The History of Beer

The Hymn to Ninkasi

In the 1950's, Robert Braidwood of the University of Chicago proposed a link between breadmaking and the domestication of grains nearly 10,000 years ago. In response, Jonathan Sauer of the University of Wisconsin suggested that perhaps these grains were used for beer rather than bread.

It has also been postulated that beer was an accidental discovery. Stored barley seeds may have sprouted after becoming moist. With exposure to airborne yeast and more moisture, the sweeter barley sprouts could ferment, making the first beer.

We do know from ancient texts that the earliest beers are Sumerian, from ancient Mesopotamia. Beer appears to have been an important part of Sumerian culture: the word "beer" appears in many contexts relating to religion, medicine and myth. The code of Hammurabi from the 18th c BC details stiff penalties for owners of ancient "brewpubs" who overcharge customers or fail to inform authorities of criminals in their bar.

The artifact shown here, dating to 1800 BC, is etched with a hymn to Ninkasi, the goddess of brewing. (Not to be confused with our own Goddess @ Beer Church.) Its translation (below) describes how bappir, Sumerian bread, is mixed with "aromatics" to ferment in a big vat. It is interesting to note that bappir is a bread stored for long periods of time and is eaten only during food shortages. Yet it is a primary ingredient in the brewing process that supplies the necessary starches for sugar production. This is an effective way of storing raw materials for the brewing of beer. So which came first, the bread or the beer?

The Hymn to Ninkasi

Borne of the flowing water,
Tenderly cared for by the Ninhursag,
Borne of the flowing water,
Tenderly cared for by the Ninhursag,

Having founded your town by the sacred lake,
She finished its great walls for you,
Ninkasi, having founded your town by the sacred lake,
She finished it's walls for you,

Your father is Enki, Lord Nidimmud,
Your mother is Ninti, the queen of the sacred lake.
Ninkasi, your father is Enki, Lord Nidimmud,
Your mother is Ninti, the queen of the sacred lake.

You are the one who handles the dough [and] with a big shovel,
Mixing in a pit, the bappir with sweet aromatics,
Ninkasi, you are the one who handles the dough [and] with a big shovel,
Mixing in a pit, the bappir with [date] - honey,

You are the one who bakes the bappir in the big oven,
Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,
Ninkasi, you are the one who bakes the bappir in the big oven,
Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,

You are the one who waters the malt set on the ground,
The noble dogs keep away even the potentates,
Ninkasi, you are the one who waters the malt set on the ground,
The noble dogs keep away even the potentates,

You are the one who soaks the malt in a jar,
The waves rise, the waves fall.
Ninkasi, you are the one who soaks the malt in a jar,
The waves rise, the waves fall.

You are the one who spreads the cooked mash on large reed mats,
Coolness overcomes,
Ninkasi, you are the one who spreads the cooked mash on large reed mats,
Coolness overcomes,

You are the one who holds with both hands the great sweet wort,
Brewing [it] with honey [and] wine
(You the sweet wort to the vessel)
Ninkasi, (...)(You the sweet wort to the vessel)

The filtering vat, which makes a pleasant sound,
You place appropriately on a large collector vat.
Ninkasi, the filtering vat, which makes a pleasant sound,
You place appropriately on a large collector vat.

When you pour out the filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.
Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.

Beer Time Line

The following is a concise timeline of beer history by Prof. Linda Raley, Texas Tech University.

Ancient History

Historians speculate that prehistoric nomads may have made beer from grain & water before learning to make bread.

Beer became ingrained in the culture of civilizations with no significant viticulture.

Noah's provisions included beer on the Ark.

4300 BC, Babylonian clay tablets detail recipes for beer.

Beer was a vital part of civilization and the Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Chinese, and Inca cultures.

Babylonians produced beer in large quantities with around 20 varieties.

Beer at this time was so valued that it was sometimes used to pay workers as part of their daily wages.

Early cultures often drank beer through straws to avoid grain hulls left in the beverage.

Egyptians brewed beer commercially for use by royalty served in gold goblets, medical purposes, and as a necessity to be included in burial provisions for the journey to the hereafter.

Different grains were used in different cultures:

a) Africa used millet, maize and cassava.

b) North America used persimmon although agave was used in Mexico.

c) South America used corn although sweet potatoes were used in Brazil.

d) Japan used rice to make sake.

e) China used wheat to make samshu.

f) Other Asian cultures used sorghum.

g) Russians used rye to make quass or kvass.

h) Egyptians used barley and may have cultivated it strictly for brewing as it made poor bread.

