"BEER is a light, narcotic, alcoholic beverage, which charms us into a state of gladness and soft hilarity; it protects our hearts against stings of all kinds, awaiting us in this valley of misery; it diminishes the sensitiveness of our skin to the nettles and to all the bites of the numberless, detestable human insects that hum, hiss, and hop about us.

" The happy mortal who has selected beer as his preferred stimulant imbeds greater griefs and joys in soft pillows; surely thus being wrapped up he will be able to travel through this stormy life with less danger.

" Yes, I find such a perfection of forms, such a softness and ductility of the tissue in the pale juice of barley, that I, to express its physiology with a few words, might say: ' It is to us in our lifetime like a wrapper which enables our fragile nature unendangered to reach the safe port'"

This quotation is a verbatim translation from a book, The Hygiena of Taste, by the world-famous Italian physician and physiologist, Paolo Montegazza.

Nobody will to-day declare that Lager, as we usually call it, has not had the greatest influence upon the development of nations, especially those of German descent.

We do not mean Germans proper of the present time, but all those nations that trace their origin back to the German tribes that wandered, during the fourth and fifth centuries, over the entire part of Europe, and even crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into Africa.

Yet we would be mistaken to believe that beer was unknown to the ancients.

Sophocles and Æschylos, those famous Greek tragedians, Diodorus of Sicily, Pliny, the greatest representative of natural philosophy of Roman times, and others, already mention the beer (in Greek, zythos).

Famous breweries were at Pelusium in lower Egypt, the Beeropolis of the ancients, as nowadays are Munich in the Old, and New York, St. Louis, and Milwaukee in the New World.

The Egyptians made their beer from barley. The secrets of brewing after Egyptian prescriptions were imported into the south and north of Europe by the Phenicians. Greeks, Romans, and Gauls enjoyed their lager: the Romans called it, uniformly with the Gauls, Cerevisia, from Ceres, the goddess of field fruits. The old Saxons and Danes were extremely fond of it, and counted drunkenness from it as one of the highest rewards awaiting them in Walhalla, their Paradise, where reside Odin's heroes.

An old German story has it that Gambrinus, king of Brabant, was the inventor of beer, and it is in consequence of this that the brewers revere this mythical king as their patron.

In Germany, beer was introduced at large during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, although already six centuries ago we find the beer in Germany mentioned; we dare not omit the phrase of Tacitus in his Germanis that the Suevians enjoyed a beverage made by fermentation of grain.

For instance, we find in a law collection of the "Ale-mannians, a German tribe residing on both sides of the Rhine, from Basel to Mayence, the remark that every one belonging to any parish was obliged to give fifteen gallons of beer to the parson.

Charlemagne also here did not underestimate the value of it; for he called the best brewers to his court and also gave orders how to brew.

Since 1482, a heavy beer has been made in the monasteries of Germany; it was of two kinds, a better quality for the Fathers and a cheaper one for the convent.

In the sixteenth century, the brewing business of Germany ranked very high and beer was one of the chief exports of this country.

The Thirty Years' War destroyed this industry. The public prosperity faded and the quality, the reputation of the beer and the demand for it were likewise diminished.

Up to that time beer was made in smaller villages in every household; after it, especially in lower Germany and the Netherlands, a specific brewery business was created, which flourished mainly in Ghent, Brugge, and Brussels; Ratisbon and Ulm were the brewing centres of South Germany.

In cities where, on account of the lack of good cellars, etc., it was difficult to make good and palatable beer, the city authorities ordered beer in casks from abroad, and these were put on draught in public places, built expressly for this purpose.

All persons having visited the old country are aware of the existence of so-called " Rathskellers," as for instance in Bremen, Lubeck, Salzburg, etc. These cellars owe their origin to this arrangement of the city government; yet these public places changed afterward from beer into wine depositories.

Some beers of that time acquired a very great reputation, as those of Brunswick, Eimbeck, Merseburg, Bamberg, etc.

In England were the better beers, as ale and porter, not manufactured before the end of the last century; up to that time the English drank beer resembling the so-called " Convent Beer " of Germany.

In the second half of our century the breweries changed into beer factories. The increasing prosperity after the close of the Napoleonic wars and the foundation of duty-treaties between the different states increased the riches of the nations and were of enormous influence upon the quality and demand of beer.

At present the Bavarian beer is thought to be the best, and the methods followed there are accepted in the greater part of Europe - except England and the specific wine countries - in North America and Australia, nay, even in Turkey, the inhabitants of which country congratulate themselves that in Mohammed's time nothing was known concerning brewing, or Mohammed certainly would have prohibited his followers from enjoying this beverage as well as the wine. Bismarck, "The Man of Blood and Iron," made once the remark: "Beer renders people stupid." But the same man did not hesitate to use and enjoy it himself, especially at his receptions of the members of the Reichstag in the Chancellor's Palace, and we still await reports that the use of beer has badly affected his mental capacities.

During the last three decades new rivals to the Bavarian beer have arisen in Austria, at Schwechat and at Pilsen, and last, but not least, in the great brewing centres of the New World.

The world-wide importance beer has won is best illustrated by the different papers devoted expressly to brewing purposes, as: The American Brewer, New York; Der Bierbrauer, Chicago; The Bavarian Brewer, Munich; The Beerbrewer, Leipsic; The Bohemian Beer-brewer, Prague, and others.