"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
- Benjamin Franklin
You know, I always thought of Ben Franklin as more of a clown than a wise man, but those are truly awe inspiring words. But, if they are true, beer must have been with us right from the beginning. Right? So just how far back does it go? Well, Noah included it in the Ark’s provisions, but that’s as far back as we can go because the flood destroyed all the records.
Beer next pops up in 4200BC on Babylon clay tablets. It must have been very well established by that time since the Babylonians boasted over 20 varieties.
Interestingly, bread must have come before beer, which is always a good plan. But really, bread was developed first. We know this because early brewers used unbaked bread as a source of yeast to make beer. More importantly though, the master brewers were women, and in fact continued to be a major force in beer making well beyond the middle ages. The Babylonians even had beer Godesses (Siris and Nimkasi), as did the Egyptians. Theirs was Isis, the nature goddess and patroness of beer making.
Life in Babylon must have been one of the happiest of times in humanity’s long history, because in 2100 BC Hammurabi, the 6th Babylonian king, decreed a daily beer ration for the populace: a worker received two litres, civil servants three litres, and high priests five litres per day. Truly an enlightened society. However, it may explain a lot of things, including the popularity of certain careers, and some curious religious beliefs as well as rather erratic government policies.
Tavern keepers haven’t changed a bit since then either, since Hammurabi was forced to institute some serious regulations in his great code of law to protect beer drinkers. These stated that the punishment for short measure by an innkeeper was drowning; a rather effective but reasonable, way to prevent any repetition of the offence!
The Chinese were a bit behind, which was unlike them. China was not usually behind anyone in the pursuit of life enriching activities. However it was not until about 5,000 years ago that they began brewing a beer called ‘Kui'.
The Greeks and Romans also brewed beer, but they considered it the drink of barbarians, as did the Germans who thought beer contained a spirit which possessed the drinker (who’d have thought it?). Wine was reserved for upper crust.
But women continued to play in an important role in the making of beer, a fact that I’m sure all the women pushing for prohibition in the 30’s were not aware of, and which may have helped the cause of those resisting that terrible law. However, until the Middle Ages, brewing was exclusively the domain of women, mainly because they were in charge of baking the bread which also used yeast.
As the Christian Era dawned beer really caught on, mainly at the hands of the Monks. They began making beer as a pleasant-tasting, nutritious drink to serve with their meals and to help them through fasting periods (good story). Since drinking is allowed during a fast, beer was permitted; in fact some monks were allowed to drink as much as five litres a day. (No wonder some of them saw visions, and no wonder monasteries were so popular in the Middle Ages).
These guys knew when they were onto a good thing and they knew what they were doing. They added hops to the beer and perfected the brewing process. They built the first breweries are considered the pioneers of the hotel business, providing food, beer, and a roof for pilgrims and other travelers. They are the inventors of the PUB. We have much to thank the monks for.... beer, and coffee too.
Three very well thought of Christian saints are listed as patrons of brewing: Saint Augustine of Hippo; Saint Luke the Evangelist; and Saint Nicholas of Myra, better known as Santa Claus. Its funny how that little tid-bit never came up in Sunday school.
Saint Mungo, the patron saint of Glasgow, established a religious brotherhood there in 540 AD, and one of the brothers started brewing to supply the others. Brewing is still regarded as the oldest industry in Glasgow. Saint Patrick apparently retained among his household a brewer - a priest called Mescan.
Even the Emperor Charlemagne (AD 742-814), the great Christian ruler (considered by some to be the founder of Christianity), considered beer as essential for moderate living, and personally trained the realm's brewmasters.
But, invent a good thing and sooner or later the government will want a piece of it. In this case they wanted it all, and around the 12th century the rulers, saw beer as a good way to collect taxes and so brewing in much of Europe became the responsibility of commercial enterprises, given permission under royal licence. (Things haven’t changed.) As a result, the monastery pubs started to close down. It may not be coincidence that in the Middle Ages, monks nearly took over wine production, as they ran most of Europe's vineyards. While today a number of families and corporations also run vineyards and make notable wines, monks still run some of the oldest vineyards throughout Europe. But as winemaking in monasteries became more prevalent a suspicion slowly fermented that monks perhaps were more interested in celebration than in the mass… but that’s another story.
Despite the fall of the monastery breweries, beer continued to be handed out to weary travelers with the establishment of the Wayfarer Dole by William of Wykeham, (1367-1404). A Pilgrim's Dole of ale and bread can still be claimed by all wayfarers at the Hospital of St Cross, Winchester, England.
