prohibition here in the US.

43:44

What was the impact on longer

43:46

beers?

43:47

For the United States, I'll

43:49

summarize it using two points. First, as I mentioned

43:52

earlier, there was a tremendous amount

43:54

of prejudice against Germans

43:57

because of the war. And it was not

43:59

a popular time. to be a German-American brewer.

44:02

So that kind of hurt, as I mentioned, some

44:04

of those other styles, but it also hurt the industry

44:06

as a whole. But it also had an impact

44:10

in terms of this kind of parallel with the Second

44:12

World War. We brewed, you know

44:14

that Food Commissioner Hoover, future President

44:16

Hoover, we brewed from October,

44:19

beginning October 1918 for two months, all malt-logged

44:24

beer. We essentially, and it was in order

44:26

for the United States to save rice

44:28

and corn in anticipation

44:30

of Belgian famine relief once

44:32

the war ended, which it did, right? You

44:35

know, November 11th. So we had a two-year

44:37

period, which was really cool. I didn't know that.

44:39

I wasn't called to write in Heizkopo,

44:42

it was just called, you know, we got to feed the

44:44

Belgians, which in 46, 47,

44:47

48, ironically, we did again. In Germany,

44:49

I would say, you know, certainly they couldn't

44:51

get the materials to make beer, right? I mean,

44:53

the blockades and margots, but

44:56

there was one little interesting legacy, July 1918,

44:58

the German tax

45:00

law that one I showed you from 1872, it

45:04

was modified in 1908 to tax

45:06

beer on

45:08

volume. Not malt.

45:10

Why? Well, because it was only like

45:12

this much malt available to make beer. It wasn't beer.

45:15

They weren't getting revenue. What is... I assume

45:18

just like in the UK, the alcohol

45:20

percentages dropped to nothing, right? Yeah,

45:22

pretty essentially, yeah. I mean, I couldn't

45:25

have tasted like beer. I mean, it was just something

45:27

that... I mean, I think for the troops they might

45:29

have had, and they did brew, interestingly.

45:32

The Germans did brew adjunct

45:34

logger beers of Belgium and occupied France, and

45:36

the records are very clear on that for the

45:38

troops. But yeah, so

45:41

that was kind of a legacy. So that was a turbulent

45:43

time for a lot of reasons. Interesting.

45:46

And then just a couple of words about prohibition,

45:48

maybe.

45:50

Well, it

45:52

really, to me, it was more than stopping

45:54

the production

45:57

of beer, that was three, four, five percent

45:59

alcohol beer. It goes beyond that because it really

46:02

killed an entire

46:04

industry, the suppliers, the manufacturers,

46:07

the engineers, the technology.

46:09

We were the Germany of today

46:13

in the five-half centuries before going into

46:15

prohibition. It was American technology

46:18

that was going around the world, Africa,

46:20

Australia, things to build, construct

46:23

using American equipment, using American

46:25

materials, and the various schools.

46:28

All that died in those

46:30

whatever number years, 20 to 1919 to 1933. It all just died

46:36

and we never recovered relative

46:38

to those aspects but in

46:40

terms of how the style

46:42

is made, in terms of agit-lager

46:45

beer, whether you're in Croatia,

46:47

whether you're in Greece, whether you're in China,

46:51

drinking snow lager, those

46:54

heritage and the roots are all ours.

46:56

Interesting, very

46:57

interesting.

46:59

Well, I want to get your closing thoughts on

47:01

the close relationship between German and US

47:03

lager history.

47:05

I thought for

47:07

this one, to me, there's

47:11

really what really struck

47:13

me in terms of the two

47:15

histories from

47:18

a diversity perspective. Obviously,

47:21

Germany and the United States at this time was all

47:23

men, right? But I was astonished

47:26

and pleased and I

47:28

think it's really cool part history we need

47:30

to celebrate both in Germany and

47:33

in the United States, the number of brewers who were

47:35

of the Jewish faith, like a very large

47:37

number. I certainly didn't expect

47:40

that, shall we say, in Germany. So

47:42

I think there were parallels between the

47:45

two from a diversity perspective in the United

47:47

States. They were Christians, they were

47:50

Christians of the Catholic and Protestant faith, they were the

47:52

Jewish faith. I mean, it was really cool to see

47:54

the diversity and that it was a clone.

47:56

It was many of you go back to that 1881 New York Times. many

48:00

of those brewers are Jewish American brewers.

48:02

And that's a really cool part of our history

48:04

that I was completely unaware of, but it died

48:07

obviously there. So I would

48:09

say between the two, the concept,

48:11

feasibility, development were

48:14

fairly similar between the two nations with

48:16

the exception of during that time that

48:18

there was less adjunct use during

48:21

up until the first World War. But then in terms

48:24

of implementation, it was snuffed

48:26

out in Germany in 1906. It

48:29

died, it was terminated. Whereas

48:32

in United States, at least for

48:34

those last decades after 1906,

48:37

it continues to thrive. And it became very quickly

48:39

the beer of the world, Canada, for example,

48:42

when we shot our, shut down our industry,

48:45

you see these ads in Western Canadian

48:48

newspapers, American rice beer, American rice beer,

48:50

all across the nation. And

48:53

a beer style that had been belittled in the press

48:55

in Canada in the late 1800s, 1900s. Became

48:59

Canada's beer. They may not like

49:01

hearing that in my country, but same thing in Mexico,

49:04

same thing in South Africa. The world's beer

49:06

really. Yeah, the world's beer. That's

49:08

what that image there. It became, and

49:10

that's why anywhere you go, I got a picture in

49:12

the first log of my wife's

49:14

frozen hand on a Idra, an

49:17

island in November in Greece. And

49:19

it was ice cold, the beer, but it was a cold day. Her

49:21

hands really cold, but that glass of lethal

49:24

slogger beer is ice

49:26

cold. That's us. They

49:28

didn't drink beer like that back then. All

49:30

of this, when

49:33

I read a craft brewer say, America has no

49:35

brewing heritage, history or traditions

49:37

of our own. And in some cases,

49:39

we're only just now creating it. I'm like,

49:42

oh no, there was a first revolution

49:44

that influenced the world. Your revolution is

49:47

influencing it the same way in that

49:49

first half century compared to what they did. It's

49:51

just that we don't celebrate, acknowledge or even

49:54

understand it happened.

49:55

Interesting. Well, Greg,

49:58

I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you. so much

50:00

again for being here. Yeah, thanks very

50:02

much. Appreciate the opportunity. Thanks, Fred.

50:05

Today my guest was Dr. Greg Casey,

50:07

former president of ASBC and author

50:09

of the upcoming five-volume set on

50:12

American Adjunct

50:13

Vloggers.

50:14

Thanks again. Appreciate it.

50:20

A big thank you to Dr. Greg Casey for joining

50:22

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