Lager beer is not unknown in England, and is sold at restaurants and hotels in most of our large towns. Much of it is imported; the rest comes from Lager-beer brewers, who have, within the last few years, started business in this country. Neither German nor Anglo-German beers appear to make much headway over here, nor is this very surprising when we remember how far superior our own ales and beers are to any brewed in Germany. The chief difference between lager[50] and English beers is in the time occupied in the fermentation. Lager-beer brewers keep the wort at an exceedingly low temperature all through the process, the result being that fermentation is delayed over several days. Lager beer simply means beer which can be kept in lagers or stores. Germany has from very early times maintained a large export trade in Beer. It has already been shown that in the fifteenth century large quantities were exported into Scotland, and another instance is to be found in Rymer (H. 5. 1. 22), where there is a record of an appeal made by the consuls of Hamburgh to Henry VI. The appeal states “that certain of your Magnificence’s Subjects and Servants to wit Michael Schotte and Molchun Poerter of Calais, rulers or captains of a certain great ship of war specially fitted out, did with their Complices in that present year, about the feast of St. James the Apostle, hostilely seize, detain, and carry off at their pleasure two vessels laden with {180} Hamburg ale, to the no small hurt and injury of our fellow townsmen.” They therefore pray that the ships may be restored to them and compensation made for the outrage.” [50] Readers curious as to the technical details of the brewing of Lager Beer are referred to Liebig’s Chemistry of Agriculture (Playfair). Roberts, in his _Map of Commerce_ (1638), says of Lubeck: “The place is famous for the beere made, and hence transported into other regions, and by some used medicinally for bruises of the body . . . though by them in use commonly both for their own drinke and food and rayment.”