Wine Making & Beer Brewing - Wine Making and Beer Brewing Information

History of Beer

Beer is regarded as the first alcoholic beverage ever produced, dating back to as early as the sixth millennium B.C. The discovery of beer is considered to be a major event in the development of agriculture through the centuries. Closely related to the discovery of bread, beer is made from the fermentation of sugar or starch in cereal products.

Chinese history referred to some kind of brewed beverage they called “kui” 5,000 years ago. A 4,000-year-old Mesopotamian clay tablet referred to women as “master brewers.” Women also played an important role in beer brewing in Babylon. Most of them had been priestesses who used the alcoholic drink for religious rites.

Hammurabi, the sixth king of Babylon, included beer control in his laws, more popularly known as the Code of Hammurabi. The Babylonians produced various types of beer – red, dark, pale, three-fold, and so on. Historians claimed that royalty used a golden straw to sip their drink. In Israel, beer is believed to have been available as early as the time of King Saul and Kind David as shown by several mugs found at Tel Isdar in the 1960s

The pharaohs of ancient Egypt drank beer regularly some 5,000 years ago. It was a staple for the noblemen as well as the peasants. Even the dead were given the alcoholic drink to take with them in their “journey to the next life.” The beverage was also used as a medicinal prescription. Beer was mentioned in the Book of the Dead and depicted in ancient hieroglyphics. Isis was the Egyptian people’s patroness of beer brewing. A keg of beer is supposedly the proper gift from anyone who asks for the hand of a pharaoh’s daughter.

It is believed that the Greeks learned brewing from the Egyptians. Great Greek writers such as Sophocles, Xenophon, and Herodotus often mentioned beer in their works. In turn, it was the Greeks who passed on the knowledge to the ancient Romans. Julius Caesar himself is known to have offered his officers a beer toast upon crossing the River Rubicon in 49 B.C. The Romans taught European barbarians how to brew yeasts, as scholars said.

History shows that Christian monasteries produced and sold beer. Monks are said to have engaged into the undertaking as a means to fund the needs of pilgrims and travelers. The likes of Saint Augustine of Hippo, Saint Luke the Evangelist, and Saint Nicholas of Myra (Santa Claus) were deemed as patrons of brewing. Germany’s Saint Columbian is also associated with beer.

Christian ruler, Emperor Charlemagne promoted beer as part of a moderate diet. Arthurian legends mentioned a brewed beverage called “bragget” as being served to the Knights of the Round Table. Women were also known as brew masters throughout medieval times, when the drink was regarded as a “food-drink.”

Beer and ale are closely associated in present times. Their difference is that ale is mainly produced from malt. Hops were added as a main ingredient in Flanders, giving it a bitter taste and making it better preserved compared to ale.