Behind the Scenes Minis: Lager, Ale, Emo Girl

Stuff You Missed in History Class

Hosts Tracy V. Wilson and Holly Frey explore the historical context of beer riots, revealing how seemingly trivial headlines masked serious socioeconomic tensions. They then shift to a deep dive into Elizabeth

Key takeaways

• Tracy V. Wilson notes that Chicago brewers originally favored English ale-style beers before German immigrants popularized lager fermentation techniques in the U.S.
• Holly Frey reveals that Elizabeth Fry's daughters heavily edited her diaries for her biography, omitting her anxiety and marital frustrations to protect her public image.

Main topics

• Beer riots
• Ale vs lager brewing history

Notable quotes

"From all of this, however, it appears that the poet king, Ludwig, king of Bavaria, is the author of three volumes of unreadable poems..."

Conclusion

Listeners gain a richer understanding of how historical events like beer riots were rooted in real economic and social

Transcript preview

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And each week on 3-Putt Bogey, we're going to get into the bunker and get to the bottom of what is just so alluring and frustrating about the most beautiful game in the world. So whether you're someone who pipes it on the driving range but freezes up on the tee box. Or misses that 3-foot putt when everything's on the line. We're there to laugh about it with you on 3-Putt Bogey. the podcast about two mid-handicappers, one great shot, and the three-putt that spoils it all. You can listen to it now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (3:01) Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Speaker 3 (3:12) Hello and happy Friday. I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And I'm Holly Frey. We talked about a couple of beer riots this week on the show. Part of me wants to file it under people rioting over silly things, but it was not actually all that silly. There were a lot of real issues going on underlying something that can sound a little silly at the headline level, sort of. There was a hilarious thing. I found it to be hilarious anyway. in the thing that Ingalls wrote in that Chartist newspaper about this uprising. And the quote wasn't really strictly related, so I did not put it in the episode. But it was just a little aside, a side comment. in his description of these riots, and he wrote, quote, From all of this, however, it appears that the poet king, Ludwig, king of Bavaria, is the author of three volumes of unreadable poems, of a traveler's guide to one of his public buildings, etc., etc., has been in a very awkward position during these outbreaks. And I just loved the kind of, let's take an opportunity to say that Ludwig is not a very good poet. Shade him from the way. Yes, have some shade in the middle of this thing that was about a popular uprising connected to the price of beer. What else do I have to say about beer riots? I have a question. You do have a question. What is it? I do. Speaker 6 (4:47) This is a nerdy question. We're going to get in the weeds a little. Yeah. In your research, I know you had noted that the brewers that were operating in Chicago tended to make more English ale-style beers versus the German lager-style beers. Yeah. Did you come across anything? Because we had also mentioned earlier on that, like, the figuring out of the different... cause and effects of fermentation was not fully done yet. Did you find anything that indicated that they understood that was what was going on? Because that's what makes the difference between an ale and a lager, right? The yeast that ferments in an ale ferments at the top of the stuff at a slightly warmer temperature versus a lager where it tends to ferment at the bottom and it's usually kept a little colder in the fermentation process. Right, right. Speaker 3 (5:45) Look, I remembered something from bartending school. It did not even occur to me that that was a thing that you would remember from bartending school. I don't know why it did this. So my understanding is that it was really across the United States that the people who were brewing beer prior to the influx of immigrants from Germany were more likely to be brewing an ale. So not just in Chicago, but everywhere. Speaker 6 (6:12) Just because that's what came. With most colonists, I imagine. Speaker 3 (6:15) Yeah, that's what came with most of the colonists. And then after a lot more people started coming from Germany and bringing this lager beer style, it shifted to be a lot more lager-focused. I think a lot of the most mass-produced beer in the U.S. are more likely to be closer to a lager than an ale. And they did understand... These were not brewed the same way. They definitely understood the differences in temperature, which made it a little more difficult to brew a lager because of the cooler temperature that was necessary. Not all of the United States for all of the year is conducive to that. As to whether... They really understood the specifics of the yeast part at that point, like in 1855. I'm not sure. I did not look into that. Because Speaker 6 (7:15) usually it's associated with the work of Pasteur where that really all got figured out. Right. Which is happening around that time. Yeah. So I just didn't know if it was just a matter of they were still propagating the same yeast and using it in... Speaker 3 (7:30) Right. Speaker 6 (7:31) their thing versus the yeast that maybe traveled over with German brewers and them just using the same thing. Speaker 3 (7:38) Yeah, I didn't get into that rabbit hole. I Speaker 6 (7:41) would have gotten down that and then been like, oh, oh, Lord, it's two in the morning and I'm not done yet. Speaker 3 (7:45) Right. Well, and it was really specifically because I was finishing this leading up to the Labor Day holiday weekend and I had plans. So I needed to put limits on. the rabbit hole possibility in order to get the episode done so that I