1600 BC Egyptian texts contain 100 medical prescriptions calling for beer.

If an Egyptian gentleman offered a lady a sip of his beer they were betrothed.

Early brewers used herbals like balsam, hay, dandelion, mint, and wormwood seeds, horehound juice, and even crab claws & oyster shells for flavorings.

Romans brewed "cerevisia" (Ceres the goddess of agriculture & vis meaning strength in Latin).

55 BC Roman legions introduce beer to Northern Europe.

49 BC Caesar toasted his troops after crossing the Rubicon, which began the Roman Civil War.

Before the Middle Ages brewing was left to women to make since it was considered a food as well as celebration drink.

23 BC Chinese brewed beer called "kiu"

500-1000 AD the first half of the Middle Ages, brewing begins to be practiced in Europe, shifting from family tradition to centralized production in monasteries and convents (hospitality for traveling pilgrims).

During Medieval times beer was used for tithing, trading, payment and taxing.

1000 AD hops begins to be used in the brewing process.

1200 AD beer making is firmly established as a commercial enterprise in Germany, Austria, and England.

a) German's preferred cold temperature lagers (bottom-fermentation) stored in caves in the Alps.

b) English preferred mild temperature ales (top-fermentation) stored in cellars.

1295 King Wenceslas grants Pilsen Bohemia brewing rights (formerly Czechoslovakia, now Slovakia & Czech Republic).

1420 German brewers develop the lager method of brewing.

1489 Germany's first brewing guild, Brauerei Beck, was established.

1490's Columbus found Indians making beer from corn and black birch sap.

Renaissance History

1516 Bavarian brewing guilds push for the Reinheitsgeobot purity laws make it illegal to use any ingredients but water, barley, and hops in the brewing of beer (they didn't know yeast existed).

1553 Beck's Brewery founded & still brewing today.

Late 1500's Queen Elizabeth I of England drank strong ale for breakfast.

1587 the first beer brewed in New World at Sir Walter Raleigh's colony in Virginia--but the colonists sent requests to England for better beer.

1602 Dr. Alexander Nowell discovers that ale can be stored longer in cork sealed, glass bottles.

1612 the first commercial brewery opened in New Amsterdam (NYC, Manhattan) after colonists advertised in London newspapers for experienced brewers.

1620 Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock because the beer supplies were running low.

1674 Harvard College has its own brewhouse.

1680 William Penn (founder of Pennsylvania) operated commercial brewery.

1757 Washington wrote his personal recipe "To Make Small Beer."

1786 Molson brewery is founded in what is today Canada.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had their own private brewhouses.

Samuel Adams operated commercial brewery.

Soldiers in the revolutionary army received rations of a quart of beer a day.

1789 James Madison proposes that Congress levy a low 8-cent duty per barrel on malt liquors to encourage "the manufacture of beer in every State in the Union."

Beer and bread were the mainstays of the ordinary person's diet for centuries.

Yeasts during this time were exactly the same as those used in bread.

Modern History

Before the 1800's most beer was really "Ale."

1810 Munich establishes Oktoberfest as an official celebration.

1830's Bavarians Gabriel Sedlmayr of Munich and Anton Dreher of Vienna developed the lager method of beer production.

1842 the first golden lager is produced in Pilsen, Bohemia.

In the mid-19th Century (1850's) German immigrant brewers introduced cold maturation lagers to the US (Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Coors, Stroh, Schlitz, and Pabst roots begin here).

The modern era of brewing in the US began in the late 1800's with commercial refrigeration (1860), automatic bottling, pasteurization (1876), and railroad distribution.

1870's Adolphus Busch pioneers the use of double-walled railcars, a network of icehouses to make Budweiser the first national brand.

1876 Pasteur unraveled the secrets of yeast in the fermentation process, and he also developed pasteurization to stabilize beers 22 years before the process was applied to milk.

1880 there are approximately 2,300 breweries in the US.

1890s Pabst is the first US brewer to sell over 1 million barrels in a year.

1909 Teddy Roosevelt brought over 500 gal. of beer on safari in Africa.

1914 commercial competition drives the number of operating breweries down to 1,400.

1933 Prohibition ends for beer (April 7).

1935 only 160 breweries survive Prohibition.

1935 the beer can is introduced (American Can Co. & Kreuger Brewing).

