It is
historical that in very olden days the Munich city fathers tried the
goodness of the beer by pouring it out on a bench and then sitting down
in their leather inexpressibles, and approved of it only when they
remained glued to the seat.

In Nuremberg there is a school of brewers, where one may learn all the
mysteries of beer brewing. Certain breweries, however, pretend to
possess secrets pertaining to the art known exclusively to them. For
example, one family near Leipsic is said to have possessed for a century
the secret which chemistry has tried in vain to discover, of making the
famous Gose beer.

"Good beer," says Dr. Paolo Mantegazza, a celebrated Italian writer on
medicine, "is certainly one of the most healthy of alcoholic drinks. The
bitter tonic, the richness of the alimentary principle which it
contains, and its digestibility make it a real liquid food, which, for
many temperaments, is medicine. The English beer, which is stronger in
spirit than some wines, never produces on the stomach that union of
irritating phenomena vulgarly called heat, and for this reason beer is
often tolerated by the most weak and irritable persons, and can be drunk
with advantage in grave diseases."[A] Laveran, a French physician,
counsels it for consumptives, and for nervous thin people in the most
diverse climates.

In the intoxication by beer there is always more or less stupidity. Beer
is by no means favorable to _l'esprit_. It is doubtful if it has ever
inspired the great poets or the profound thinkers who make Germany, in
science, the leading country in Europe. Reich, Voigt, and many great
writers have launched their anathemas against it. As a stimulant beer is
less potent than wine or tea and coffee. The forces of soldiers have
never been sustained on a fatiguing march, nor can they be incited to a
battle, by plentiful libations of beer. During the late French-Prussian
war nearly every provision train which left Bavaria carried supplies of
beer to the Bavarian troops. It was found very favorable for the
convalescent soldiers in the hospitals, but inferior to coffee or wine
as a stimulant on the eve of battle.

The old chroniclers of Bavaria relate this curious tale of the origin of
the celebrated bock beer. There was one day in olden times at the table
of the Duke of Bavaria, as guest, a Brunswick nobleman. Now there had
long prevailed at the court the custom of presenting to noble guests,
after the meal, a beaker of