so Chapters ods all worked to their advantage. Presumably specialist urban brewers had nore chance than did their rural counterparts to practice and to experiment sural brewing did not the Low Countries, for exam ple, may have benefit sw materials for brew ing. In England as in the Netherlands, brewing remained almost universal" Urban brewers, however, did prove able to distinguish the beet they made from the ‘The urban product was superior, but it was also more expensive, as much as 50 percent moi England in 1272." Though distribution to the countryside might be possi Dutch and English towns there was no sign of innovation i the production of beer. The technology urban brewers used was very much that which their rural counterparts used. Brewers in the growing popule- on centers had taken a domestic chore, increased the scale of production, bution of the product. The household industry of. ‘owns first by the stage of individual work- among produc for the relatively higher quality of the produ Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries made pos sof beet making, Changes inthe scale and in person changes in the product or the biochemistry of producing were not mirrored beer. As late as 1300, despite the larger scale and wider distribution of bee produced in towns, shipment of both supplies and final products took place over short distances. Brewers got their raw materials locally and sold their ber to constumers directly in the same town or the nearby countryside, and they sold it quickly. The industry changed dram: in the closing years of the thirteenth and in the course of the fo the introdu of a new kind of drink, a beer made not with gruit but with hops. The use hops would start the sccond phase in the long-term development of northern European brewing, marking the transition from the period of preparation to that of product innovation. Chapter 4 Hopped Beer, Hanse Towns, and the Origins of the Trade in Beer Europeans cultivated hops (He 1) for centuries before hopped beer became a trade good and then became the beverage of ‘choice for brewers and drinkers in the Low Countries, France, and England, Romance languages. Europe combined tion suggests that «1 and use of the plant spread from ce west and south. For the Greeks, hops was wild plant but Romans raised hops in vegetable gardens, using it for flavoring. Pliny the Elder recommended hops as an aid for liver problems, and Strabo mentioned medical benefits from ‘ating hops? Romans considered wild hop tendrils « delicacy, eating them as people now would cat asparagus and, perhaps, even using the word asparagus for hops. Isidore of Seville, writing in 624, mentioned hops.’ A Renaissance f often claimed that he did.* Apparently Celts, who cert ‘even know the plant since they had no word for preclassical and classical brewers did not use hops to flavor their bes did, it was only rarely. Hops and Making Beer Carolingians made beer with hops. The princi the early Middle Ages appear to have been medicinal. In 768 gardens, are listed in a document describing a gift from Charlemagne’s father,54 Chapter 4 h of St. Denis, The abbey of St. Germain-des- Pres to the monastery from a number of estates. A late ninth-century document from the abbey of St. Remi also mentions hops, apparently being moved ies. So hops were widely known in pe by the eighth century, raised at the very least in the gardens of ies. At the abbey of Freisingen in Bavaria from 859 to 875 and h hop gardens and from the mid- Remi, Lobbes, and St. Germain’ Thet some turning up as part of a cargo of a mid-tenth-century vessel excavated along the coast of Kent in England. The type of hops and where they were found in the boat indicate that they were cargo and presumably being imported, Hops have been found in excavations of York in England, b cate that ninth-century brewers and id used hops. Archeological evidence of hop finds across western Europe tends to support the extremely sparse written evidence from the ninth century on. Hops c the use ofhops in beer spread locations. It appears that hopped beer brewing, at least on a large ale, began in the big monast ingian era. The prominent Car- igian abbot Ad down detailed methods for the Preparation and context of brewing cervisia, Abbot ‘Ansegis of Wandril Iked about beer made with hops. Making beer ‘with hops may have been common in large establishments in England by the tenth century,” Hops grew in monastic gardens in Germany in the eleventh the first third of the twelfth century. Hops grew in ily by 1206 and probably by 1180. Hops appears in half of the thirteenth century and in Norwegian . The first specific mention of hops in Sweden ‘on of the plant possibly introduced by Cistercian ‘monks. Raising hops first turns up in records from Finland in 1249 at a monas- tery in Turku, but linguistic evidence supports the view that it was cu by 1000 and probably much earlier in that part of Europe.