Your Daily Facts about Beer
“Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.” -Dave Barry
Beer brewing dates to almost 6000 BC. However, it was the Sumerians around 2000 BC who really loved the stuff. Their plaques and carvings often center on people or gods drinking from large jars of beer. A hymn to one of their most important goddesses, Ninkasi, is actually a very detailed explanation of how to make beer; this was helpful in a society that was almost entirely illiterate. Want to make some beer but can’t read the recipe? Just start reciting the hymn and you’re set. Beer was so important that the average Sumerian couldn’t be bothered to stop drinking it for anything apparently, as there is a carving of a woman drinking out of a beer jug in the middle of sexual intercourse. That’s some dedication to your booze.
Beer brewing is also a dangerous process due to the chances of bottles exploding, as today’s home brewers know. Sometimes, however, you get beer destruction on an even larger scale. At a London brewery in 1814, a vat containing more than 100,000 gallons of ale exploded, sending the beer rushing down the street through poor residential areas. It destroyed two houses and one pub, killing nine people in the process.
In ancient and medieval times the job of making beer fell to women. In some cultures it was considered such an honor that only beautiful or noble women could do it. In medieval Europe brewing was one of a housewife’s regular tasks, just like cooking and cleaning and baby making. Some of these women became famous for being exceptional brewers and started supplying people other than their own families. You never knew what you were getting though. One brewer let her chickens roost over her beer vats and when they defecated would simply stir the refuse into the beer. Yummy.
Beer was often used as medicine in medieval times. But those people used just about anything as medicine whether it worked or not, right? Modern people wouldn’t be so silly. Or would they? Shortly after the start of Prohibition the government ruled that doctors could give out beer for medicinal purposes (sound familiar?). This made members of the temperance movement furious; here they had finally won their long fight to outlaw alcohol and people were still going to be able to get it because of a loophole in the 18th Amendment. Would doctors’ offices become the new dens of vice that bars had recently been? Debate broke out in Congress and the American Medical Association about the importance of medicinal beer. In the end, the temperance movement won out again, leading to the rise of speakeasies and organized crime.
It’s a terrible stereotype that Germans are all huge beer drinkers. However, their country of 80 million did until just a few years ago have more breweries than the 300 million strong USA. They also lay claim to the oldest brewery. Located in Bavaria, Weihenstephan Abbey has been making beer since 1040. That’s almost 1000 years of continuous beer production. While it hasn’t been a religious house in 200 years the brewery is still in operation.
The Incas and some Pacific Island cultures used spit to ferment their beer. Beer or Chicha was very important for Incan festivals. They had large breweries devoted to making enough of the stuff. The recipe went something like this: take a large vat of water and let it warm up in the sun. Get a bunch of women to chew corn until it is a pulp in their mouths. The women then spit the pulp into the vat of warm water and let it sit for a few weeks. Then simply strain the lumpy, cloudy mixture and it’s ready to serve.
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