A Brief History of Beer

The word beer comes from the Latin word 'bibere', meaning "to drink". Beer probably got such a name ('to drink') because of its special intoxicating qualities which were considered very mysterious and or divine in ancient times.

Some historians say that between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, some human beings in antiquity stopped their nomadic hunting and settled down to farm, and grain was the first domesticated crop that started that farming process.

The oldest proven records of brewing are about 6,000 years old and refer to the Sumerians. Sumeria was located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers including Southern Mesopotamia and the ancient cities of Babylon and Ur. It is said that the Sumerians discovered the fermentation process by chance. It is not known today exactly how this occurred, but it could be that a piece of bread or grain became wet and a short time later, it began to ferment and an inebriating pulp was produced.

A seal around 4,000 years old is a Sumerian "Hymn to Ninkasi", the goddess of brewing. This "hymn" is also a recipe for making beer. A description of the making of beer on an ancient engraving in the Sumerian language is the earliest account of what is easily recognized as barley, followed by a pictograph of bread being baked, crumbled into water to form a mash, and then made into a drink that is recorded as having made people feel "exhilarated, wonderful and blissful."

It could be that baked bread was a convenient method of storing and transporting a resource for making beer.The Sumerians were able to repeat this process and are assumed to be the first civilized culture to brew beer. They had discovered what they considered to be a "divine drink" which certainly was a gift from the gods.