* Archeologi the years ige over a large area of northern in quantity. The number jumps n mote in the years after 1000. law at about the same comes from 1296, the cul Advice from the medical pra around 106 and acco Europe and had different uses, among them replaci the making of beer. Hops gave beer gre hopped beer was the absence of hops, ‘ol content, hopped beer could be sas not as sweet and took less grain to make since grain was the source of material for ferm: That implied lower production costs but also imp! tion of foods was one of the greatest Europe. The addition of hops in ‘now joined the few foods that would keep for months with- ‘out becoming inedible. If hopped beer was so super: time for brewers to adopt the new additive and us. ly. for the delay. The took such a long can be assessed by appearance, f sense of the aroma of the century that there was recog be picked around the first September to get the most from them. The56 Chapter 4 to be dried as quiekly as pos How much hops to us the mash tun and the sulpha be reduced if the hops are ground, but the grinding can also harm the the beer. How long the wort is boiled with the hops can vary depending on th of the wort and the quantity of the hops. Spent of those facts except ick up by trial and error. Brewers had to find o advantages from hops and they mi ber of things to get lems. Only after a number of t to look for and how to use hops and be able to pass that knowledge 0 as the thirteenth century, then ce in the presence of the malt and might have even been before mashing began. Such circumstances could have only confused brewers about the cor e roduet, I as increasing the chance of infec vessels meant greater capital investment and that constraint may have slowed the adoption of hops. In Finland, brewers apparently added hops after the uch practice was t was during i that hops were p: in some of the heated wort or in hot water. In some cases cred into the in a sack or something in the form of a hamper made of straw as at Haarle solved the problem of getting the hops ut quickly. Otherwise the wor ed to separate out the hops and other ‘The strainer in the simplest form could be some twigs ve the beer some flavor, the exact flavor depending on the type of twigs used.” Producers had trouble with hops and apparently so did consumers. Drinkers took time to acquire a taste for hopped beer. The drink had to com- jhich was more than aeceptabl ‘make, and served the purpose of an alcoholic beverage of some purity proved durable in areas where bog myrtle grew, 1 ern Europe. The philosopher Albertus probably produced hea terror but yielded higher son to worry about preserva beer with hops, n es. Monastic brewers were cera the use and value of the pl Commerce in Hopped Beer ty of the years after 1200 was Wismar, and ade. As early as the hops taxed the gardens. By th century, the towi lages in Poland. Labeck at about the same time also had to look outside the town for cers,Figure 5. Hop garden on the edge of Rostock, from the Vicke Schorlers scroll 1578-1586. By that date urban hop gardens were ‘common in north German towns. Vike Schorler, Warhaftge Abcontrafactur der hochloblichen und weithecumten alten See- und Hensestadt Rostock Heuptstadt im Lancle zu Mecklenburgh, 1578-1586. Courtesy of Archiv der Hansestatelt Rostock, 302.1.135000, That disaster became an oppo: trade the hopped beer in the fourtee before the first and Hamburg, erlands market it certainly was, ly to Hamburg. The is der access to grain sup. (0 hops from small towns around the Baltic, and to sea. The town of Bremen export market in the southern seems to have been fi Low Countries but was superseded as in the course of the fourteei and so was being reach Groningen and the towns iesland and those along the River60 Chapter 4 {jssel in the northern Low Countries. Over time, Hamburg beer tended to replace it, and traders shipped so much Hamburg beer that only grain was a ‘more frequently carried good. While Wismar beer tuens wp in import records in the west Frisian town of Enkhuizen in 1448, it rarely appears fier that, pre- sumably because it too was swamped by Hamburg beer.” By the fifteenth cen- tury, imports from Hamburg were so common that Hamburg beer was a ‘generic term forall beer from northern Germany. Hamburg and the Beer Trade It is dificult to estimate the scale of beer production in Hamburg ia the thir- teenth century when it became a center of brewing. By the mid-fourteenth century it is possible to make a guess at production of about 25,000,000 liters pet year for both export and domestic use. Figutes for export before that period and for total production in subsequent years are more reliable (sce ‘Table a). They indicate how big the industry was in Hamburg and also how important export was to the industry. Ina survey of 1376, lost in a fre in 1842, 1075 Hamburgers stated their trade and of those 457, oF 43 percent, said they were beer brewers. Of the 457, 126 suid they were brewers for Amsterdam while 55 worked especially for Stavoren, Even those impressive figures understate the importance of the beer trade to Hamburg, Not all ofthe brewers were identified in the survey. The listing docs, however, suggest that by the third quarter of the thirteenth century there was 4 clear division between brewers for local use and brewers for export, a divi- sion which later regul malize. A number of Hamburg export brewers were known in the town as suppliers of Amsterdam and a few ‘TaMun , HAMBURG BEER, PRODUCTION AND EXPORTS, 1360-1540. IN LITERS Date “Total Ps ‘Total Exports 8,700,000 5,600,000 (to Amsterdam only) 13,260,000, 24,000,000 37,500,000, 9,000,000 (to the Low Countries only) 18,250,000 37,500,000 10,000,000, 28,000,000 ddeusche Brangeverbe, 1 18,46 Stk, “Die Hamburger Zollbucher von 99/00 Towns 6 Hopped Beer, as suppliers of Stavoren.?