I posted this on the maudlin of the Well board too, but some of you may have missed it. Mostly, this is for Larry & Joe (although Joe has no computer- take a leap into the 80s, already JOE!), who were on the tour at Lakefront Brewery Metalfest weekend. Remember the law he mentioned about concerning the 4 ingredients in beer?
The rest of you can just thank me later for giving you the opportunity to learn something that will surely have great impact on your daily lives, not to mention your endless search for tasty beverages and little green aliens in kayaks.
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Origins of Beer
Once upon a time there was a Prince who had a fondness for grapes and would store them during the winter packed in goatskins so he could enjoy them off season. One of these goatskins apparently went bad and he ordered a Poison sign placed on it until the goatskin could be hauled away. In the meantime, the Prince's favorite concubine was framed by a upstart vying for her position and she was thrown out of the harem. Since she truly loved the Prince, she decided to kill herself in a fit of passion and, seeing the poisonous grapes, drank them down. Since they were not poisonous, but merely fermented, she did not die but instead became rip-roaring drunk. With her inhibitions gone, she slipped back into the harem and lopped off the head of her competition with a sword. Her spirit impressed the Prince a great deal and that night he, too, tried the grape poison and liked the effect on himself and his concubine so much that he thereafter ordered it served to all his harem girls and thus began the time honored tradition of getting women drunk. From this tale, we get the famous bartender's query, name your poison. This fable has been handed down through the centuries to illustrate the first instance of alcoholic drinks. Wine was probably the first alcoholic drink made but beer was certainly a close second. Whether or not this tale is true is unknown, and where alcoholic beverages really came from, unfortunately, remains a mystery.
The Greek historian, Herodotus, credited the Egyptians with making the first true beer. The Indians and Chinese were also early beer makers. Recent evidence, however, supports the theory that the Mesopotamians and Sumerians were actually the first beer drinkers as long ago as 10,000 B.C. Whoever is right, one fact is clear; beer has been around a long, long time.
Beer may have been the first thing nomadic farmers produced after they first settled down 10,000 years ago in Mesopotamia and the city-states of Sumer, and some even believe the date was much earlier, around 25,000 B.C.E. Four-thousand years ago, shortly after the Sumerians developed the first written language, cuneiform, they wrote detailed and sophisticated instructions of beer-making, suggesting that the technique had been established and refined for a long period of time.
Until recently, most archaeologists believed bread was the first product of the new agro-society. Archaeologists agree that barley was the first grain grown, but disagree sharply as to what they did with it. Beer and bread share many ingredients and manufacturing processes. Many believe it was beer which was first produced, albeit by accident. As the fable of the prince and his grapes illustrates, beer, and in the prince's case wine, was surely discovered by accident. The accident of fermentation is certainly easier to imagine than the baking of bread. Bread-making is far more complicated and would require a great deal of forethought whereas fermentation could easily have occurred by letting freshly harvested grain stand wet and exposed to yeast. This would have produced a rudimentary drink which would have reduced the early Sumerians to drunken sots.
Amazingly, the ancient beer had much more nutritional value than their bread and was safer than the water (which probably spawned the first don't drink the water jokes). There is a 6,000 year old clay tablet which depicts people drinking through reed straws from a large bowl, which is how drinking beer was described 2,000 years later in Sumerian written records. In 1990, Fritz Maytag, the owner of the Anchor Steam breweries, worked with Archaeologists to successfully make a beer using the same methods and ingredients as the ancient Sumerians. From their success, it is clear that beer was certainly made when civilization was still in its infancy.
The word beer itself liekly comes from either the old english bere or beere from the plant which was once used in making beer. Later, the more refined Barley was substituted but the drink was still called beer. Another possibility is that it comes from the Latin bibere which means to drink which then became biber and then bier. In Spanish, the word for beer is cerveza, which has its origin in Ceres, the Roman goddess of Agriculture.
The northern part of Europe, including the British Isles, had a cooler climate better suited to beer making because barley grew easily there. In Germany and England, beer became a staple of their diets, and was commonly referred to as liquid bread. This explains why southern Europe, where grapes grew easily, has a more developed wine industry.
