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Richard
W. Unger.
Beer in the Middle Ages
and the Renaissance.
Pennsylvania University Press, 2004.
The Middle Ages
series.
344pp.
Hardback.
ISBN 0812237951.
Publisher's
recommended price $45.00s/£29.50
The beer
of today
- brewed from malted grain and hops, manufactured by large and often
multinational
corporations, frequently associated with young adults, sports, and
drunkenness
- is largely the result of scientific and industrial developments of
the
nineteenth century. Modern beer, however, has little in common with the
drink that carried that name through the European Middle Ages and
Renaissance.
Looking at a time when beer was often a nutritional necessity, was
sometimes
used as medicine, could be flavored with everything from the bark of
fir
trees to thyme and fresh eggs, and was consumed by men, women, and
children
alike, Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance presents an
extraordinarily
detailed history of the business, art, and governance of brewing.
During
the medieval
and early modern periods beer was as much a daily necessity as a source
of inebriation and amusement. It was the beverage of choice of urban
populations
that lacked access to secure sources of potable water; a commodity of
economic
as well as social importance; a safe drink for daily consumption that
was
less expensive than wine; and a major source of tax revenue for the
state.
Drawing from archives in the Low Countries and England to assemble an
impressively
complete history, Unger describes the transformation of the industry
from
small-scale production that was a basic part of housewifery to a highly
regulated commercial enterprise dominated by the wealthy and overseen
by
government authorities. Looking at the intersecting technological,
economic,
cultural, and political changes that influenced the transformation of
brewing
over centuries, he traces how improvements in technology and in the
distribution
of information combined to standardize quality, showing how the process
of urbanization created the concentrated markets essential for
commercial
production.
Weaving
together
the stories of prosperous businessmen, skilled brewmasters, and small
producers,
this impressively researched overview of the social and cultural
practices
that surrounded the beer industry is rich in implication for the
history
of the period as a whole.
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