1536 gave brewers permission to brew something called dobbel bier which
was to taste like English beer and so was presumably stronger than the nor
mal domestic beers which could be sold along side it. The term knol may
there have applied, at least at the start of the sixteenth century, to a double
beer. There was a confusion of names as time went on. New categories
emerged while old ones disappeared. In 1558 two types of beer existed in
Middelburg: moselare -or strong beer- and that which was not good enough
to warrant that name. The inferior type could only be called ceuyte or cuijte.
In 1562 in addition there was also a double beer called bracsart and a very
strong type called troutelaer. Brewers also produced some type of beer for
use on board ships which lasted longer but it was only sold to vessels leaving
the town35. In the mid sixteenth century, at least in Zeeland, kuit was cheap
low quality beer. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries kuit was almost
certainly the last and weakest and least valuable beer made in any brewing.
Both the name kuit and the beer, then, like most others, were devalued over
time. At Middelburg in 1554 and 1560 imports were muezelaerevallenand
cnollen. Muezelaere was the premium beer and when sold brought more than
2.5 times as much as cnol. Val fell almost exactly between the two. In 1565
the list of imports was English, joopen and muesselaere but by 1602 it had
expanded to English, Lübeck, Bremen and Hamburg beer as well as pharo,
perhaps one of the premium beers from a town in Holland3". When imports of
English beer declined in 1568 and 1569 Middelburg raised the excise on
meuselaere to maintain levels of government income. The decision suggests
that the beer from the Meuse valley, the most expensive sold in Middelburg
in 1570, was a substitute for English beer. Standardization of types and of the
names that went with the types made price fixing possible though it was
never common. Veere in 1540 set a maximum wholesale price for locally
brewed beer at 17 stuivers/vat and for winter beer, presumably a heavier
type, at 22 stuivers/vat. Town regulators were concerned about local produc
ers but they were even more concerned about local consumers who made up
a much larger proportion of the population. The town changed the policy in
1541Under the new regime the price of better beer was to be a minimum of
16% higher than normal beer and even higher if the quality was superior37.
The higher prices would mean to tax income but also mean consumers
would still benefit since the quantities of grain used to make better beer were
typically much greater than 16% above those used to make the standard
product.
Middelburg split publicans and with that taverns into three types. Publi
cans had to choose to serve either double beer or the less expensive knol. If
they served one they could not serve the other, and if they served imported
beer they could not serve locally brewed beer. As always, the question was
35. Egmond, 'De strijd om het bier', 14-16; Unger, Bronnenvol.1, nr. 79. vol.2, nr. 158. vol.3, nr.
553.
36. Kesteloo, Stadsrekeningen IV (1891) Kesteloo, Stadsrekeningen V (1902, first part) 43-44;
Pinkse, Het Goudse kuitbier101; Timmer, "Aanvoer van Delftsch bier', 564-565.
37. GAVe. inv.nr. 311: fols. 96v-97v, I00v-I02r: Unger. Bronnen, vol.2, nrs. 184. 185 and 186, 3.
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