* The latter was a small port in Friesland,which Amsterdam completely eclipsed by the fifteenth century. Hamburg mer paid only a very light tax on beer brought into Holland. Th zo duty and the German merchants also were free of tax on some other items rge quantities. Hamburg traders shipped so much of thei if sales were in beer through Amsterdam and concentrated so much on the beer trade that they remained aloof from the organization of Hanse merchants at Bruges in Wf a separate and much smaller organization. Using the proportions of the survey, 47 percent of Hamburg exports went to Amster- dam, 20 percent to Stavoren, and the remaining 33 percent elsewhere in no em and eastern Europe. Bighty-four of the ipa trade in 1376 nders. Another thity-fiv sald they were merchants de have relied on the beer trade extensi 1 of goods for exchang 1376, Hamburg had no less than 104 master coopers." Many of them produced barrels for the brewers and so relied on the thriving brewi any merch Records of an Amsterdam import toll on Hamburg beer from 1523 give some indication of the total volume of fourteenth-century Hamburg beer exports. The average annual shipment from Hamburg to dated ‘That was more than 20 percent of total Hambury ‘more than half ofall Hamburg exports (see chose to funnel beer imps goal by the way he set t became so important, but trade must have made an important contribution to her commerci ‘ment. The income to the sizeable contribution to when Hamburg brewers shifted from exporting dark beer to a lighter one of higher quality. Shippers had to move about 5,600 tonnes of beer along the coast to [Amsterdam on average each year. ‘The vessels Hamburgers used in the trade ‘were approximately 40 to 50 tons, that is in the middle range of ocean: ships of the day. The biggest of ships from the north German ports would gone direct dam and he a Is. His decision docs not explain why the town her early years in the fourteenth century the beer develop. to multiple voyages move beer alone. Ships did not s short, some six months for the year 1352 not by much, aver the rest of the century. Some skippers and ships obviously“The agents were pr ely so, There sively associated ge of goods and could bet in beer, In the fourteenth century, some 40 perce64 Chapter 4 income in Hamburg could be attributed to the brewing industry. Hamburg exports rose between 1369 and 1417, but compared to the previous century beer brewing was probably of ess importance to Hamburg. After the second decade of the fifteenth century, internal difficulties and wars disrupted the Hamburg, economy, affecting brewing. But as late as 417, and even well beyond that date, Hamburg brewing was still prosperous.® The 457 professional brewers of 1357, increased to some 520 in the fifteenth century. Though that figure was high, reflecting Hamburg’s position in the beer trade, other north German towns hhad a large number of people making beer. At Bremen there were 300 brewers in the carly fifteenth century, Erfurt had about 250, Wismar and Leipzig some 200 each, and Lilbeck 180." significant number of those in port towns, like their Hamburg counterparts, brewed for export. Beer Sales in Flanders Though merchants and shippers from the Hanse towns might sell beet Groningen, Friesland, and Holland, their real goal had always been the large urban centers in Brabant a lly Flanders to the south, In 1252 and 1253 to Hanse merchants at Bruges, and the number of visitors rose sharply, including merchants from Bremen who brought beer. Others from towns like Wismar and then Hamburg followed them, supplying a growing market. The Hansards trading to Flanders were subject t0 a tax on beer they sold, as were all foreigners. The tax was called _gruitgeld but their beer had hops and not gruit. Hansards were always required to sell their beer in bulk, with retail sales allowed only in their own houses. ‘The beer Bremen and Hamburg shippers brought to Flanders was heavy, strong, and expensive, It was not a product for the poor, but it was a product, that could generate profits.