But beer was still loved by the upper crust. The ladies-in-waiting at the court of Henry VII were allowed a gallon of beer for breakfast alone. The mind boggles. One wonders what they were waiting for. And then there was Queen Elizabeth I, who, when traveling through the country, always sent couriers ahead to taste the local ale. If it didn't measure up to the quality required, a supply would be shipped from London for her.
William Shakespeare's father was an ale-tester or "conner". The "conner" tested the ale by pouring some upon a bench and sitting on it while drinking the rest. If there was sugar in the ale, or it was impure, their leather breeches would stick after sitting for half an hour or so. (that’s an excuse I never thought of)
And one further little fact: in England, a "bride's ale" would be brewed for the wedding by her family. "Bride's ale" gave way to the word "bridal."
And then European beer came to North America in Christopher Columbus' ships. I suspect that Eric and Leif brought their version of beer to our shores long before that, but It is very likely that, as good Norsemen, they drank it all on the way over, which is exactly why the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock, instead of further south as planned; because they ran out of beer. A journal entry dated December 19, 1620 said: "We could not take time for further search or consideration; our victuals being much spent, especially our beer" Which is not surprising; not that they ran out of beer, but that they stopped to brew some, because in those days, ships did not move without a crew, and crews did not move without their beer. In fact, Henry the VIII once nearly lost a major battle because someone had forgotten to order the beer for the ships.
Nevertheless, lets not forget our own native brethren. On his last voyage to Central America in 1502, Columbus found that they were making a first-rate brew "of maize, resembling English beer".
If, in reading all of this you think that we have lost something along the way, you’re not alone. Particularly noticeable in their absence, are beer allowances, and beer-making in the home under the direction of the little woman. It is also of note that at the end of the 17th century, the weekly allowance for pupils of all ages at one English school was two bottles a day (mostly because beer was a good deal safer than the drinking water). What a way to learn.
And beer was also common in the workplace. Benjamin Franklin, who introduced this piece, recorded the daily beer consumption in a London printing house which he visited. The employees each had a pint before breakfast, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint at six o'clock and a pint when they finished work. (and probably stopped at the local pub on their way home).
I didn’t work there
The advent of beer as we know it came in 1516 when the Duke of Bavaria, Wilhelm IV, proclaimed the German Beer Purity Law. For the first time, a law established that only barley, hops and pure water were to be used in the making of beer. The law remained in effect in Europe until 1988, when European Union rules came into effect.
Some historical notes:
4300BC Babylon clay tablets have recipes for beer. They produced around 20 varieties.
3000 BC in the Imperial Egypt of the Pharaohs, beer was already an important food item in the daily diet
3,000 year old beer mugs were uncovered in Israel in the 1960s
55 BC Roman soldiers introduce beer into Northern Europe
49 BC Caesar toasted his troops as they crossed the Rubicon, starting the Roman Civil War
500-1000 AD the first half of the Middle Ages, brewing begins to be practiced in Europe, shifting from family tradition to centralized production in monasteries and convents (hospitality for traveling pilgrims). During Medieval times beer was used for tithing, trading, payment and taxing.
800 AD: The ancient Germans were also brewing the stuff using barley or wheat.
1000 AD hops begins to be used in the brewing process.
1295 King Wenceslas grants Pilsen Bohemia brewing rights (formerly Czechoslovakia, now Slovakia & Czech Republic).
1420: German brewers develop the lager method of brewing.
1490's: Columbus found Indians making beer from corn and black birch sap.
1500: there were 600 breweries in Hamburg alone
1553: Beck's Brewery founded & still brewing today.
Late 1500's Queen Elizabeth I of England drank strong ale for breakfast.
1587 the first beer brewed in New World at Sir Walter Raleigh's colony in Virginia--but the colonists sent requests to England for better beer.
1612 the first commercial brewery opened in New Amsterdam (NYC, Manhattan) after colonists advertised in London newspapers for experienced brewers.
1620 Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock because the beer supplies were running low.
1786 Molson brewery is founded in what is today Canada.
1830's Bavarians Gabriel Sedlmayr of Munich and Anton Dreher of Vienna developed the lager method of beer production.
1842 the first golden lager is produced in Pilsen, Bohemia.
1876 Pasteur unraveled the secrets of yeast in the fermentation process, and he also developed pasteurization to stabilize beers 22 years before the process was applied to milk.
1880 there are approximately 2,300 breweries in the US.
1890s Pabst is the first US brewer to sell over 1 million barrels in a year.
1933 Prohibition ends for beer (April 7).
1938 Elise Miller John heads Miller Brewing for 8 years as the first and only woman ever to run a major brewing company.
People around the world consume more than 100 billion litres of beer annually.
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