Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (review)

The role of alcohol attracts growing interest in late medieval and Renaissance studies, as evident from several recent monographs (A. Lynn Martin, Alcohol, Sex, and Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe [2001]) and essay collections (A Pleasing Sinne: Drink and Conviviality in Seventeenth-Century England, Ed. Adam Smyth [2004]). Richard W. Unger's survey of beer and brewing provides a highly welcome contribution to this emerging field.

The introduction sketches the book's scope and empirical foundations. Northern Germany, the Low Countries, and England provide the framework for a comparative examination of sources focusing, above all, on the regulation, taxation, and organization of the brewing trade. Fourteen chapters familiarize readers with its chronological origins, long-term development, and socioeconomic significance. Twenty-two illustrations range from drinking vessels in twelfth-century manuscripts to William Hogarth's famous juxtaposition of "Gin Lane" and "Beer Street" in 1751. Much useful quantitative material appears in the form of tables, shedding light, e.g., on the number of breweries in northern European towns, the varying sizes of kettles, and the (often staggering) share of town income from taxes on beer. A bibliography (curiously not subdivided into primary sources and secondary literature) and a general index are also included. The publisher could be congratulated on offering high value for money, were it not for the infuriating insistence on separate endnotes, which turns the reading of academic books into an artificially cumbersome exercise.

Unger stresses the fundamental "otherness" of preindustrial times (by contrasting the modern leisure business with the nutritional necessity of beer consumption in the past) and offers perceptive discussions of aspects as diverse as fermentation types, medicinal uses of alcohol, and the social eminence of brewers in many towns. He distills a wealth of information into a series of important conclusions. Perhaps the most striking insight is the critical role of hops in the evolution of the industry. Occasional home brewing continued throughout the centuries, but by 1300 more and more "ale" (using gruit — a somewhat mysterious combination of herbs — as its principal additive) came out of workshops run by specialist craftsmen. From the later Middle Ages, a new product with a new ingredient — hopped "beer" — embarked on a meteoric rise, fostering the emergence of larger-scale operations and marginalizing smaller players such as the English alewives (a process studied in detail by Judith Bennett). The sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries brought increasing formalization and professionalization, great prosperity for major brewers, and an expansion of "beer boundaries" westward and southward, i.e., from the northern German heartlands into northern France and almost to the fringe of the Alps. By about 1650, however, problems like high taxation, lack of innovation, and mounting competition by brandy, spirits, and "tropical" beverages caused stagnation and even crisis, at least in most of the case studies featured here. Fortunes changed again in the nineteenth century, when new energy sources and technological breakthroughs (refrigeration) allowed year-round mass production.

The author summarizes his book as a "primarily descriptive" compilation of evidence to guide "future work on beer making" (xiii–iv). This objective has undoubtedly been achieved. Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is very strong on production, regulation, and professional organization and will become an essential point of reference for comparative studies in these areas. It is weaker on the consumption and wider cultural implications of beer. We hear little about convivial drinking and public houses, for instance, even though the former provided a ubiquitous "social lubricant" (2) and the latter multifunctional service centers in premodern communities (according to seminal works by Hans-Conrad Peyer, B. Ann Tlusty, and Gunther Hirschfelder). Historians of crime might want to balance the somewhat rosy picture of alcohol sketched here with plentiful evidence for drink-related violence and financial hardship in court records. Given the focus on northwestern Europe, furthermore, distinctive features of other beer regions (e.g., the princely wheat beer monopoly...