Beer can be quite refreshing and tasty and many of us enjoy
a few pints now and then, but do you know who invented it?
It’s difficult to attribute the invention of beer to a
particular culture or time period, but the world’s first fermented beverages
most likely emerged alongside the development of cereal agriculture some 12,000
years ago. As hunter-gatherer tribes settled into agrarian civilizations based
around staple crops like wheat, rice, barley and maize, they may have also
stumbled upon the fermentation process and started brewing beer. In fact, some
anthropologists have argued that these early peoples’ insatiable thirst for
hooch may have contributed to the Neolithic Revolution by inspiring new
agricultural technologies.
The earliest known alcoholic beverage is a 9,000-year-old
Chinese concoction made from rice, honey and fruit, but the first barley beer
was most likely born in the Middle East. While people were no doubt imbibing it
much earlier, hard evidence of beer production dates back about 5,000 years to
the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia. Archeologists have unearthed ceramic
vessels from 3400 B.C. still sticky with beer residue, and 1800 B.C.’s “Hymn to
Ninkasi”—an ode to the Sumerian goddess of beer—describes a recipe for a beloved
ancient brew made by female priestesses. These nutrient-rich suds were a
cornerstone of the Sumerian diet, and were likely a safer alternative to
drinking water from nearby rivers and canals, which were often contaminated by
animal waste.
Beer consumption also flourished under the Babylonian
Empire, but few ancient cultures loved knocking back a few as much as the
Egyptians. Workers along the Nile were often paid with an allotment of a
nutritious, sweet brew, and everyone from pharaohs to peasants and even
children drank beer as part of their everyday diet. Many of these ancient beers
were flavored with unusual additives such as mandrake, dates and olive oil.
More modern-tasting libations would not arrive until the Middle Ages, when
Christian monks and other artisans began brewing beers seasoned with hops.