We come now to what I consider the most important sophistication of beer at the present day and the most reprehensible and most deserving of repressive legislation. The use of artificial preserving agents not only introduces foreign matters into the beer which are more or less injurious, according to the nature of the material used, but also serves to cover up and hide the results of unskillful brewing or unfit materials; giving to the public for consumption a liquor, that, if left to itself under natural conditions, would have become offensive to the senses and putrid with corruption long before it was offered for sale.

The only means of preservation allowed by the authorities in Germany and France is the process called, from the name of its author, "Pasteurization." This process is entirely rational and commendable, as it conduces to the preservation of the beer by destroying the germs of unhealthy ferments, not by simply paralyzing their activity as antiseptics do, and moreover it introduces no foreign constituents into the beer. Liquid carbonic acid is also coming into use in some of the larger Continental breweries.

1 See Appendix A.

Other preservative agents extensively employed at the present day are salicylic acid, bisulphite of lime, and boracic acid.