Circa
3000 BC, a Sumerian poet wrote the following words:
‘I feel wonderful, drinking beer in a blissful mood, with joy
in my heart and a happy liver’. For beer is as old as history.
Beer has its roots deep in the immemorial valleys where first humans
settled to cultivate cereal grains. Wine seems to have appeared around
the same period as beer.
Surely enough the fist glass of beer, wine, or whatever alcohol beverage
was the result of someone’s mistake. One can easily think of a
stock of grains accidentally lying in a field, then moistened with rain.
Yeast, which can be found almost anywhere, enjoys this marvellous site
to grow a colony. When the old farmer - who had forgotten the pile of
grains – comes back several days later, he sees something different.
He tastes the grains and finds them delicious. This is how the cultivation
of cereal grains may have provided the first inhabitants with
their favorite drink – beer - in ancient times.
Indeed, remains were discovered in the Mesopotamian valley confirming
the status of beer as a very popular drink.
According to written traces left in Mesopotamy around
4000 BC, the ancestor of beer was a fermented mixture
containing cereal grains. Sumerians, Babylonians, Hebrews and Egyptians
were ardent drinkers of this beverage known as ‘sikaru’,
‘shekar’ or ‘zythum’ depending on the population.
In Egypt, beer and bread would be the normal meal of
peasants and slaves. According to a law enacted by
Pharaoh Cheops, subcontractors were obliged to supply beer to slaves
working on building sites. Beer also was the preferred beverage of women
of the aristocracy because of its superior freshness. Egyptians used
to add dates to make it sweeter. Beer was predominantly brewed at Peluse.
The beers manufactured in the Middle East used to be
quite spicy. The most costly spices – including myrrh gum and
cloves - were added for princes and kings. These spices
often imparted a strange taste to beer.
Although not too chatty about beer, the Greek were
regular drinkers. Deprived areas of Athens were full of breweries and
taverns.
The Romans also used to drink beer although wine was
by far their preferred beverage. At that time, the beer industry experienced
a steady growth in Italy and across the whole empire.
In Gaul, also known as Latin Gallia, beer was extensively
consumed at that time. It was termed ‘cervoise’,
probably derived from cerevisiae, the name of Ceres, the Roman Goddess
of agriculture.
During the Middle Ages, beer underwent dazzling changes
and became very popular. The monks, known as knowledgeable farmers,
managed to take a hands-off approach to the best recipes of the countryside
close to their abbeys, sometimes resorting to ignoble
means. In fact, as they confessed people living in the surrounding area,
they abused their power to extort recipes from poor fishermen. They
would then prepare the best beers all over the world. It is worth mentioning
that beer had been a woman’s prerogative until then as women
would typically remain at home and prepare the beer while men were harvesting
crops. Beer therefore returned a man’s prerogative when monks
arrived.
Also during the Middle Ages, hop was
incorporated in the beer. In Germany, beer became very popular. It is
still nowadays. William IV, elector of Bavaria, enacted the Purity Act
in 1516. Under the so-called Reinheitsgebot, brewers
were forced to use only four products for manufacturing beer: water,
barley malt, hop and yeast.
This law was further extended to the whole German Empire in 1906.
When the first settlers arrived in North America, breweries mushroomed
almost as quickly as churches. In 1663, when Jean Talon was governor
of New France, the first breweries were erected in the colony at Longueuil.
The Molson company, a Quebec-based brewery, was founded in 1786. Nowadays
it is a major beer producer both in Quebec and Canada.
During the industrial era, the main focus was on production and cost
effectiveness. As a result, beer production increased hugely to the
detriment of quality.
