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іншыя артыкулы

Панамі будзеце, панамі!
Беларусь на Верхняй Волзе
Беларусь і Цюрых у XVI ст.

History & Traditions

Over the last three centuries, the interest in the history of foreign and domestic beers has noticeably increased in the world. The light Pilsner lagers have become tiresome, and now, fastidious beer lovers are looking for newer and newer sensations.
However, there’s nothing new under the sun... So it’s no wonder that connoisseurs’ curiosities are turning toward the renewal of beer traditions that can take them back to the pre-industrial epoch. 
One by one, “micro-breweries” are opening and offering beer lovers a taste of what their predecessors drank long ago. The nearly-forgotten beer customs are being resurrected in festivals and demonstrations of the most exotic kind... One seller touts that he has reproduced the flavor replica of the Royal Faraons’ beer, and another seduces his clients with the forgotten taste of the Vikings’ ancient Ale...

An ignorant person may say that Belarusians have nothing to restore. And we wouldn’t try to convince them that ancient Belarus was considered a center in world beer thought, where brewers from Europe came to get their know-how. But we can’t present its past as imbued completely in black; somehow, sometimes, it presents today’s darling consumers with taste nuances and technological research that are in step with the modern industry; and sometimes even with curious, entertaining events that are remembered while drinking with good, old friends. Unfortunately, Belarusian brewers rarely use the Belarusian beer past for commercial gain. One cannot say that Belarusians lack the raw materials to create their own Legendary Beer—even if it’s not as magnificent as the legends that Czechs, Englishmen, or Bavarians have. But this could be something of their own—specific and unique. Besides all of today’s economic and technical problems, Belarusian beer lacks a reliable genealogy, self-dignity, and inner nobility.

There was a time when one beer poured like water. During 16th and 17th century Belarus, as it was in all of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, beer was an indispensable beverage - especially on the tables of members of the higher classes. Drinking water was not popular at all. This is explained by poor sanitation technology during medieval times. The Brest cashtelyan, Martin Matuszevicz (mid 18th century) complains in his diary, “There was no beer, and I had to drink water. This is why I’ve been swallowed by melancholy and have begun to weaken in health”. Thus, beer was recognized as a product of the first necessity. People of all classes drank it; even a serf could drink up to 100 liters a year. But the connoisseurs were considered the Fuhrman and Roman Catholic Priests. During compulsory summer work, landowners had to provide their lads with “bread and beer”. The standard daily beer allotment for a lad was a “garnets” (app. 2.8 liters). In other words, into the throat of a member of the Polish, Belarusian and Lithuanian gentry was poured between 700 and 1000 liters of beer each year! Even modern Czechs, who are the world’s winners in beer drinking at 160 liters per head a year, would be surprised at such an uncontrollable thirst. And Belarusians would also be surprised to compare the medieval amounts with their shy 20 liters per head.

Beer was an indispensable ingredient in Polish and old-Belarusian cuisine. Hot beer with honey or poppy milk, sausages boiled in beer, and most importantly, various beer soups never left one’s table. Over several hundred years, until the beginning of the 19th century, breakfast for a member of the gentry always included a special beer soup, dressed with raw eggs, sour cream, or cottage cheese. The soup is called “gramatka” or “faramushka”. The beer, heated with pieces of hard bread, replaced coffee and tee on medieval tables.

Beer that was made in Polish landowners’ places was different due to its high quality. A tripod, a pot (or a jug with a narrow neck and arched hands), a vat or a tub - were all simple equipment necessities for home-made brewing. 
Peasant brewers did not possess any peculiar mastership, and were sometimes underhanded in their brewing. This is why old economical treatises and inventories of important manors often included detailed instructions how to control home-bred brewers. However, already by the end of the 17th century, there were attempts to adapt advanced European technologies. In 1673, in Slutsk, the book “Gospodarz Inflandski” by Jan Hermann was published in Polish. The book was a German translation of the rational administration dissertation that was the first source in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to offer a systematical technology for beer brewing. Later, it was re-published several times—the last time, in Minsk of 1823. The most exemplary households in Belarus of the 18th and 19th centuries were also famous for their brewing. These households belonged to popular artists and patrons of the arts. For example, the Logoisk brewer of the Tishkevitches Counts and the Schors brewer of the Khreptovitches Counts (near Novogrudok) were famous for its hops. Beer was always a source of good profit, and sometimes, a part of the profit was used for noble purposes. The prosperous Vilna merchant of the beginning of the 16th century, Bogdan Onkov (sponsor of the Bible publication by F.Skorina), earned a significant part of his reaches by renting beer pubs in Mozir, Rechitsa, Bobruisk and Orsha. It’s also interesting to know that in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, there was a complicated system of signs that allowed one to determine, from a distance, what kinds of drinks were sold in a pub.