In 1516, the Germans instituted the now famous Reinheitsgebot, a law (still in effect today) which strictly dictates what ingredients may go into beer. There are only four legal ingredients; 1) Barley, 2) Hops, 3) Yeast, and 4) Water.
The rest of you can just thank me later for giving you the opportunity to learn something that will surely have great impact on your daily lives, not to mention your endless search for tasty beverages and little green aliens in kayaks.
------------------
Origins of Beer
Once upon a time there was a Prince who had a fondness for grapes and would store them during the winter packed in goatskins so he could enjoy them off season. One of these goatskins apparently went bad and he ordered a Poison sign placed on it until the goatskin could be hauled away. In the meantime, the Prince's favorite concubine was framed by a upstart vying for her position and she was thrown out of the harem. Since she truly loved the Prince, she decided to kill herself in a fit of passion and, seeing the poisonous grapes, drank them down. Since they were not poisonous, but merely fermented, she did not die but instead became rip-roaring drunk. With her inhibitions gone, she slipped back into the harem and lopped off the head of her competition with a sword. Her spirit impressed the Prince a great deal and that night he, too, tried the grape poison and liked the effect on himself and his concubine so much that he thereafter ordered it served to all his harem girls and thus began the time honored tradition of getting women drunk. From this tale, we get the famous bartender's query, name your poison. This fable has been handed down through the centuries to illustrate the first instance of alcoholic drinks. Wine was probably the first alcoholic drink made but beer was certainly a close second. Whether or not this tale is true is unknown, and where alcoholic beverages really came from, unfortunately, remains a mystery.
The Greek historian, Herodotus, credited the Egyptians with making the first true beer. The Indians and Chinese were also early beer makers. Recent evidence, however, supports the theory that the Mesopotamians and Sumerians were actually the first beer drinkers as long ago as 10,000 B.C. Whoever is right, one fact is clear; beer has been around a long, long time.
Beer may have been the first thing nomadic farmers produced after they first settled down 10,000 years ago in Mesopotamia and the city-states of Sumer, and some even believe the date was much earlier, around 25,000 B.C.E. Four-thousand years ago, shortly after the Sumerians developed the first written language, cuneiform, they wrote detailed and sophisticated instructions of beer-making, suggesting that the technique had been established and refined for a long period of time.
Until recently, most archaeologists believed bread was the first product of the new agro-society. Archaeologists agree that barley was the first grain grown, but disagree sharply as to what they did with it. Beer and bread share many ingredients and manufacturing processes. Many believe it was beer which was first produced, albeit by accident. As the fable of the prince and his grapes illustrates, beer, and in the prince's case wine, was surely discovered by accident. The accident of fermentation is certainly easier to imagine than the baking of bread. Bread-making is far more complicated and would require a great deal of forethought whereas fermentation could easily have occurred by letting freshly harvested grain stand wet and exposed to yeast. This would have produced a rudimentary drink which would have reduced the early Sumerians to drunken sots.
Amazingly, the ancient beer had much more nutritional value than their bread and was safer than the water (which probably spawned the first don't drink the water jokes). There is a 6,000 year old clay tablet which depicts people drinking through reed straws from a large bowl, which is how drinking beer was described 2,000 years later in Sumerian written records. In 1990, Fritz Maytag, the owner of the Anchor Steam breweries, worked with Archaeologists to successfully make a beer using the same methods and ingredients as the ancient Sumerians. From their success, it is clear that beer was certainly made when civilization was still in its infancy.
The word beer itself liekly comes from either the old english bere or beere from the plant which was once used in making beer. Later, the more refined Barley was substituted but the drink was still called beer. Another possibility is that it comes from the Latin bibere which means to drink which then became biber and then bier. In Spanish, the word for beer is cerveza, which has its origin in Ceres, the Roman goddess of Agriculture.
The northern part of Europe, including the British Isles, had a cooler climate better suited to beer making because barley grew easily there. In Germany and England, beer became a staple of their diets, and was commonly referred to as liquid bread. This explains why southern Europe, where grapes grew easily, has a more developed wine industry.
In 1516, the Germans instituted the now famous Reinheitsgebot, a law (still in effect today) which strictly dictates what ingredients may go into beer. There are only four legal ingredients; 1) Barley, 2) Hops, 3) Yeast, and 4) Water.
