Imperial Hops: Beer in the Age of Empire

ABSTRACT

The global spread of lager beers such as Heineken, Budweiser, Sapporo and Corona offers a seemingly classic case of cultural imperialism displacing local beverages including Japanese sake, Bolivian chicha, and African sorghum beer. Empire indeed launched beer to global status, beginning with British brewers shipping ale and porter to provision imperial agents around the world, although by the turn of the twentieth century, the crisp, clean taste of German lager had largely displaced heavier British brews from colonial markets. Lager beer also came to be seen as a civilizing taste in comparison with strongly flavored indigenous drinks, attracting many local consumers, despite imperial prohibitions against native consumption of European alcohol. Ultimately, Europe’s export brewers lost out to migrant brewers, who transplanted barley and hops, installed refrigerated machinery, and freed settler colonists and Native consumers alike from their reliance on beer from the metropolis, thereby demonstrating the limits of empire.

KEYWORDS:

• Beer
• empire
• native agents
• trade
• settler colonialism

Notes

1. Mintz, Sweetness and Power.

2. Curry-Machado, Global Histories, Imperial Commodities.

3. Purinton, “Empire in a Bottle.”

4. Earle, The Body of the Conquistador; Collingham, Imperial Bodies.

5. Yenne, Guinness, 76.

6. Boulangier, Un Hiver au Cambodge, 311.

7. “Der Brauer und sein Vaterland.”

8. “Arthur Trevelyan Shand;” Hughes, “A Bottle of Guinness Please,” 179–86; Yenne, Guinness, 66.

9. IOR, E/4/763/708, illegible, January 7, 1840; E/1/9/484, Thomas Frankland, December 31, 1718; IOR, E/1/9/456, Peter Godfrey, December 16, 1718; Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages, 129–30.

10. Wolseley, “The Native Army of India,” 136.

11. Pryor, “Indian Pale Ale.”

12. Gourvish and Wilson, The British Brewing Industry, 151–68.

13. Owen, The Greatest Brewery, 64.

14. Hughes, A Bottle of Guinness Please, 110.

15. PAAA, R901–246,260, Pretoria Consular Report, March 10, 1926; BABL, R2–24,333-a, “Export Brauereien,” March 5, 1942; Kellenbenz, “Shipping and Trade,” 355, 358; “Bierausfuhr Großbritanniens.”

16. “Der Handel mit Bier;” “Der Brauereibetrieb in wärmeren Zonen;” Haines, Report of Egypt, 8; Cochrane, The Pabst Brewing Company, 246.

17. Haines, Report of Japan, 13, 14.

18. Shand, Report of South Africa, 33.

19. Ibid., 97.

20. Freyre, The English in Brazil, 160.

21. Nag, “Modernity and Its Adversaries,” 431.

22. Haines, Report of Japan, 19–21.

23. Haines, Report of Egypt, 11; Foda, “The Pyramid and the Crown;” Shand, Report of South Africa, 47.

24. Haines, Report of Australia, 15, 26; Haines, Report of Visit to Japan, 19; Shand, Report of Australasia, 8.

25. Shand, Report of South Africa, 109. See also Shand, Report of Australasia, 170–71; Shand, Report of Australia, 32; Haines, Report of Australia, 9.

26. Shand, Report of South Africa, 10; Shand, Report of Australasia, 112.

27. GDB/CO05.02/05.0004.36, Board Memo, December 5, 1928.

28. Heap, “Beer in Nigeria,” 116.

29. GDB/CO05.02/0004.35.2, Goddard to G. S. Green, May 27, 1927; GDB/CO05.02/05.0004.34, Goddard, “Report on Conditions Obtaining in British West Africa,” June 28, 1928; GDB/CO05.02/05.0004.25.1, extract of letter from Goddard to Secretary, September 22, 1927.

30. Kanta Ray, “The Bazaar,” 271; Webster, Gentlemanly Capitalists.

31. Fuhrmann, “Beer on the Aegean,” 93–94, quote from 102.

32. Gauss and Beatty, “The World’s Beer,” 58; Purinton, “Good Hope for the Pilsner,” 124–25; Siebel, One Hundred Years of Brewing, 158, 622, 627, 669.

33. IOR, E/4/72913/25, Lt. Col. Bratton to Captain Burlton, June 24, 1836.

34. Haines, Report of Japan, 15, 16; IOR, E/4/72913/84, Col. W. Cullen to Secretary of Government at Madras, October 31, 1838; IOR, E/4/950/741, Fort St. George, October 24, 1837; Misra, “The Mussoorie Brew;” O’Conor, Review of the Accounts, 51; IOR, L/MIL/7/9936/509, Commissariat Department Contract, October 18, 1884; “Brauerei in Ostindien,” 595.

35. Fuhrmann, “Beer on the Aegean,” 86–101; Foda, “The Pyramid and the Crown,” 140, 142.

36. Hutois, “Souvenirs de l’Ethiopie,” 516; PAAA, Addis Abeba/369/1, Pierre Guillaumin and Josef Pfeffer, “Geschäftsbericht der St. Georg-Brauerei,” November 10, 1931; “Une visite à la Brasserie;” PAAA, Addis Abeba/372/72, Tribunal Consulaire, February 9, 1933.

37. Purinton, “Good Hope for the Pilsner,” 126–34; Shand, “Report of South Africa, Egypt,” 6–9, 35.

38. Tenth Anniversary Reunion, 146; Recio, “El Nacimiento.”

39. Suárez, “Una gran industria.”

40. Siebel, One Hundred Years of Brewing, 646; A. Köllenberger, “Die Brauerei in Bolivia.”

41. Forgues, Sinopsis de la chicha, 14–16; Gootenberg, Andean Cocaine, 37–43, 66.

42. Who’s Who in Japan, 314.

43. Alexander, Brewed in Japan, 8–9.

44. Brownell, The Heart of Japan, 169. Alexander, Brewed in Japan, 11–14.

45. Alexander, Brewed in Japan, 56–64, quote from 33; Fuess, “Der Aufbau der Bierindustrie;” NSC, Horace Capron, 014, Bīru Jōzōyō Hoppu Saibai no Yōten/Kepuron [Important Points About the Cultivation of Hops for Beer Brewing], 1874. All translations from Japanese are by Michael Roellinghoff unless otherwise indicated.

46. Alexander, Brewed in Japan, 59–61, 72–76; Haas, “‘They Have No Idea.’”

47. Biru to Nihonjin, 118; Francks, “Inconspicuous Consumption,” 158.

48. Barry, A Monster Heroism, 108; Cwiertka, Modern Japanese Cuisine, 56–86; Bīru to Nihonjin, 129, 139, 185, 217.

49. “Jōzō shiken daisankai,” 175.

50. Nakano, Makiko’s Diary, 149; Francks, “Inconspicuous Consumption,” 158; Alexander, Brewed in Japan, 185.

51. Quoted in Biru to Nihonjin, 102. Pilcher, “‘Tastes Like Horse Piss.’”

52. “Bierbrauerei und Bierexport Japans,” 339.

53. Yoo, “Shaken or Stirred?”

54. Ibid, 109; Alexander, Brewed in Japan, 131–34.

55. Yang, “‘This Beer Tastes Really Good.’”

56. Alexander, Brewed in Japan.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeffrey M. Pilcher

Jeffrey M. Pilcher is Professor of History and Food Studies at the University of Toronto. His books include Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food (2012), Food in World History, 3d ed. (2023), and Hopped Up: How Travel, Trade, and Taste Made Beer a Global Commodity (forthcoming 2024). He is a member of the editorial collective of Global Food History.