Ordinary beer, as a rule, was a lighter one, although muddy and decomposable. It was weak, with only 2-3% alcohol. But it’s true that sometimes the beer was made stronger, with 6% or even 10% alcohol. 
There was another kind of beer - Tisch Bier (“table beer”) - a drink made from repeated mashing after wort decantation. Almost all the old Belarusian beer words came from German brewers: brovar (“brewery”), oznitsa (“malt kilt”), or März beer (“March beer”). March beer was, more or less, the only stable drink among the ancient kinds that were made in March.

Medieval brewers had some interesting successes. For example, they experimented bravely with beer ingredients. To make beer frothier, they added peas to it –this was one of the regional brewing peculiarities in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which comprised Lithuania and Belarus. In Lithuania, “pea beers” have survived even until today. Much more popular in old Belarus than today was wheat beer (or “white” beer)—a relative of the famous Bavarian Weissbier and Flemish Witbier. In our country today, wheat beer is only made at the Rakauski Brovar brewpub in Minsk. But even there, this beer is not tasted by more than 1% of Belarusians. To compare: a modern Bavarian drinks more than 25 liters of wheat beer per year (this is more than a quarter of the total beer consumption).
Instead of hops, they used various flavorings such as juniper berries (at present, such beer, sahti, is made only in Finland and Estonia), and wild rosemary (this beer is made nowadays only at the small Thisted Bryghus factory in the Dutch town of Thisted). 

In the highest stratums of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, local beers were treated with some scorn, and so, beers were often imported. In the 17th century, the popular beers (for those who could afford them) were Prussian and Livonian, Mumme of Brunswick, or Toppen Bier of Gdansk. In the beginning of the 18th century, Czech beer was in fashion for some time. But by the end of the century its popularity was lost to English beers. Especially favored was English porter-- a strong (7-12% alcohol) and dark ale. Despite the high prices and import taxes, the drink of the British harbor people was quickly adopted by patrons and the city’s elite. In 1789, the famous Nesvizh eccentric, Prince Karol Radzivill came to an “English” shop that had been recently opened by a Warsaw merchant named Yashevich who bought 4000 porter bottles at once to treat his friends. Soon after that, porter was available in every city and township. In Belarus, in the middle of the 19th century, porter by the brewer Ignacy Bogdaszewski of Vyazyn was especially popular.

Together with English beer in 18th century, amusing beer competitions spread. Old nobility competed in accuracy—they had to sip to a fine line that was marked on a 1.4 liter glass. If they failed, beer was poured again and they had to repeat the process. They competed in adroitness as well—they had to drink beer to the very last drop from an irregularly-shaped vessel known to Englishmen as “the yard of ale”. It looked like a meter-long pipe with a big cup at the top.

By this time, beer consumption had decreased and come to an even lower level per head than they are today. Even peasants preferred stronger drinks to beer; they had a higher alcohol content, but didn’t require a larger quantity of materials. There were a few representatives of the city’s bourgeoisie who would taste a glass of the frothy drink while chatting, but not for the purpose of getting drunk. In addition, beer-making technology was still practically undeveloped. As in old times, beer was made in small handicraft breweries.