* People bought Hamburg beer because it was bet- ter, or at the least they thought it was better. It was a matter of taste, What ‘was not a matter of taste was the fact that it lasted longer. Ale made with grat \was a drink for the poor and the sick. Beer was something of a luxury good and so could sustain a certain tax level. The optimum level was something {governments in the Low Countries regularly explored. One result oF the experiments with taxation was sporadic political conflict between the Hansards and Flemish authorities, a common feature of the four- teenth century. In 1360, for example, when Hanse merchants, because of dif- ferences with the count, boycotted the Flemish market, spé given to beer from Hamburg and Bremen to be certain th delivered to buyers south of Folland. In a long list of compli merchants had about the Flemings, probably dating from 1579, the thirteenth attention was Hopped Beer, Hanse Towns 65 was the import tax of one graot that they had to pay on each barrel of beer. A decade later the German merchants were attacking the additional excise tax they had to pay at Sluis, the port of Bruges, and in Flanders. They wantes fixed at no more than eight grooten per barrel and wanted each jurisdiction to have the power to set the rate, presumably thinking that they could use their bargaining power in some ports to drive down the tax. In 1391, at least, they got the excise set at a maximum of eight gi 1398, Hamburg asked that her merchants no longer be charged _groten for each barrel they brought into Bruges or Sluis, claimi tax for local beer so their imports should be exempt, They sa that Hollanders did not have to pay it, though they appear to have been wrong. Only Bremen. beer and aale de Angleteerre were exempt from the fee. The Hamburgers’ 1393 worked, though, and they did get a year free from the tax." did not end the almost continuous efforts of Hamburg and the Hance to get lower taxes, Hanse merchants never from Hamburg to Bruges. Certain by going straight to Flanders, In the 1370s probably less than 10 percent of, Hamburg exports went directly to Flanders. There was some increase after that, with Hamburgers moving more beer all the way to SI diate stops. That would explain the establishment of an organization of agents at Bruges, like the one at Amsterdam, in the closing years of the century, and it would explain the d income from the toll on Hamburg beer at Amsterdam.” Improverents in the design of ships in the fourteenth century lly exercised the opt some beer did avoid the tol is without interme- may have made also had the advantage of avoiding tolls, of avoiding intermediari and of having Flemish cloth easily available to carry back home. One English ‘observer of the eatly fifteenth century said beer went straight to Flanders bu that was beer from Prussia, brought along with bacon which Flemings very much liked. The Prussian beer was probably heavier and stronger but the writer of The Libele of Brelyshe Polycye said it was not expensive. Prussian beer from Gdansk also found a market among Amsterdam merchants, though they may have shipped it on to buyers farther south."* Despite some shift to direct shipment after approximately 1370 the cat~ riage of beer along inland waterways certainly did not disappear, To bring beer to Amsterdam first, and then by rivers and canals to Flanders, was probably always safer than going by sca, The counts of Holl th century promoted the binwesnaart through the county by investing toll income in the improvement of sluices and lacks like those at Spaarndam and Gouda, and so kept the relative eost of moving beer through Holland low, In the fourteenth century, 0 help pay for the wars which brought Friesland under his conteol,66 Chapter 4 to pay a fee for each ent in tolls as they passed charge that the towns nded their export markets and ith consumers in different vas a logical outlet the Baltic coasts of Germany. Fi producing beyond the to Other towns th larger ones like Gd own industries. The them. On the the fourteenth century. Beer from Lubeck, also from Lineberg on acca- oe Gdansk was for the eastern Baltic, Novgorod by efore, and by Wismar beer at ‘There, in 1283, Ki rman beer. The massiv now Sweden inthe pro. for beer even thou © Fishing season trade goods sent from La sterbo wore leg and commercial pressure to dominate trade to was slowly eroded in the last years of the Middle Ages. In 1284 German mer export of grain flour and beer wn gover that brewers had over make each brew, About 1400, year, but by the end of the fi between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 liters. The town even legislated e in the face governments, but it for any lack of eff we export of beer to Denmark in 1363, 1367, 1368, 1422, 1464, 14775 mili-came of the embar- 1s per barrel on German beer and set the sale price at eighteen shillings per barrel so the tax was 22 percent of the selling price. At the same time the Danish import of German beer y found itself incapable of stopping the Danes from visiting serious damage on their beer trade, ‘man shippers sent to r. Imports into Scandinavia may century compared to the previous end in towns throughout Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The in the sixteenth century and the increased urba Which accompanied that growth