Beer is a beverage that is made with malted cereal, grains, hops, and water that is fermented by adding yeast. During fermentation, wort is created from raw material which is converted to beer by yeast. By the way, wort is the liquid extracted from the mashing process during the brewing of beer.
Beer’s first brewed in Sumer the southernmost region of ancient Mesopotamia which is the modern-day Iraq and Kuwait. Mesopotamia is considered the beginning of civilization. The word Mesopotamia comes from the Greek word meaning land between rivers, Tigris and Euphrates. In the beginning, all people were hunters and gatherers but this was a difficult way to live. Over time, hunters and gatherers began planting which led to farming that required permanent settlement. The evidence for harvesting of wheat, cereal, grass, dates, etc. goes back to around 10,000 BC. So hunters and gatherers began settling down in one spot on their land crops like wheat, rice and barley. Although no one is exactly sure how the process of beer making was discovered, it is believed that Sumerians may have stumbled upon the fermentation process and began brewing beer. Chemical tests of ancient pottery jars reveal that beer was produced as far back as about 7,000 years ago. Some historians believe that agents doubled upon beer when a loaf of fresh baked bread maintained yeast into a ball of wet cereal grains. The oldest evidence of beer can be traced back 6,000 years to ancient civilizations Sumerian tablet the painting people are drinking their straws from a pole. The ancient Egyptians were the first documented brewing process around 5000 BC. It was part of the daily diet of Egyptian pharaohs. These were documented on papyrus rolls. The Greeks and Romans also brewed beer. Greeks learn how to brew then they taught the Romans but the Romans prefer wine and thought of Beer as a barbarian drink. At 500 AD Germans were brewing a thin beer made from oats and sometimes honey.
The Year 800 AD is often given as the point in which brewing became an organized industry. it was this year that the first glory on record was established near Munich Germany. Modern beers believed to have been born in the middle Ages. In the past, brewers have been using malted barley as the main source of principal sugar but then hops began to be used as the bittering and flavoring agent. Catholic monks were the preeminent Brewers of the middle Ages. Virtually every monastery had a brewery on site. Based on the level of bacteria in the water and lack of sanitary procedure in the middle Ages, it turns out that beer may have actually been safer than drinking water. Beer arrived to the new world with the first European colonists. In fact the first permanent structure in the United States is believed to have been a brewery. In 1810, New York and Philadelphia were brewing centers in America. Today there are unlimited options when it comes to beer. There are stout, porter, ales, lagers and wheat beers.
Today the beer industry is a global business consisting of several dominant multinational companies and many thousands of smaller producers ranging from brew pubs to regional breweries. More than 133 billion liters of beer is sold each year.
Leave a comment