Old Print Article: “A Talented Cow,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1892)

"She gives beer in place of milk. Even Chicago has nothing like her."

I doubt cows can give beer, but I’m pretty sure newspaper editors at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle downed plenty of beer when putting out the July 17, 1892 issue. An excerpt from an article in that groundbreaking edition:

“There’s a cow that gives beer. She lives in St. Louis. May she prove an abundant consolation to the people of that city for their loss of the world fair.

To the casual eye this cow is like any other: the same number of legs and prongs and ribs, the same Gothic architecture, the same frolicsome gaiety, the same unconscionable time eating a meal, the same moments of rapt contemplation. But in this one essential respect she is different from any other cow that breathes: she gives beer in place of milk. Even Chicago has nothing like her.

"The farm hands become thirsty during the day with greater frequency than before."

The conversion of the beast into a brewery was accidental. The cow got among some malt and hops and ate them. During the day she was alternately frisky and meditative, and when she returned to the barn she appeared to see two doors and made a delay in the business of the evening by trying to get into the one that was not there. Once anchored in her stall, however, she submitted quietly to milking. The first drops of the fluid that should have been milk and that on the following day would have been served to customers, with a judicious and strengthening mixture of chalk and water, so startled the proprietor of the cow that he gathered the rest of her offering in a separate pail. It was amber in color, it foamed, it had a familiar odor. He tasted it; it soothed. He eagerly drank the whole six quarts. O, joy–it intoxicated!

The cow has been somewhat overworked since this discovery was made and alternated between conditions of tipsiness and fatigue, showing signs of headache in the morning. But beer is never allowed to form to excess in her system, because the farm hands become thirsty during the day with greater frequency than before. This discovery in natural chemistry may work a revolution in the brewing business.”