created an improving market for both domes- th century, another German beer exports to have continued. The Scandinavian ie preserve of the Wendish towns, though Bremen made som: sixteenth century as ts beer was driven out of other markets, From 1577 to 1578 over 93 percent of beer towns along 550, Bergen figure was down to 5,400. After that the trend appears to have reversed. Wismar still had fifty brewers » but g of the Danish beer excise by 1592, the ‘number was up t0 120, Production rose from an annual average of 8,000,000 to 9,000,000 liters in the period 1560-1600 to between 10,000,000 and 000,000 liters per year by 1618. The imported 1 though, 55 percent of Stockholm from Labeck, and 8 percent from ported fro Imports to Stockholm in 1620 were about 565,000 liters, up from the approximately 15,009 liters of 1550. ‘There was also a rise in exports to Scandinavia from Gdansk. ‘There was Hopped Beer, Hanse Towns 69 ion of Brewing in North Germany Over the course of the Hamburg, in the face of the growth and pr instituted a long series of regu 3 trade serve the gene! and unchanging goals were70 Chapter 4 From 1381 01, no one could start up a brewery for export without permis- sion of the town council. Export brewers could produce beer in one house and ‘one house only, though that rule was relaxed slightly in 1435 and more exten- sively in 1g71. In gn, restrictions on exporters were expanded, in essence introducing a licensing system and also, by revoking the right to brew of some producers, decreasing the number and increasing the average size of breweries In the same year the town also set a minimum time between brews. In effec, the government limited output for export. The government was so interested in keeping up the quality of export beer that in the fifteenth century offices were set up near the entrance to the harbor for testing beer, with an officer of the town trying it before it left, After 141 the town punished brewers who tried to export bad beer. In other north Ge uarg, there was often specialization between brewers supplying the domestic market and those making beer for export. Laibeck brewers were divided into one group that pro- duced for local consumption an { produced for export. By the end of the fifteenth century, there were burg and Litbeck, but also in Reval and Wismar against combining production of beer for sales out- side the town and retail sales through the brewer's own outlet ‘The brewing towns controlled prices, setting maximum prices, but often they were more interested in keeping the minimum at a certain level. Ham- burg showed a great interest in mai imum prices the Netherlands and used its legislative powers to keep prices from fal kept up revenues from the sale of beer overseas but that was not the only rea- son for the extensive regulations. Town governments did not want to have the profits of brewers and their own tax income squeezed, either by f of output or by rising prices of raw prices brewing industry grew, pote ‘one source forthe inereasing reg son for the much more restrictive legislation of 1411, The restrictions in general ray also have been an effort on the part of government to prevent overpro: the wide swings in output so typical of export industries in the period: By 1458 the amount of grain that could be used in the production ‘of cach fixed! quantity of beer also came under town regulation. About the same time, Hamburg acted to prevent brewers from develop grain traders, Brewers could only buy and sell as much grain as was needed for their brewing, Presumably the government wanted to prevent any one brewer from gaining an unfair advantage. Similarly, Hamburg insisted that hops be sold only on a market controlled by town officials with no more hops sold than was needed for the making of beer, The purpose was to give all brew- Hopped Beer, Hanse To a xs equal access to raw mate 1 in what could be a critical commodity. Hamburg brewhouses could lose their licenses since the license was attached to the house and not the brewer. That was not true everywhere. At Riga, for example, brewers rather than brewhouses, brewers could work only in their own breweries and could not allove a else to use th ment, They were also required to use only t malt, nade themselves, independent malsters could be an advan- tage to brewers but town regulations espe the development of a separate trade. Hamburg brewers could make no more malt than was needed for making theit beer, and they could not d inthe Baltic, where there was an export trade i «tradesmen developed earlier, bat on and to prevent specu with the permission of town governme: Hamburg regulated its brewers were treated as fixed property, like real estate, and taxed as such, and other ironwork which supported the copper kettle was treated way. ‘That was true in Labeck and Wismar as well. The Hamburg government either by omission or commission succeeded in making brewing a profitable trade with returns ranging from 20 to 30 percent on expenditure in the first among the most prosperous