Brewing Science: Technology and Print, 1700–1880 by James Sumner (review)

By the closing years of the nineteenth century, in the wake of Louis Pasteur’s and then Emil Hansen’s work on yeast, science was securely established in the making of beer. James Sumner, in this revised and expanded doctoral dissertation, writes the prehistory of that success. His sources are the various British books on how to make beer, largely by unheralded authors, along with newspaper reports and advertisements as well as articles written in trade and scientific journals, where relevant pieces began to appear around 1850. His close reading makes it possible to trace a long-term shift from reliance on experience to experiment. Eighteenth-century authors typically were either veterans of breweries or writers of a philosophical bent with an inclination to universalize the exception. Each group tended to snipe at the other, with brewers said to lack learning and promoters of chemistry said not to know how breweries worked. The former were suspect since they were unlikely to reveal trade secrets and lose a competitive edge. Logically they would reveal part of what they knew, with more available for a fee through personal consultation or another printed work. The philosophers were suspect because some promoted the use of a measuring instrument in which they had a financial interest. Credibility was a constant problem for all parties.

The barriers between the two groups broke down starting in the last years of the eighteenth century as some authors tried to bridge the gap. From the middle of the nineteenth century, the development of institutions where beer research took place and the publication of findings in journals rather than in treatises gave brewers easy and virtually costless ways to learn about the considerable advances in science. The second half of the nineteenth century may have seen the easiest access in history to improvements in technology, and brewing was no exception. In particular, as there was a consistent concern about the adulteration of food and beer, by the 1840s scientists were able to gain entry to the industry because they offered tests to establish purity. Whereas in the eighteenth century scientists were distrusted as possible quacks or nostrum-mongers who might taint beer, by 1880 they were guarantors of quality and durability.

By systematically examining specific works and specific authors along with their often eventful careers and influence over time, Sumner is able to weave an evolutionary tale with the conflict of philosophy and craft knowledge as the central focus. Those who qualify for praise, like John Richardson, were men able to address a broad readership and persuade practical men to become more philosophically attuned. Concentration on a single type of source creates a highly coherent and consistent study. It does, however, tend to exclude the larger context, most notably the commercial fortunes of the brewing industry. For example, while there is some concern for general developments in chemistry, the surprising fact that virtually all substantive advances in brewing science were imported from the Continent gets no consideration. On the other hand, Sumner describes the presence of laboratories in breweries at Burton on Trent at least twenty years before Pasteur’s work was published, including their low profile. Brewers were afraid people would think the work in those small rooms was directed at finding ways to adulterate the product. That beer was something people consumed and that it was produced from various organic compounds certainly made it harder for scientists to contribute to advances in production methods at that time, another avenue of investigation opened in the book but not pursued.

The book’s layout is careful, with descriptions of the directions to be taken and frequent headings for sections. While that choice of format makes for simpler reading, space is absorbed which might have served to expand the scope of the work. Separating the works on beer published before 1880 from the others listed would have made the bibliography more useful.

Brewing is an ideal subject for historical examination, as its history combines...