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A Short History of Beer
By Siobhan of House Thorgard
The ancient Sumerians and
Egyptians all enjoyed beer. To some of these ancient cultures, the making of
beer was thought of as a female activity since it was an extension of bread
making. In 1994, Dr. Solomon Katz of the University of Pennsylvania worked
with Fritz Maytag of the Anchor Brewing Co. to recreate a Sumerian beer that
was described in a hymn on a clay tablet.
Ancient beers were created quite a bit quicker then modern beers, and
indeed, the fermentation process continued beyond the creation of the beer.
Egyptian hieroglyphs depict the making and consumption of beer, drinking
their brews through a wooden straw/siphon to filter out the many
impurities. In 1990, The Egyptian Exploration Society approached Scottish
and Newcastle Breweries for help in reproducing Ancient Egyptian beer.
These types of ancient beer were thick, still (no carbonation), very
nutritious and of low alcohol content. Fruit and/or spices were added for
flavoring to these thick, almost porridge like brews.
In around 55 BC, the
Romans introduced beer to Northern Europe before the popularity of growing
grapes for wine took hold. The Greeks much favored wine over beer and
considered beer an effeminate drink. The Romans considered beer the drink
of barbarians (after they had wine, that is). Tacitus noted of the Germanic
peoples: “To
drink, the Teutons have a horrible brew fermented from barley or wheat, a
brew which has only a very far removed similarity to wine”.
The oldest proof of brewing on German
soil comes from the Hallestatt period, around 800 BC.
As with the Sumerians and Egyptians, the brewing of beer was woman’s work
and remained so until the Middle Ages.
Like ancient beers, early
medieval beer was made by soaking cereals in water until the grains sprouted
and then allowing them to dry. Then the gruit was added, which was a
flavoring mix that contained herbs, spices and/or honey. After this, the
mixture was allowed to sit in the open so that yeast could ‘infect’ it.
This method is called spontaneous fermentation, and is still practiced in
Europe today.
Indeed, brewers didn’t even know what yeast was, and usually contributed
fermentation to divine intervention. I have also heard of a ‘brewing
spoon’ that was caked with sediment from previous batches and always used by
the brewer. In the sediment would be dormant yeast, however I haven’t been
able to find documentation on this phenomenon. Regardless, with this type
of open-air treatment and no sanitization, its little wonder that the beer
produced frequently went off and brewers expected losses of about 20% or
more through batches having gone sour. When batches of beer went off or
sour, sometimes there was only one thing to do: burn a “beer witch”. Beer
witches were blamed for failed batches of beer up until the late 1500s.
Medieval monasteries are
credited with adding hops to beer first in around 1236 AD.
Before that the hop plant was used as a medicinal herb, and it should come
as no surprise since it is related to the nettle, and both are members of
the hemp family.
The addition of the hop plant not only adds a nice bitterness and aroma to
beer, but it also acts as a natural preservative, allowing the beer to last
longer especially in the summer months. So, hops made everyone happier:
beer was drinkable more often and longer, and less beer witches were
burned. By the 1300s, the Low Countries were hooked on the crisp German
hopped beer; by 1400, the hopped beer spread through France to England.
Back in Germany, in 1420 the lager method of brewing was being developed.
Meanwhile, in England, ale makers were disgusted by the spread of the use of
hops, and for a while Henry VIII backed their beef by banning the use of
hops in 1530. However, in 1600, the use of hops became widespread and
unhopped ale was on the decline. In 1516, the Duke of Bavaria, Wilhelm IV
created a landmark law in the food and brew world with the world’s oldest
(and still valid) food purity law. Under the German Beer Purity Law, only
barley, hops and pure water may be used to make beer.
Very little changed in the
way beer was brewed until Louis Pasteur’s publication of Etudes sur la
Biere (Studies On Beer) in 1876. Pasteur’s research explained how to
handle yeast, avoid contamination during the brewing process, and apply heat
to the finished product to kill any bacteria that might have contaminated
the drink.
Another man who contributed to the evolution of beer is the Danish scientist
Emil Christian Hansen. The same year that Pasteur published his book,
Hansen won a gold medal for an essay on fungi. Carlsberg Laboratories in
Copenhagen employed Hansen and while working for them, he discovered that
yeast is a living fungi that can be cultivated. Hansen isolated one strain
of yeast used in lager production and dubbed it Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis.
Then, in 1892, William Painter invented the bottle cap. Before this, beer
bottles were sealed with a cork that was held in place with a
Champaign-style cage to stop any premature popping.
The late 1880s until turn
of the century saw the rise of great beer barons, such as Aldophus Busch,
Captain Fredrick Pabst, Joseph Schlitz, Adolph Coors.
These men turned the beer making into a modern, industrialized craft. With
the invention of refrigerated rail cars, the competition between the brewing
giants became nation wide. The “golden age” of American brewing came to an
end during National Prohibition (1920-1933). After prohibition was
repealed, many of the smaller brewers had not survived, despite the
widespread practice of producing “near beer” and soda pop as a means of
trying to stay in business.
In
1977, small microbreweries began to pop up when then President Jimmy Carter
legalized the home brewing. These companies offered small batches of
delicious different styles of beer. Microbrews have steadily grown in the
beer market; in fact, in 2003, there were more craft beers being bought by
Americans then import beers.
Microbrews such as Samuel Adams, Saranac, Anchor Steam Brewing Company and
Sierra Nevada have grown to large national companies but have kept their
craft beer quality. Brew pubs are popping up all over America, and this can
mean only one thing: there is a new “golden age” in brewing, where the
popular lagers of the beer barons are taking cues from small craft breweries
that are making beers our ancestors would be proud of.
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