What Role Did Beer Play in Ancient History?

The beer that we drink today isn’t the beer that was enjoyed by our ancestors but it’s clear that ancient civilizations had the knowledge and desire to brew and consume fermented beverages that contained alcoholic content. Sloto cash online casino embarks on a journey of discovery and exploration to learn more about the history of beer.

First Beers

Beer seems to have been a part of ancient societies from the Middle East to South America. Egyptians brewed beer from barley, Babylonians made it from wheat and Incas used corn to brew beer.

The oldest evidence of a beverage that is similar to what we know of as beer seems to come from Wadi Kubbaniya, an 18,000-year-old site in Upper Egypt. There, starch-dusted stones were uncovered and researchers believe that they were used to grind sorghum or bulrush which, along with chamomile and doum-palm fruit – remains of which were found – were likely used to make peer.

Other ancient beer-producing sites have been identified in Iran’s Zagros Mountains and Israel’s Jordan Valley where beer seems to have been produced on a large scale approximately 7000 years ago.

Further east, a 6000-year-old Sumerian tablet that depicts people sitting around a bowl drinking through reed straws was discovered in today’s southern Iraq – Sumer even had its own patron goddess of beer known as “Ninkasi.”

In China, residue on pottery dating from around 5,000 years ago shows that barley and other grains had been used to brew beer.

The ancients brewed their beers with various tastes including oregano, thyme, olive oil, cheese, carrot, mugwort, meadowsweet, bog myrtle and chamomile.

Dr. Patrick McGovern, known as "Indiana Jones of Ancient Ales” and recognized as the world’s foremost authority on ancient alcohol production has plenty of stories to tell about beer in ancient times. “For the pyramids, each worker got a daily ration of four to five liters. It was a source of nutrition, refreshment and reward for all the hard work. It was beer for pay. You would have had a rebellion on your hands if they’d run out. The pyramids might not have been built if there hadn’t been enough beer.”

Medieval and Middle Ages

Beer was a common drink in medieval and Middle Ages eras. It was the drink of the common man though some believed that it was unhealthy. Brewers began to flavor beer with hops in the 9th century C.E. and the practice grew as they saw that the hops could preserve the beer. By the 13th century it was common for beer to include hops and that led to the export of beer from Bohemian towns that perfected the art of making hopped beer. Other countries including Holland and England adopted the practice of producing beer on a large scale for export.

Once beer production moved from home brewing to brewing for mass consumption, pubs and other similar venues began to open up in Europe. Until the 16th century the beers were top-fermented but once bottom-fermenting was discovered, those beers became more popular and remain so to this day.

Modern Days

Beer production became industrialized with the introduction of the steam engine and the invention of the thermometer and hydrometer, all in in the mid-18th century. Whereas malt had once been made by drying germinated grains over fires made from straw, wood, charcoal and coke,  a new drum roaster drying process eliminated the smokiness of the malt which made the beer more palatable to the public. Another big innovation was Louis Pasteur’s discovery, in 1857, of the role of yeast in fermenting which allowed brewers to develop techniques to prevent microorganisms from souring beer  though until today, some beer drinkers continue to prefer beer with live yeast.

United States

By the 1920s the United States had thousands of breweries but a new law, Prohibition, outlawed the production, sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Some breweries managed to stay afloat during the 13 years of Prohibition by converting their operations to the production of soft drinks but most went out of business.

Bootleggers produced beer or smuggled beer in from Canada but that beer was often watered down, leading to a trend of lighter beers that are still the norm in America today.

Reviving Ancient Beers

Despite the standardization of most of the world’s beers, some beer aficionados are exploring how they can revive ancient brews. In addition to the research, the process isn’t always smooth.

Travis Rupp of Boulder Colorado, a self-proclaimed beer archaeologist, once tried to make Chica, a Peruvian corn-based beer that was a favorite in the civilization that pre-dated the Incans. The recipe calls for corn which is partially fermented in spit, meaning that before the corn-quinoa mixture can start to brew, the corn has to be chewed.

Once that has been taken care of, the mixture gelatinized in a stainless steel tank but the researchers came across a problem when it came time to drain it –-  "It literally turned into cement in the pipes because the corn was so finely ground," Rupp said. "People were a little cranky."

Rupp researches how ancient civilizations made and consumed beer and he’s dedicated to replicating those methods as much as possible. "The one thing that we've been really quite surprised by is not a single one of them is undrinkable," he says. "Every one of them has gotten done and we're like, 'That is so weird. That is just so cool.' "

Rupp has also been trying out other beers including Beersheva beer that comes from ancient Israel sources and includes 3 different types of grain with pomegranate juice, Benedictus beer based on a monastic recipe that dates to the 9th century CE and calls for lavender and wormwood, and a Viking-inspired beer, made with baker’s yeast and juniper branches and brewing information gleaned from Viking stories and ancient shipwrecks.

McGovern also tried to recreate chica – his version required wild strawberries, peppercorns and eight hours of chewing on red Peruvian corn.

Rupp’s next project involves trying to recreate the original India pale ale while McGovern is focusing on creating Paleolithic beer.