Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance by Richard W. Unger (review)

REVIEWS 308 slow, contemplative read. One is likely to spend a fair amount of time flipping back and forth between the text, endnotes, images and appendices and revisiting the scholars whose work informs this study—Edmund Duffy, Michael Camille, Mary Carruthers, and Caroline Walker Bynum, among others. In this way the book requires patient reading, but that patience is well rewarded by the fascinating breadth of the peripheral information woven in and around Smith’s own carefully researched and intriguing conclusions. CHRISTINE THUAU, French and Francophone Studies, UCLA Richard W. Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press 2004) xvii + 319 pp. Richard Unger’s Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance provides a synthetic , yet in-depth study of the development of beer making and the brewing industry in northern Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Despite the laughs and snickering that that he often hears when first mentioning his study of the history of beer, Unger approaches his subject seriously and with precision, limiting himself primarily to the development and spread of organized brewing, the technological advances that accompanied its growth, and municipal and national interventions. While this book is mostly descriptive, as Unger confesses, he does an admirable job of pulling together the histories of brewing in various cities and regions. Since this study addresses the development of brewing over a long period of time and across a wide stretch of northern Europe, Unger relies both on his own previous research into the history of Dutch brewing and on case studies of brewing in other regions and cities. He also notes that there is a surprisingly large body of information on the history of brewing during this period, though he finds the sources frustratingly quiet on the technical aspects of the practice. Within this rich source material, his interests lead him to focus particularly on tax records to determine the growth of the industry in the cities and countries. Unger opens with a description of the process of brewing and a quick survey of the history of brewing in the ancient world. He then traces the transformation of brewing from an essentially domestic and monastic practice in the early Middle Ages into a commercial industry that spread from northern Germany into the Netherlands, northern France, southern Germany, Scandinavia, and England. This success was predicated on the rise of urban centers, with populations that relied on beer for sustenance but could no longer brew for themselves because the lacked the necessary time and resources. In these regions, beer was often much cheaper in comparison with wine. Additionally, new brewing practices , in particular the spread of hopped beer which required less grain produced a more consistent product. Unger also attributes this growth to improvements in ancillary industries, such as the ability to produce larger copper kettles. In order to conceptualize the development of the brewing industry and to make its growth comparable to other industries, Unger draws upon the stages of industrial production isolated by D. P. S. Peacock in his study of ancient pottery .33 Unger argues that brewing passed through six stages, that were slightly 33 D. P. S. Peacock, Pottery in the Roman World (London 1982). REVIEWS 309 different from Peacock’s eight, during this period: first, the development of a market and production base; second, introduction of a superior product based on a technological change; third, shock from an external source that promoted the introduction of the superior product; fourth, acclimatization to the new technology and new product; fifth, mastery of the new technology yielding a mature industry; and sixth, exploitation of the market. Along with the growth of this industry, Unger addresses the relationships between brewers and local and national governments. He argues that governments were highly involved in the management of the brewing industry because of the tax revenue that it provided. In the early stages, governments sought to reap tax revenues based on the materials that brewers used in production , but as the industry became more commercialized governments had additional concerns. For example, as German towns began to ship beer into markets across northern Europe, many towns and countries (such as Holland) introduced...