OFFICIAL ANALYSES OF BEER IN PENNSYLVANIA
The American Brewers’ Review – 1899
The Department of Agriculture of the State of Pennsylvania publishes the results of analyses made by Dr. F. T. Aschman, of Pittsburgh, of 27 samples of beer brewed and sold in Pennsylvania, where the doctor states his conclusions in the following interesting manner:
“Looking over these results, we find two facts especially noticeable: that the old definition of a true beer will no longer hold good for the majority of the beers sold within our State; and that in many instances preservatives and carbonating and ‘improvers’ are used, to prevent the spoiling of the beer or to aerate or improve it. According to all authorities, beer should be a beverage obtained by fermentation, partial or complete, without distillation, from barley malt, hops, yeast and water. The results obtained especially the percentages of extract, albuminoids, ash and phosphoric acid, indicate that in a large proportion of our beers rice, corn and grape sugar are substituted to a great extent for malt made from barley. This practice has grown to an enormous extent in our country and is partially due to the demand on the part of the American public for a light-colored sparkling beer. The use of grape sugar and other saccharine substances is the most objectionable specified, as they are entirely lacking in the important mineral and nitrogenous principles of the malt and other grains.
“The use of preservatives and ‘improvers’ is also, unfortunately, practiced to a considerable extent and is undoubtedly the most important adulteration of beer, and one which should be prohibited, ferreted out and punished wherever found. These materials are objectionable for many reasons: They introduce foreign and often deleterious substances into the beer; permit the marketing of badly brewed or spoiled articles, and they prevent the public from judging of the true character of such spoiled beers when they are really unfit for consumption.
“I have not been able to detect in the samples of beer examined any substitute for hops – at least, not with certainty; although in one or two cases foreign bitter principles seemed to be indicated, but could not be further investigated for lack of material and time.
“One rather remarkable result obtained is the low average per cent of alcohol in the samples examined. The published analyses of American beers place the average amount of alcohol at 4½ per cent. and over, some of them showing as much as nearly 7 per cent, while the samples here reported show an average of but 4.005 per cent of alcohol, and none of them more than 4.56 per cent.
Crescent City Brew Talk 