Your wordcrafter, vacationing in Toronto this week, has been gratified to discover an excellent pub called C’est What. Obviously given to wordplay. Wordcrafter, through a beer-induced befuddlement, was able to notice several word-related bits of data there, to be shared with you here.

Form the handout titled C’est . . . What Is Beer All About?:

Brewpubs often offer beer for take-out that is poured from the tap into glass jugs called growlers. This name dates back to pre-Prohibition tine, when factory workers regularly drank beer with their lunch. Children were paid to run to the local brewery or bar to fill the workers’ pails with beer. The pails were named after the growling stomachs of those waiting.

Did growlers go with grinders?

to be at loggerheads – to be contending about differences of opinion
to go to loggerheads – such contention, featuring the time-honored uses fists to resolve the differences

From the same source as yesterday:

In the not so distant past, drinking warm ale in cold weather was commonplace. Because all taverns had large fireplaces, small iron pokers called “loggerheads” were hung by the fire to be used for warming drinks. In the heat of argument these pokers were often brandished by inebriated patrons giving rise to the expression “to find yourselves at loggerheads”.

quote:

Did growlers go with grinders?

To be eaten by grunts?

zymurgy – the branch of chemistry that deals with fermentation processes, as in brewing, wine-making, etc.
[cognate with enzyme; from Greek zyme a leaven. First syllable with a long i.]

Truly the last word in beer. Indeed, it's the last word in many standard English dictionaries, and thus useful in such phrases as "from aardvark to zymurgy". Also, one of the few brew-related words outside of Mr. English's immediate knowledge.

One of his specialties was the home-brew crock, a popular item during Prohibition when do-it-yourself zymurgy was the rage. Home brew … could be fermented in any vessel, but the home-brew crock was specifically designed for the purpose and was more reliable.
– John A. Burrison, Brothers in Clay: The Story of Georgia Folk Pottery‎

I know what zymurgy means. It's not a word I use all that often, though, since I am more interested in the results of the brewing process than I am about the details of its chemistry.

After all, every beer goes through a process of fermentation (even Dudweiser). It's what they ferment and what do to the stuff after it's been fermented, that turns potential beer into chemical fizz.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English: I know what zymurgy means.

Of course you do. That's why I said it was "outside of Mr. English's immediate knowledge".

Yesterday's word was cognate with enzyme, which relates to today's word.

The first step in digesting grain, or in making beer from it, is to convert its starch into sugar. In eating, this starch-sugar conversion is made by enzymes in your saliva. In beer-making it's usually made by germinating the seed, but an alternate choice is to use the salivary enzymes.

One drink that was traditionally made this way is chicha. (It's now more often made by the more familiar, chewless process, and also comes in non-alcoholic forms).

Some aboriginals in South America still make a brew called chicha. It is made of corn that is chewed by the tribal women, spat into a bowl, and allowed to ferment for a few days before being consumed by the whole tribe.
– C’est What handout

Side note on sake, the Japanese "rice wine": Sake also used to be produced with chewing.
. . .The term "rice wine" is an oxymoron, for "wine" is by definition made from grapes (the words "wine" and "vine" are cognate") or, at most, other plant juices. The product made from grain seed is called "beer". Sake is in fact "rice beer".

quote:

It is made of corn that is chewed by the tribal women, spat into a bowl, and allowed to ferment for a few days before being consumed by the whole tribe

who then argue about how it used to be better before they started using cheaper saliva.

There's an art to the making of chicha
That old women are eager to teach ya.
But if you say their beer
Is better than "fair",
Then Richard is quick to impeach ya.

C’est What handout:

The Old English word "draught" meant "to pull," like the draught that used to deliver beer kegs back in the day. Before pressurized carbon dioxide and nitrogen were widely used to push beer from the kegs through the lines to the tap, the beer had to be "pulled" with a beer engine (a hand operated piston). Hence the term "draught beer."

One website explains the technology, and another relates the history of the beer engine:

[T]he beer engine draws the brew out almost like sucking on a straw. It's not "pushed" out adding CO-2, but rather "pulled" out with no additions at all. The bottom line: it's just like drinking straight from the tank.

The beer engine was patented in May of 1785 by Joseph Bramah to aid inn keepers. Up until this point, they were forced to run down into the cellar to fill jugs or pitchers with beer from the casks. The casks had to be stored in the lowest part of the building, the cellar, where the temperature was the coolest and most consistent. As more people came to populate London and travel became more and more popular, this became considerably more impractical for the poor inn keepers. Customers demand immediate service and can be quite unruly. Joseph Bramah's Beer Engine seemed like, and truly is, a miracle device.