of townspeople. Though those profits had halved by the close of the despite the efforts of the government, brewers still did well comparatively. {At Bremen, another major export center of north Germany, reased dramatically in the fourteenth century but even more s0 teenth century. It was presumably Bremen beer being supplanted by the Hamburg product. In the fou century, Bremen shippers, in search of cargoes, cartied foreign beer and imported beers from other towns for cons Bremen. Comps fiom Hamburg beer was so intense that final imports to protect local brewers, though beer imported from the of Einbeck and from Wismar was still allowed. To improve the quality of Bre- ‘men beer and to get back some share of the market, the town, in 1450, ised new regulations on brewing, including a prohibition of brewing after the fourth Sunday before Easter. There were also maxima and minima set for the amount of barley malt to be used a brew with provision for the substitution of oats if necessary. The revised regulations of 1489 did not men- tion such sul but the requirement that any beer for expott had to be tasted first was finally instituted. Violation of the rule led to the serious penalty of prohibition from brewing for a year. Also no beer for export was to be brewed after St. Urban’s Day (25 May). How that fit with the earlier prohibi- the same72 Chapter 4 F brewing after a certain date in Le sy understood as very important mirrored those in Hamburg loped even closer regulation of wages of beer to the economy of the town. Many re AU Wismar the town government de brewery operations. As early as 1322, the docks for export. The beer ays between brews for those up beer for shipmer ordinance of 1332 set making beer fo to pubs, homes, or had to brew alone, beer was for no one could get could always brew at 1399 the tows could not be exported but could still be sold price. The town fixed t ‘The most extreme protect ion of the import of foreign principal of prot. of casks was Fe asks of other br barrels had to be returned to the source ter being drained. Using barrels of the same size as barr towns enhanced the rsk of imports taking part of the domestic matket. Buta Hopped Beer, Hanse Towns 75 wns in the area agreed to use the Rostock for beer, Even though the casks might have ‘because they carried unique marks. As ea ions, and severity ted by variations in the scale of brewing indus character of urban governments. The most ertical factor, however, in generat~ ing those var ‘was the importance of export in Hamburg and other Hanse ports which and also the methods of the early Middle Ages up through the backward compared to western and much of 1g. The a arkets was to sell bee markets. However, in the fourteet tury, they faced stiff and ull he region, There, too, ind commercial cChapter 5 ‘The Spread of Hopped Beer Brewing: The Northern Low Countries ‘The first phase in the development of northern European brewing hhieved by 1300 w to beer, beer of a et prepared to accept variant types w structure to absorb different types of bect. The second pha ‘of a new product, had been accomplished by brewers in north Ger towns by the thirteenth century. German shippers introduced that superior \ock of imports of Ger- third stage in the ion of grapes and the Europe. The ritual of the Latin Christian church made wine a necessity, so by the thirteenth century it was produced almost everywhere. As a commodity of commerce, wine was adopted ali slovly. By the later Mi thera and ly medieval England, and through lands by the fourteenth century. 7 ler Middle Ages, just as the brewing industry began its jon.' The wines produced in the Rhine and Mo: than those produced farther east shipping them over about as mucl costly as beer. In Hamburg the eat had problems of infection and de Ne o tion of hops which improved quality product, able, some consumers decided, to compete ‘The develop: ly beer with hops made pos groups of men. The imp! west beer was not a common drink. Even though beer was proved highly dura- produced in southern76 Chapter s habits, a Whatever learned people might say, noble: bought hopped beer for their households as a suppleme: ‘wine. By 1350, and probably even by 1300, beer was no longer peasants or servants. The records of the household of the countess of Holland and Hainault showed th 13208 and 3340s. In 1 average each week, at Dordrecht was the comm trade goods there, Wine had a arket because so much came down the he fourteenth century to purchases of, her court drank beer in the thirteen barrels of beer on ing from Hamburg. At that time in some cases by local con- tof preferences from IA sign of other towns to get beer.