1938 Elise Miller John heads Miller Brewing for 8 years as the first and only woman ever to run a major brewing company.

1965 Fritz Maytag purchases Anchor Brewing Co.

1966 Budweiser is the first brand to sell 10 million barrels in a year.

1976 New Albion is the first in the rebirth of brewpubs and microbreweries in the US opening in California.

1988 Asahi Super Dry (Japan) introduces new beer category (soon to follow is Michelob Dry).

1991 the US produces 20% of the world beer volume (world's largest).

1992:

1) The US beer industry produced & sold 2.62 billion cases of beer.

2) Estimated per capita consumption was 22.7 gallons (ranked 13th worldwide).

3) Beer drinkers consumed 5.89 Billion gallons, enough to fill the Houston Astrodome over 12 times or 330 oil tankers.

4) Five brewers produced 89.4% of domestic product:

a) Anheuser-Busch (A-B), 44.5%

b) Miller Brewing, 21.8%

c) Coors, 10.4%

d) Stroh, 7.4%

e) G. Heileman, 5.3%

5) The world's largest combined-site brewer was A-B, at 1.166 Billion cases.

6) The world's largest single-site brewery was Coors Brewing, Golden, Colorado, at 272 Million cases.

1993 US retail beer sales exceed $45 Billion.

First half of the 1900's beer was associated with men, blue-collar workers, college students, and mainstream sports enthusiasts.

Late 1900's beer had a different image and cultural function, with growth in popularity among a more diverse share of the population.

The Catholic Church's Role in Brewing

In the Middle Ages, brewers didn't understand the phenomena of brewing. They mixed the ingredients and somehow it turned into beer. Nobody questioned why or how it happened, they were just thankful that it did. Since they knew so little about the process, there was a great chance that something might go wrong along the way. In Europe during the middle ages, with the influence that the Catholic Church had on life in those days, there could only be two possible explanations for the phenomena of brewing beer -Devine Intervention or Demonic Intervention.

In general, in the Middle ages, when people could not explain something it was considered to be the work of the Devil. However, people liked beer. Not only was it tasty and intoxicating, it was also much safer to drink than water was in those days. Nothing resembling sanitation had been invented yet and most towns and villages had poisonous, if not toxic, water supplies. People were encouraged to drink beer in lieu of water. St. Arnold actually earned his sainthood because of this. Beer was good. Fermentation was considered a miracle.

Problem was, sometimes a batch of beer would not turn out right. When you don't understand the fermentation process, the possibility of something going wrong is very high. In the minds of our Mid-Evil progenitors, a bad batch of beer meant the Devil got is dirty hands into the brew kettle and interfered with God's miracle.

There were several practices employed to control or avoid the intervention of the devil. The posting of Christian icons in the brew house was (and still is) a common practice. Even today, in most Belgian brew houses you can find a crucifix or a statue of a Saint. Other symbols used were the six-pointed star or the sign of Solomon. Another common practice of the old brewers was to stick to certain rituals, like reciting ritual phrases at certain specific moments, or to try to do everything exactly the same way.

The most certain way to avoid demonic interference in the brewing process was to have the local priest preside over the brewing. Of course, a priest's time was very valuable in those days. There were lots of demons running around the countryside, towns and villages meddling with the lives of peasants and nobles alike. So, the priest had to be paid. Normal compensation for a priest was four pints of beer per blessing. The blessing of the beer was a service known as "The Right of Signage." Some priests were a bit crooked and began blackmailing breweries, demanding greater payment for their service. To control these excesses, local rulers created laws that defined how much would be paid to priests for their blessing. To keep the clergy happy, they also created rules that required that breweries have this blessing for every batch of beer they produced. This was an early and effective form of taxation. The law created and enforced by the ruler insured that the Church would continue to support that leader's divine right to rule.

This is a primitive example of The Man sticking it to The People.

Not long after the laws were created requiring payment to the Church for each batch of beer, the Church decided that it really wasn't necessary for a priest to be present at the time of brewing. As long as payments were made on time, the church would bless the brewery from afar. It was now a tax and not a ritual, a fee and not a rite, a levy and not service.

When the French Revolution spread through Europe at the end of the 18th century, and Europe finally started to truly revolt against such ancient ways of thinking, this practice of local priests getting paid a compensation for each batch of beer halted. The blessing of the brew kettles was soon replaced by the placing of candles before the statue of a Saint, or by the posting of a crucifix in the brew-house.

In the 19th century, science made such progress that the brewing process and the function of the yeast was fully understood. From then on, the priest had to pay for his beer. Unless, of course, he was a monk and was living in a beer-brewing Abbey.