"A COMPREHENSIVE AND WIDE-RANGING VIEW INTO AMERICAN BREWING IN 1901," ONE OF THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT PRE-PROHIBITION TEXTS ON BEER AND BREWING, IN ORIGINAL WALLET-FLAP MOROCCO

WAHL, Robert; HENIUS, Max. American Handy-Book of the Brewing, Malting and Auxiliary Trades… A Book of Ready Reference… Together with Tables, Formulas, Calculations, Bibliography and Dictionary of Technical Terms. Chicago: Wahl & Henius, 1901. Octavo, original full brown morocco with wallet flap, neatly rebacked with original spine and flap panel laid down, patterned endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $5800.

First edition of this scarce guide to brewing by the founders of the Wahl-Henius Institute of Fermentology in Chicago. Considered one of the two most important pre-prohibition texts on beer and brewing from that time due to its encyclopedic scope and numerous detailed wood-engraved illustrations. A desirable copy in nicely restored original wallet-flap morocco binding.

The authors of this scarce pre-prohibition encyclopedic guide to brewing founded the Wahl-Henius Institute of Fermentology in Chicago in 1886. The Institute operated successfully until prohibition in 1921, when the brewing trade nearly dissolved, forcing the Institute's foreclosure and sale. "Wahl-Henius would perhaps be mostly forgotten today if it were not for its role as publisher of two important beer texts. The Wahl-Henius HandyBook of Brewing, Malting and the Auxiliary Trades, coauthored by Wahl and Henius, is a comprehensive and wide-ranging view into American brewing in 1901. It also contains basic chemical analyses of many contemporary American and European beers, providing an unusually valuable window into the brewing past" (Oliver, Oxford Companion to Beer, 821). (The second important title Wahl & Henius published was J.P. Arnold's 1911 Origin and History of Beer and Brewing.) The Handy-Book is highly sought-after due to its encyclopedic vision, numerous and detailed illustrations, and comprehensive scope, covering every known detail of the brewing process from chemistry, ingredients, brewing materials, buildings and pumps, yeast and wort, storage, bottling, beer varieties, legal regulations, and an A-Z dictionary of terms.

Text clean. An excellent, desirable copy of this scarce early brewing handbook, in nicely restored original binding.