* Tha be close after 1494, the year the iegbeer. If beer could compete tury as the rel ve price of beer it made further inroads x, intended for port of the fifteenth century, they were at about 15 percent of what they had been first four decades of the previous century. The Hundred Years’ War, which ravaged the played the largest role end of the four- to England never 337. From the mid-fourteenth cen- In the fifteenth century, they, like quality beer. Hopped beer was ‘become something of a sign of. Over the course of the fit tion declined in the Low Co inthe change, the ise in beer consumpt sumption of mead, stil a popul inthe frst half ofthe fit ted beer thanks to the cost ofthe principal raw materi that beer was a threat to sales of mead and sales of wine, ately, it was a threat to the sales of Hamburg hopped beer. ‘The Holland Government and Hopped Beer ym Hanse towns were sizeable enough to drive him to act, making hopped beer brew red the production of the drink because ‘The sales of high-quality beer turb the count of ince to the change to a new at the floo, beer entering Hollan 1¢ him and his suecessors.!* Pre- uct in Holland, His goal was to create a domestic industry ich would replace imports. He made his own interests clear by taxing hopsNorthern Low Cot 78 Chapter 5 Urban brewers in Holland did develop hopped beer prod quickly. By 1526 the town of Deft, which would become am lowing century, had regulat eastern style. The ced the produ 1 October and doing so in a way that wi beer consumption would stay thes hhops, the count required them to pay just as much tax as if they made the ter in the ‘of beer with grui. In 135 the count set the tax on hops at one ‘suggesting that brewers used four times as much hops by volume as they did the ol and perhaps very heavily hopped in those ear ‘ype of beer. guarantee that his income from taxes on half of the \t allowed th that wanted the ppped beer on hand t beer decreased or stopped fo through the high problem of brewers made hopped beer already in 1522, The nev produ penbier, the old one acl. The distinction was continued in England lowing century. The word beer turned teenth in France where the old te changeover at Delft were ni beer supplied 18 percent of 1391-1392, the share was down to 6 percent jorted from Delft, on the other hat income by As and drinking hhopp Local producers throughout equipment was required, jonships. Yet Anglo-Saxons who referring to a fermented drink make from fri stronger than mead or ale, f behind wine in the hierarchy and probably consumed in s sre in Old Norse by the eleventh century probably had the same boiling time needed to pri ‘meaning, that is, a drink made from honey, to distinguish it from df, a drink ‘based on grain. While German lost the word ale in any form, it survived in something of the quality of Brewers could overcome the prob- England and Scandi hopped beer appeared in Scandinavia the Jems of adopting a new new drink got the old name, 6t, In England the new drink German name and so through the Renaissance the old drink ale while the new drink with hops was beer." In the Low Counties rade hopped beer before the new word frst turned up. The delay in eer there, as elsewhere, may have had to do sith more import w method and make mistakes from w' demanded an immediate linguistic response.82 Chapters enjoyed rapid towns in Hel more than 11,000,000 liter increase in prod wo Del 1an 200 breweries, Gouda 157, them were small firms." Those Dutch breweries plied not only the domestic but also a number of for. id Haarlem up to m2. he fifteenth century sup- markets, For exam- By the 1460s, in the face of competition from a number of o proportion was down to around 30 percent, but century, in the 1590, the share was back up to about 65 percent of output, For Goucia, exports were even more important. Around 1500 only 10 percent of beer brewed in the town was consumed there, putting exports at about 15,000,000 liters per year on average.” the towns. The old tax on g Another way for governments to mainta nical change was to convert the gruit tax to tax on beer of any type based ton type or additive, To the south in the rural district, tax on hops was levied 1340 at a fixed fee for each ten barrels brewed. Similar taxes emerged in town after town throughout the county over the next one hundred years. One potential advantage of the change for towns was that es and other institutions which had long enjoyed freedom xx might have had to pay the new slowly in the fourteenth centu sharply. The increases were sustained. The grui tax may have disappeated, but beer made with gruit did not. The old technology remained in place for some or to satisfy poorer consumers Northers Low Countries 83 away. The tax the tax on84 Chapter 5 the the result was a captive market for local brewers and Holland imported beer already in 1376, if not before, and Zwolle in 1370, and 1371. The protectionist taxes in those towns, not far from places Haar ded with the development of the export indus of bet 4 system, only became more complex e. Back in 1274 the count of Holland granted Haarlem the right to levy an excise ofa fixed amount for each brew produced in the town. In 1422, Haarlem brewers asked that the fe, ‘may well have predated the one at Haarlem. It appears that such ea were often temporary, but they were renewed, revived, and then oft t exclusive to beer or wine cither. The 