The origin of beer goes way back in the history of humanity.
There are those who claim that it was invented before bread, and that for a long time it has been used as food rather than as a celebratory drink. And it is that the fundamental raw material of the beer is the barleya cereal with recognized nutritional qualities.
More than 6,000 years ago, on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, sumerians made and consumed beer. History says that the Babylonians inherited from the Sumerians the art of cultivating the land and making beer.
One of the best-known decrees of the time, issued by King Hammurabi, established regulations on the manufacture of this beverage, which include the price of the product, the appropriate concentration and the establishment of sanctions applicable to those who adulterate it. The elaboration had a religious character and was carried out by priestesses.
According to an Assyrian tablet dated 2,000 years BC, the beer It was part of the provisions of Noah’s Ark. Secondly, Christopher Columbus Upon reaching the Caribbean islands, he discovered that the American Indians drank a fermented drink made from corn.
The Greeks identified the beer with the Egyptians, since the word “zythum” used by Africans meant barley wine. In the first century BC, Diodor Siculus writes: “it is done in Egyptwith barley, a drink called zythum and that due to the pleasantness of its color and its taste, it yields very little to the wine”. In the photo below we can see the production process.
If you want to know more about the Egyptians, we recommend that you read about their numbering system as it can be very interesting for you. Here we leave you an article that addresses the subject in a very complete way:
In its beginnings, the Egyptians obtained the beer fermenting the wheatbut later this was replaced by other more suitable cereals, especially the barley. The drink was mixed with fruit, preferably dates, sweetened with honey and scented with cinnamon.
Egyptian manufacturers of beer they were exempt from military service and both soldiers and authorities received beer as part of their pay.
There is also evidence that the chinese They produced a kind of beer call “kiu”, more than 4,000 years ago, which was made from barley, wheat, spelt, millet, and rice.
But the beer that we currently take has much more to do with the beer German. The beer tradition of Germany It is very old, and according to a German encyclopedia of 1645, the typical drink of the tribes of that country was «sea”, a traditional fermented concoction.
Before meeting the hopNorthern Europeans used aromatic herbs and wild plants, achieving a lighter beer, short-lived and not suitable for transport.
In the twelfth century, King John Primus, known as Gambrinusfought hunger in his domains through the cultivation of barley, with which he promoted the manufacture of beer.
In the Middle Ages, the German lands had about 500 cloisters in which it was made and marketed beersince wine was prohibited in Lent, they drank beer.
This was not the exclusive privilege of the monks, since the nuns of the Prados de Santa Clara received from the Dukes of Bavaria the right to make their own beer.
Germany has greatly influenced the characteristics of the beer modern, to the point that today it has a “Law of Purity”, enacted by the Bavarian Duke William IV in 1516. This norm obliges to produce the drink with malted barley, yeast, hops and water.
Until the year 1400, the main ingredients of the beer it was malted beer, water and yeast. Rosemary and thyme were added to prevent the beer spoiled and to add flavor.
Is beer it was cloudy and contained many proteins and carbohydrates, which made it a very nutritious drink, which was consumed by both peasants and the nobility.
It is believed that in the 15th century a new version of beer. The merchants of Flanders and Holland introduced hops in its elaboration, which gave it a certain bitter taste.
The variety that contained the hops was called «beer«, and the one that lacked this ingredient, «hello«. The new hoppy variety became so popular that from the 18th century the entire beer were manufactured with this component.
had to wait until Louis Pasteur for the final step to be taken. Until then, the producers of beer they relied on natural airborne yeast for fermentation to occur. By showing that yeast is a living microorganism, pasteur made precise control of the transformation of sugar into alcohol possible.
Source of information:
- https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historia_de_la_beer
- http://www.cervebel.es/cerveza_discovery.htm
Image sources:
- Wikipedia
- Google (reusable tag)