Beer is the world’s oldest and most popular alcoholic
beverage. It’s been around, pretty much,
since civilization began. Its origins
aren’t exact but recordings dating back to 6000BC from Ancient Iraq shows evidence of archaic recipes.
In fact, an early Sumerian prayer to the Ninkasi, the matron goddess of
alcohol, contains the recipe for beer.
Ancient beer recipes are pretty straightforward. Essentially any substance with carbohydrates
can ferment naturally. This is
typically in the form of starches and sugars.
The saccharification of starch and the fermentation of the resulting sugar are what make beer. The starch and the enzymes from saccharification often come from malted cereal grains. Malted barley or wheat are the most common. Hops are another integral ingredient. This is what gives beer its bitterness and was introduced to beer somewhere around the 9th century to act as a natural preservative. The mastering of incorporating this ingredient was essential for exporting the beverage. Herbs and fruit are often added in the mix to add flavor. Beers can have a wide range of flavor "notes." The style of the beer often reflects different flavors.
Beer was often consumed instead of water when the purity and cleanliness of water was never guaranteed. Being that water is boiled in the brewing process, it was considerably safer to drink. It also provided a large amount of calories for the day when food was scarce. As making beer with hops became perfected, German towns in the 13th century began to standardize barrel sizes and home brewing started to shift towards medium-sized operations of around eight to ten people.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, be went from a home-based activity to an artisan one. Pubs and monasteries began brewing their own beer for mass consumption. An unhopped brew in the 15th century wold have been considered an ale, while the use of hops deemed it a beer. In fact, no brewer was allowed to brew both. The Brewers Company of London stated "no hops, herbs, or other like thing to be put into any ale of liquore wherof ale shall be made- but only liquor (water), malt, and yeast."
The Industrial Revolution catalyzed beer production with the steam engine and the invention of the thermometer and hydrometer. These latter two were essential for monitoring the brewing process, ensuring efficiency and consistency. The hydrometer measures beer's specific gravity. Using this instrument, brewers could calculate the yield from different malts. With this, they found the more expensive pale malts were able to produce more fermentable material over brown malt, used in porters and stouts, which produce a much darker, thicker and creamier beer. In 1857, Louis Pasteur discovered the role of yeast in fermentation, allowing brewers more methods to prevent the souring of beer by undesirable microorganisms. Many parts of Europe, and the UK in particular, have a large market for beers with live yeast in it.
Every country and culture has their own tradition of brewing beer with their own unique recipes of herbs and spices. Prohibition changed the shape of beer for the American people when bootleg brewers watered down their beer to increase profits. This is where you get Budweiser, Miller or Coors catering the modern American palate preferring weaker beers.
If prohibition, (not counting the War on Drugs) were instituted again today, you could almost guarantee a full out war would be waged. Whoever came up with the idea of prohibition in the first place must have been well out of their mind to try to keep the good people of America in partaking in one of the worlds oldest traditions. Beer is the blood of the people. It our most common and ecumenical connection to our ancestors and our fellow man. What a terrible world this would be without it.
