Estefania Zavala
Professor J. Dartley
BIO-130-602WC
October 23,2016
The creation of beer can be dated back to over 5,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia. Located in the South of Mesopotamia , the cultivation of cereals also around the time of the creation of the first forms of writing, the Sumerians were practicing the art of brewing beer. Artifacts excavated from the ruins of ancient cities prove that brewing beer was already an established custom. Around 4,000 years ago, there was also evidence of Chinese brewing their own beer from rice, honey, grapes, and hawthorn fruits. However the Sumerians made their beer from twice baked barley bread. Beer allowed a more abundant sharing of an ingredient not very easy to cultivate at the beginning. In fact, it was easier to do a lot of beer with a bit of grain that much bread with the same amount of grain. Many beers are made by soaking breads fermented, cooked in water and leaving ferment the mixture.
The beer is the oldest drink that the human being has produced and consumed even taking into account the very significant modifications that it has suffered throughout the times. Its appearance and influence in the life of man and their integration in the most diverse of cultures has taken various versions that fix their origin in different stages of the history of humanity, and even in different geographical and cultural scenarios.
Despite the countless opinions dating back to the emergence of the beer, recent
Beer, the first beverage appeared as a result of changed lifestyle for the early humans. Before, humans were nomads, who would follow their food (pg. 9). But starting about 12,000 years ago humans had picked up on a new lifestyle (pg. 9). These small bands of about 30 people were now settling down in more permanent areas and had abandoned their old ways of constantly traveling (pg. 9). This drastic turning point in human history seemed to primarily come from one reason, the discovery of beer (pg.11). As beer was basically formed from the gathering of barley and wheat, humans had to form some type of permanent residency, and abandon their old nomadic lifestyle (pg.11).
Beer was existent in a time where there was a great increase in social intricacy because of the creation of cities from the settling of humanity after its practice of being nomadic.
Each drink has changed the world in many ways (good or bad). Starting with beer, beer steered people out of the hunting and gathering way of life into the agricultural lifestyle. People grew grains in order to make beer, but eventually in gave the people the idea that can also grow more crops instead of just grain. "Beer drinking was one of the many factors that helped tip the balance away from hunting and gathering and towards farming and sedentary lifestyle based on small settlements". Beer was also safer to drink than water because water was mostly contaminated. In the Stone Age, beer became the main drink, and it is still a popular drink today.
2. The author uses sources that date back to the Stone Age, to gather his information on the use of beer. He outlines how society changed from being hunter-gatherers, and relying on the environment for nutrition, to farmers who were independent of scavenging the environment for nutrition.
Beer started out as gruel, and as the gruel fermented it turned into beer. Now it was not the first form of alcohol, but it was an important kind of alcohol. Beer was made from cereal crops, which were very abundant, and because it was so abundant it could be made whenever it was needed. They then found an even easier way to make beer by using beer-bread. Beer bread is basically everything needed to make beer in a loaf, making it convenient to store the raw beer materials. Beer started as just a social drink but then blossomed into a “hallmark of civilization”, as seen by the Mesopotamians. Grain was the basis of the national diet, it was
1. The author’s main thesis in setting up this book is that many drinks have built and brought together human history in to what we know about it.
1. The author’s main thesis in setting the book is that drinks have shaped human history ever since early humans were forced to live by rivers, springs and lakes to ensure an adequate supply of freshwater.
Beer: Beer was not invented, it was discovered. Exactly when the first beer was brewed is unknown but there was almost certainly no beer before 10,000 BCE. The rise of beer was closely associated with the domestication of the cereal grains rom which it is made and the adoption of farming. Beer originated in the Fertile Crescent in Egypt and Mesopotamia. To beer drinkers in the Neolithic period, beer’s ability to intoxicate and induce a state of altered consciousness seemed magical. This caused them to believe beer was a gift from the Gods. Since it was a gift from the gods, it was presented as a religious offering in religious ceremonies, agricultural fertility rites, and in
Tom Standage’s A History of the World in Six Glasses discusses the importance of six beverages (beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, Coca-Cola), each of which define distinctive periods of civilization. The comparably minor, yet crucial role of water is also represented in support of Standage’s argument regarding not only the necessity of each drink as a requisite to life, but also the role of each drink as a stimulus for cultural diffusion and development. Various historical developments, ranging from water purification to convivia, are utilized to depict each beverage’s appeal and the contributions of each drink towards its respective era of prosperity, subsequently illustrating various historical themes that mark the progression of society
Beer originated in Egypt and Mesopotamia during the Neolithic period. Beer was not so much an ‘invention’ as it was a ‘discovery.’ It was a very social drink, meaning both the rich and the poor consumed it and due to the fact it was used in many religious ceremonies. Beer was also a reason that people during the Neolithic period adopted agriculture. Some purposes for the use of beer include wages for workers. Instead of paying workers with physical money, they instead paid them with beer. Beer also proved to have many medicinal benefits.
Beer shows us that early civilizations were encouraged by the cultivation and storage of grain to develop permanent settlements. The history of beer also shows us that ancient civilizations were civilized enough to understand that contaminated water was unsafe to drink. Beer also shows us how the association of beer with a settled down lifestyle was more important to the people rather than the savage ways of prehistoric times. The use of beer as currency demonstrates the prosperity of the new civilizations as well as how beer had become a necessity to the people. The popularization of beer in the ancient world pushed civilization to develop a written language as a way to record the distribution of grain, beer, bread, and other goods.
Nomadic hunter-gatherers discovered beer through gruel, which was made using cereal grains. They started farming these grains to create more beer and even bread. Beer soon became a necessity to the people of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Some ancient writing stated that drinking beer is what separated them from savages. As beer and bread became more popular, it was stored in public containment building which then turned into temples and the bread and beer was turned into offering. Since the discovery of beer seemed magical to the people, they would offer it to their gods for various occasions. Priests would ration out the offering and use them as tax and to pay workers. Soon small towns turned into villages and then to cities as more people took up
From fancy beer to the lowest quality that you could receive, beer was presented in celebrations or events because this drink “brought people together since the dawn of civilization” and this bringing together allowed the exchange of cultures and traditions to be passed down from generation to generation just like wine (39). These interactions shaped the mind of man, and helped them have
Beer has a long history. In 2000 B.C.E., Sumerians had prepared eight different beer types, ranging from “strong,” “red brown,” and “good dark” (Mauk, 2013). Breweries have created their own recipes, brewed their own beers—some with alcohol, some without. Over the past few years, craft beer gained steady market share away from the national and international breweries (Murray & O 'Neill, 2012). Separating one beer from the next is the product itself, and what the product has to offer. Competition is ferocious due to more informed, sophisticated consumers, as well as globalization and the spread of technology (Murray & O 'Neill, 2012).
The malt is now ready for the brewing process. Production methods will differ from brewery to brewery, as well as according to brewery equipment and beer types. Athenian Brewery S.A uses its own production methods; however the main processes will be similar. The description below applies to the production of a typical lager beer in a brewery with a lauter tun installed.