SC - Re: liqueurs

[Jeff Gedney]

Stefan hath writ:
> It does appear to have been used more and more as
> the making of beer changed from a cottage industry to the first mass
> production factory based industry. Probably because of it;s perservative
> properties. This shift may have been helped along by the use of hops since
> it allowed larger batches to be made and sold before they went bad.

Well, to be more precise, the preservative qualities were the impetus for
mass production of beer (at least in England). "Flemish" (hopped) Beer was
produced in prodigious quantity for supplying the Tudor navy, since it kept 
much better (due to the Hops, and the pasteurizing effect of mashing and 
boiling the wort)  than water or any other drink. 
Wine was not a primary choice of the British sailor because it was deemed 
"foreign", and (if made in sufficent manner to survive in a heaving hot ship 
more than a couple of weeks) was in fact, rather too strong for thirst 
quenching (a happy sailor is one thing, depending on a drunk sailor is 
quite another)
A keg of fresh water would go brackish and slimey in a couple of weeks.
Beer could take months to go bad.
It is the adoption of beer as the basic beverage onboard ships that enabled
long ocean crossings, since water casks have to be refreshed every couple 
of weeks, and even with favorable winds, an Atlantic crossing was 24 days
or so in Drake's day.

"Flemished Beere" was produced by "state" breweries in such prodigious 
quantity in Portsmouth and other "navy" towns that the roads in certain 
areas were literally lined with casks of beer ready for the Channel fleet.

During the Armada campaign and afterward, the Navy paid a premium
to get this beer to the sailors who were regularly in short supply for want of 
sufficient transport. Things got so bad, at some points that the Navy 
essentially commandeered almost every fishing vessel on the East Anglian 
and Southern coasts capable of ferrying the half tun "pipes" out to the fleet.

An informative discussion of this can be found at the Mary Rose website.
Also Several books on the Armada campaign discuss the resupply woes
that the Channel fleet sufferred.
Check out the following books for more information:

"Founded upon the Seas : A Narrative of Some English Maritime 
and Overseas Enterprises During the Period 1550 to 1616" by 
Walter Oakeshott 

"Spain's Men of the Sea : Daily Life on the Indies Fleets in the 
Sixteenth Century" by Pablo E. Perez-Mallaina, 
Carla Rahn Phillips, Translator 

"The Voyages and works of John Davis, the navigator" by 
A.H. Markham 

"Discovery : Exploration through the Centuries" by Eric Flaum

"The Adventure of Sail" by Captain Donald Macintyre, RN
 

On side a note: "beere" was not necessarily hopped in period, and the 
term Flemished or flemish beer was used to denote beer made in the 
hopped fashion, since the English at first imported their navy beer from 
the flemings, because of the qualities of the hops that the flemish used.
They did not start making it themselves until it was clear that the 
imports were falling far short of what was needed by the fleet.
At that time several admirals got the state to finance the construction 
of or subsidize a number of brewies. This was achieved in very short 
order and the way the Navy started turning out ships, biscuit, and beer, 
going from a few ships a year to full production in only a couple of 
years was the "Manhattan Project" of the time.

It was not till after period that the term "beer" became synonymous with
the use of hops.

Brandu