The beer market began warming up only after the abolition of serfdom in 1861 when the number of citi-dwellers increased. Simultaneously, a real “beer revolution” was taking place in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Denmark: traditional beer-making ways were being supplanted by lager which was better suited for mass produ ction due to the usage of steamers and mechanized equipment for canning and refrigerating. Just a step behind Petersburg, Moscow, Samara, and Smolensk, a new beer industry was being created and developed in Belarus. In 1868, a modern beer factory was established in Grodno, in 1870 - in Mogilev, in 1873 (according to another source in 1864) - in Minsk, in 1874 - in Lida (the factory of the Papiermaisters), in 1875 - in Vitebsk, in 1876 - one more factory in Lida (Pupko’s), in 1886 - in Gomel and in 1897 - in Mozir. All these factories exist today (at the beginning of the 20th century, the Papiermaisters and Pupko factories of Lida merged into a single enterprise). By the beginning of the first WW on the territory of modern Belarus, 34 beer factories of various sizes were in operation and were producing app. 1.2 million ‘buckets’ (15 million litres), or at least app. 2 liters per head - rather poor compared to the average Russian 7 liters per head. At this time, the average German drank 120 liters a year, Englishman - 127 liters, and even the average Frenchman who generally preferred wine—34 liters.

Beer consumption in Belarus, like in the Empire as a whole, spread rather erratically. No less than 3/4 of beer consumption in pre-revolution Belarus was chiefly concentrated in the more industrialized North. The North-West (Grodno-Lida), drawn towards Vilnians, had an excellent example to copy. In addition to the two large Vilnian factories which were famous all around (‘Shopin’ and ‘Lipski), several dozens of breweries and 300 pubs were opened in the ancient capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The average Vilnian citizen drank up to 75 liters of beer a year, exceeding the numbers at the “beer capital” of the Russian Empire - Saint Petersburg with its 59 liters per head, second only to the German-ridden Riga (109 liters). The North-East, despite the use of its own brewery, was under the influence of Smolensk—one of the largest brewing centers. The depositories of the old Yefremenkov’s Smolensk brewery, were situated in Bobruisk, Minsk, and Mogilev; the depositories for the Smolensk honey and brewing Joint Stock company—in Vitebsk and Orsha. The North-East market grew quickly, following a great development in the local industry. Thus, by the WW I, it was attracting the attention of big investors. In Orsha was opened the “Syndicate of brewery industrialists of the North-West region”, in Vitebsk - the Löwenbräu joint stock company (an offspring of the famous Bavarian Löwenbräu). Incidentally, a Vitebsk brewery was called “The New Bavaria”. However, boundless Polesye and representatives of the Belarusian country, for whom paying 5-10 kopecks for a bottle was an impossible luxury, did not drink beer at all. 

The biggest brewery of Belarus was Minsk “Bogemia”, which changed its owners several times. Before the war, the output was approximately a quarter of the whole Belarusian beer industry. It’s interesting that the brewery’s two last owners, the Count Chapski and the Lekkerts family of Austria, were the only representatives of the brewing industry among the top twenty richest people in pre-revolution Belarus. The bright character of Count Karol Chapski is worth special attention. An important entrepreneur and Minsk’s city head from 1890-1901, Chapski did much to turn Minsk into a civilized city. Thanks to his efforts, communication and electricity appeared in Minsk. The City’s theater was built. Old butcheries, which were a source of poor sanitation, were closed, and new ones were opened. Lodgings for the night, soup kitchens, and a hospital for prostitutes appeared. Central streets were repaired... No other elected mayor of the city before or after Chapski has achieved the same success. Such energetic activity found enemies, and the City’s Duma seldom welcomed the expenses and projects that had been paid from Chapski’s own assets—a part of which was earned from the brewery. In 1896 or 1898, Chapski had to sell it to the Lekkerts, who later created something that resembled a Belarusian Beer Corporation. They bought breweries in Gomel and Mogilev and balanced a half of Belarus’ brewing industry in their hands. The Lekkerts’ beer depositories were situated in Brest, Grodno, Bobruisk, Belostock and even in Vilnius – four of their own railway vans brought beer to these cities. However, the “empire” built by the Lekkerts turned out to be unstable, although they kept “Bogemia” until the 1917 Revolution, which interrupted the history of commercial brewing in our country for a long time...

By Ales’ Bely

Упершыню надрукаваны Belarus & Business, № 1/2001. pp. 19-20
 

© Copyright Ales' Bely 2004