Beer is one of the oldest beverages known to man . . . and woman! In fact, women were the first brewers, since one of their primary responsibilities involved cooking. Years ago beer was considered a food as well as a drink. Beer provided many of the calories needed for one’s daily diet. Dating back all the way to the fifth millennium BC, beer was recorded by the Ancient Egyptian scribes, who also created an extra hieroglyph specifically for “brewer.” Historians tell us that beer was used as a method to compensate laborers who were building the pyramids. And would you believe that if an Egyptian man offered a woman a sip of his brew and she accepted, they were betrothed? Try that move on a woman today, and you’re lucky to get out of the situation with only a few bruises. My question is how did these marriages fare in the years to follow, after the women graduated from sips to gulps to eventually handing him back an empty mug?
It has been said that Noah requested beer on his ark, and around 4300 BC the Babylonians recorded nearly twenty different types of beer recipes on clay tablets. Back then, water was not always clean and most certainly not as filtered as it is now. Some of it contained bacteria and parasites, which caused people to get sick. Many even died from drinking water. But you wouldn’t die if you drank beer! Since the beer brewing process requires the water to be boiled, beer was a pure drink. It was powerful enough to be used for medicinal purposes, proper enough to be presented as a gift to the Egyptian Pharaohs, and great enough to be sacrificed to the gods. Early civilizations believed the altering effects that beer had on them were supernatural. Intoxication was purely divine, and the drink as a whole was considered a gift from the gods. Many of us still believe this today!
Egyptians produced beer by fermenting bread or grain, and added dates to improve the taste. It was cloudy and completely unfiltered. Because there were no natural preservatives used in the process, beer had a short shelf life. While celebrating together, early cultures often drank beer from a communal bowl using reed straws to avoid ingesting the grain hulls and other sediment in the brew.
With the rise of Christianity and the cultivation of barley came a more mature brewing process. Christian monks played an important role in the production of beer as they used their knowledge of agriculture and science to refine the brewing process. Not only did they brew beer for trading purposes, but monks also provided beer to visiting travelers and offered their breweries for shelter. Consequently, there are a number of Christian saints who are patrons of brewing, including Saint Augustine of Hippo, Saint Luke the Evangelist, and Saint Nicholas, among others.
Prior to brewers using hops to preserve beer, bark or leaves were used. Gruit, which is a combination of herbs and spices, was used sometime after bark and leaves to flavor and preserve beer. Although some forms of gruit still exist today, it was never an equal match for the preservative that hops is. The first recorded use of hops was in 1079 in Germany. By the thirteenth century, hops began to be more commonly used than gruit to flavor and preserve beer. Soon after, hops would become the most widespread ingredient used as a preservative. In 1516, German brewers from Bavaria enacted the Reinheitsgebot purity law, which stated that only water, malted barley, and hops (this was before yeast was understood) were permitted to be used in the brewing process. This law not only assured local beer drinkers and consumers all around the world that German beers were of the highest quality; it also gave Germany a reputation for a brewing craftsmanship that exists to this day. The world-famous Oktoberfest fair, held in Munich each September since 1810, still allows only beer that has been brewed under the Reinheitsgebot standard to be served.
In 1620 the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth Rock carrying beer with them. It’s safe to assume beer was served at the first Thanksgiving gathering. Beer was the main beverage back then. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson brewed their own beer. We all know that Sam Adams did too, although that’s not the founding father’s recipe we’re drinking. That’s Jim Koch’s family beer recipe, which is another topic for another day. Hmmm, perhaps another book?
By the 1800s immigrants from Germany were bringing their brewing expertise to their new home, America. In the 1800s, Louis Pasteur discovered the role yeast played in the fermentation process while educating others on how it worked. Although yeast was already being used as an ingredient in brewing and is essential to the process, its importance had not yet been fully realized until then. To this day, the main ingredients in beer have not changed. They consist of water, grain (mostly malted barley), hops, and yeast. With the development of commercial refrigeration, automatic bottling, and pasteurization in the late 1800s came the big brands of beer. Some of these brands are still around today, many of which taste and look the same. There is speculation that the reason these big beer companies’ brews all taste and look similar is because they are from recipes dating back to when women were the primary brewers in the kitchen. And since women preferred a lighter beer to a hearty meal in a glass . . . voila! I know what you’re thinking—“this is just another example of how women run this world.” Well, keep it to yourself, guys!
Around 1880 there were approximately 2,300 breweries in the United States. By 1914 the larger commercial breweries drove the number of smaller operations down to around 1,400. Since then, these brewing conglomerates have worked hard to get us to drink the same commercial lagers over and over again. In fact, the only thing that ever changes is the can or bottle they put their brew in. I think it’s really interesting that the scar from 1914 is still prevalent today, even though craft brewing is growing by leaps and bounds. Next time you walk into a store to buy beer, notice all the space that just one of the big brewing companies takes up. Then look at the puny amount of space your favorite craft brewing company gets. Craft brewers provide quality beer brewed with interesting ingredients that produce all sorts of unique tastes to satisfy most any palette. Big beer marketers provide gimmicks of wide-mouthed, frost-brewed liner cans that are cold-mountain-filtered. They also provide fun commercials that show off the latest line of bikinis. Now there’s an interesting ingredient!
Perhaps the only thing more devastating to the American beer industry was Prohibition—the nationwide ban on the production of all alcoholic beverages in effect from 1921 to 1933. By 1935 there was said to be only 160 operational breweries left in existence because of this. By the year 1960, fewer than 60 had survived. Flavorful beer was an endangered species that was almost as extinct as the T-Rex!
I have one last bit of factual history to include that I find remarkable. This final bit of history is something that you and I are experiencing right now. Around the early 1990s in the United States, craft breweries started popping up everywhere. Even as I write this in 2014, breweries are multiplying faster than brewer’s yeast can turn sugar into alcohol. Despite a few big commercial companies offering cool cans of beer without taste, we have the largest variety of flavorful beer to choose that we have ever had. I like to think that the ghosts and descendants of the brewers who were shut down by the big commercial operations back in the early 1900s are responsible for the throng of breweries popping up today. Back to reclaim what is rightfully theirs. Sweet (or maybe in this case, bitter) revenge that you and I get to enjoy in every glass. Statistics currently show that more than 35 billion gallons of beer are produced globally each year with a revenue greater than 300 billion dollars. Nearly one-third of that revenue is attributed to the American consumer who has asked and continues to receive some of the best beer from the most qualified brewers all over the world. Let’s drink to that (like we need an excuse)!
Written by Mark Brewer in "Brewology - An illustrated Dictionary for Beer Lovers", Skyhorse Publishing, New York, 2015. Digitized,adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.