“The difficulty and expense of procuring a supply of strong bottles, and a peculiar taste for lively or foaming beer, which our summers do not favor, have been the principal causes of the inconsiderable progress of the manufacture of malt liquors, compared with distilled spirits. The absence, or the infrequency of malting, as a separate trade, has also operated against brewing in a small way and in families. The great facility of making and preserving distilled spirits has occasioned them exceedingly to interfere with the brewery. The liquor of peaches, hitherto deemed incapable of use without distillation, greatly prevents the use of beer in a very extensive region of our country, where the peach tree grows with the freedom of a weed, and where its fruit is of the best quality. Cider, which is abundantly produced in another very extensive region, rivals fermented malt liquors as a common drink, and as a material for a customary concoction (the cider royal) and for distillation.” The want of bottles was pointed out during the discussions in the first Congress, as an impediment to brewing; but the brewer of the present day will scarcely appreciate the stress laid upon this want, unless a full account could be given him of the character of the malt liquors brewed in those days. Unfortunately, no such account can be obtained; yet a conclusion may be ventured from the statement that, until a Philadelphia brewer of the name of Robert Hare, invented, in 1809, a peculiarly constructed cask and faucet, no method was known of preserving beer, on tap, in partly filled vessels. What the word _preserving_ means in this connection will appear from the following passage of the _Digest_: “The want of a head, or top of foam, is now observable in the tap beers of Europe, and it is presumable that this object of fancy or taste will not, therefore, be in future deemed indispensable in American tap houses and families. We have been used to consider the want of this foam as an evidence of badness.” That the use of the liquor of peaches prevented the introduction of the brewing industry into the Southern States, is an observation of as much force to-day as it was nearly a hundred years ago; but later experiences have demonstrated the fact, that the influence of climatic conditions, coupled with the high price of ice, is quite as unfavorable to the industry as the abundance of fruit and the tastes of the people. In addition to a scarcity of bottles, there was also a want of cork and wire for bottling purposes. Establishments for manufacturing these three articles were just beginning to grow into some importance, and, of course, demanded protection, which was granted at least to one of them. By the Act of March 27, 1804, quart bottles, which, in order to foster the brewing industry, had theretofore been exempt from the duty upon glassware, were taxed sixty cents per gross; yet the home supply remained behind the demand.