This salt is added to beer for the purpose either of correcting an undue acidity of the beer, resulting from improper brewing, or of imparting to it an increased "head," or content of carbonic-acid gas, or for both purposes. The salt is decomposed by the free acid of the beer and the gas liberated, lactate and acetate of soda being left dissolved in the beer. This seems to be purely an American practice; at least I have failed to find any mention of it in European authorities. Some of them mention the use of marble dust or magnesia for the correction of acidity, but very little consideration is given to the subject. In this country, however, it seems to be very widespread. The following extracts are taken from a paper read by Otto Grothe, Ph. D., before the American Society of Public Analysts:1

The Health Department of the city of Brooklyn has for some time carried on investigations with reference to the brewing of lager beer as practiced in that city. The peculiar cathartic effect of some of the Brooklyn beers seemed to indicate the presence of some substitutes, principally for hops. Tbe analysis of such suspicious beer failed, however, to reveal anything of importance, either on account of the absence of such substitutes or because the quantities of beer used were too small. Before going to the expense of purchasing a keg or two from each brewery for the chemical laboratory, Dr. Bartley thought it to be the best to have the breweries, in the first place, inspected. These inspections resulted principally in the discovery of a variety of substances used by beer brewers as clearing and improving agents, the latter being considered the most objectionable. They were sodium bicarbonate, tartaric acid, cream of tartar, isinglass, or gelatine, glucose, grape sugar, juniper berries, and salicylic acid.

Sodium bicarbonate is a substance more regularly used by brewers. * * * The opinion of the brewers about the necessity of this addition is very much divided; while some believe it to be utterly necessary, others say they would rather do without it, as it causes them a heavy expense. They all say, however, they cannot avoid it, because the public wants a perfectly neutral beverage. There is beer in the market which has no addition of bicarbonate. * * * The quantity of soda added varies very much, and we may say in proportion to the quantity of acid contained in the beer. This quantity of acid in the beer depends upon the knowledge and the attention of the brewer. Thus we find that breweries which have clean, well-ventilated, and flushed cellars, in which refrigerating machines are in use, and which are conducted in a scientific way by an expert foreman, can afford to sell their product with less than one-third of the quantity of sodic bicarbonate used by smaller concerns which are not so well conducted and which have not the facilities of their larger competitors.

The largest quantity of bicarbonate used is about 2 1/2 ounces to the keg, or quarter of a barrel. The size of a barrel varies from 31 1/2 to 33 gallons, according to the age, the older kegs becoming smaller by the contraction of the wood. A keg, therefore, contains 8 gallons of beer, or 64 pints, which is considered equal to about a hundred glasses as sold in the beer saloons over the counter. A glass of beer, therefore, contains in some cases three-fourths of a gram of bicarbonate of soda; and as a moderate beer drinker will, under certain circumstances, for instance in hot weather, drink about twenty glasses of beer a day, he takes about 15 grams, or 252 grains of bicarbonate of soda with it. A heavy beer drinker - say, a laborer who works outdoors and who buys the beer by the pint - may consume as many as forty glasses a day, and he takes an ounce of bicarbonate of soda with it. The smallest quantity of bicarbonate of soda used in our breweries is 1 ounce to a half barrel, and the difference in the effect of that addition is a very remarkable one, the beer tasting slightly acid.

1Ann.Rep. Dept. of Health, City of Brooklyn, 1885, p.92.

There cannot be any doubt that large quantities of bicarbonate of soda regularly introduced into the stomach are detrimental to the health. Inasmuch as the lager beer is used as a food by many people, it would be greatly appreciated by intelligent beer brewers and beer-drinkers if the use of bicarbonate of soda could be regulated by the authorities, or, if possible, entirely abolished. By such regulations the unclean brewer would be compelled to either keep his brewery clean, or go out of the business altogether. Such regulations should also be extended to the quality of the metals of the apparatus used in the different brewing processes, so that to the American lager beer the same name can be given as to the German beer, which Justus von Liebig called "liquid bread."

There are several rather misleading statements in the above. Dr. Grothe says in the first place that "the public wants a perfectly neutral beverage," which is open to considerable doubt; and again, "the smallest quantity of bicarbonate of soda used is one ounce to a half of a barrel, and the difference in the effects of that addition is a very remarkable one, the beer tasting slightly acid." If this latter statement is taken in a strictly chemical sense, it is rather paradoxical, for a bicarbonate added, to a liquid of course tends to make it alkaline. What is meant by its tasting slightly acid doubtless is that it acquired a pungency to the taste on account of the liberation of carbonic acid gas from the bicarbonate by the free acid existing in the beer. One of the beers I examined (No. 4816) was actually alkaline in reaction from excess of added bicarbonate, and the taste was far from being agreeable.

I would hardly take so decided a stand as Dr. Grothe in regard to the injury done to the health of the beer-drinker by bicarbonate of soda per se. It may be necessary to explain to a non-scientific reader that the bicarbonate does not remain in the beer as bicarbonate, unless there is an amount added in excess of the quantity of free acid present in the beer. This free acid (mostly acetic in soured beers, but due chiefly to acid phosphates in normal beers) combines with the bicarbonate, setting free carbonic acid, and forming acetate of soda and basic phosphate which remain in solution. The reaction is very similar to that which takes place in using baking powders for cooking purposes, except that in the latter case tartrate of soda and potash (Rochelle salts) is left instead of acetate and phosphate of soda. Where bitartrate of potash is added to the beer along with the soda (as sometimes occurs according to the Brooklyn report) the reaction is precisely the same. In these days of the almost universal consumption of baking powders there is doubtless enough alkaline salts thrown into a man's stomach with his food without pumping them in with his drinks as well. At all events there can be but little question of the propriety of prohibiting the use of bicarbonate of soda in beer. It is entirely unnecessary and foreign to the production or preservation of pure beer. Moreover, its use serves to cover up and hide the effects of poor brewing and improper storing or refrigerating, and should be prohibited from this cause alone if there were no other.