1274 grant to ety of goods such as herring, ne, beer, mead, 1445 The tax was to pay for a program idea was to decrease the risk of fire so the benefits were widespread among the townspeople. The town, higher part of the problem. Admini would prove a productive field for was another part cratic experiment. ‘The transformation to brewing hopped beer brewing generated rising tax income for Low Countries towns. It also made towns dependent on, almost addicted to beer taxes because they became 90 important to urba the budgets of jerest on the part of urban goven beer and bre obvious and increasingly pro result was greater town regulation of more and more aspects of everything that brewers did. In the closing years of throughout Europe expanded th outs of doing business and on its stan i was the first to be encased in a mass of le ‘which fist emerged in. Hamburg and other north jons to guarantee the ‘excise taxes due on beer were paid in full. Regulations were to be repeated many times. So, too, were rules on smuggling in beer tax and on serving beer outside the town walls, the effective city limits. Brewers were to consumers so officials could have 8, be ot paid. Brewers were allowed to keep a small portion of the beer they made tax free, but that was only for their own consumption. The scope of the actions of ofli- cials responsible for the brewing industry increased as towns increased the s3p2 already had the 1 e Volume of beer being made was w house of each brewer to check that thelaw. At Dordrecht ing another important and recurring issue, they said, had to be of the correct standard si brand burned into them.” Schiedam brewers re same time. Beer and Dutch Economic Growth,86 Chapter 5 the diffi teenth and through t ‘opment in hopped beer brew development in the fifteenth. Hanse ports earlier and which would be brewing was by 15 1 the rapid economic growth wl to so many other parts of Europe, in the fo Holland enjoyed, in co! jenth and the first half of the general went through a broad th century, A umber of ojects undertaken over centuries meant that the been extensively reclaimed and now wer northern Netherlands and in the beer may not have been the primary cause forthe i of Holland in the fifteenth century, but it was ce important. Dutch breweries increase 1450 because they produced beer of in economic importance ly among the most century and a half preceding or at least of a quality equal competitors from Hanse towns, they cauld dominate their dome L Imports from Hamburg and the rest of Germany declined. Wars beginning in 1396 led to disruption of trade in the North Sea well into the second decade of, the fifteenth ce i that and despite disputes between Holland and beer. The Duke of Burgundy became count of Holland in 1428. His powerful ities and his suecessful conclusion of the Wendish ‘War against the principal Hanse towns in 1441 finaly brought a period of sta- bility and peace along the trading routes of the North Sea, During that war the Estates of Holland had issued a prohibition of the import or sale of any beer brewed in any enemy town, Lubeck, Rostock, Stralsund, Wismar, and even Hamburg beer was included," German beer exporters found it dificult t0 recover from that complete closing of the market, By 1445, with peace restored, the income from the Amsterdam toll on beer imports was lier levels. Hamburgers ‘excise taxes in a number of Holland towns which d imported beer, exports of Hamburg beer for Holland and Zeeland we e, been directed exclusively through Amsterd ‘other than the tax struc lay the most from hopped beer brewed in Hol ality of export beer from Hamburg and fro from Flanders and from Nor direction from Haarlem to to) Sea coast. ‘That was to becor ‘on. Asign of the cl ng of, and the market for, hopped beer was ut sno market for the could be raised by farmers in sm aceess to the plant. The autho the beer made in the country for domestic cons88 Chapters income of many potential beer consumers in the towns. The Brewing in the northern Law Co centuries changed from bei the early Middle Ages, idle Ages, to ated workshops. The cluster large number of producers ier access to raw mate ibution of their products elficiency if nothing ‘The brewers used middlemen or agents to ide: among those brewers and in Holland among the towns which were so close to each other yielded ever imented with hops in the fourt 1380 thi 1 industry in the of hopped beer of an extensive trading 1 access to markets for sal, laid Chapter 6 The Spread of Hopped Beer Brewing: The Southern Low Countries, England, and Scandinavia \ce Dutch brewers began to make hopped beer and s 1364 the bishop of ity to fifty years a a tax on hopped beer, fir he insist ness t0 received. thuse, to tant r van Gru inthe same year Bruges got the owner of gruirect, Jan v Jease brewers from compulsory purchase of gruit. The most impor- of g Braba he levying ofa tax on bees hops at 's-Hertogenbosch, ‘The grant appears to have applied throughout the county. At Diest brewers began to use hops at about the same