Development of beer through history: Ancient civilizations; Part 1 / by tigpro

Beer has been independently invented and consumed throughout history and among different cultures in the world. A chemical test on objectives like pottery jars show that beer was produced over 7,000 years ago. What is even more interesting is that fermentation of beer is considered to be one of the first biological tasks or procedures. 

In civilizations such as Mesopotamia, there is evidence in a Sumerian tablet depicting people drinking beer from a Sumerian bowl. They even had Ninkasi, a brewing goddess who supposedly played a big impact in the quality of beer.

Beer was also very popular in ancient Egypt where it was brewed from what was known as emmer wheat during that time. Beer became important to growing civilizations of western antiquity, such as Egypt. Alan Eames, one of the most prominent modern anthropologists explained that beer was an important driving force that helped nomadic mankind in village life. He also explained that beer is that the appetite for making beer is what resulted in crop cultivation and high quality agriculture. 

Knowledge and brewing skills were then passed to Greeks. Plato even wrote ‘’ "He was a wise man who invented beer."The Greeks then passed their knowledge to the Romans and it was called ‘’cerevisia’’ during that time. This means strength in the Latin language. 

Adding hops to the brewing process for bittering and aroma is a new innovation. During the middleages, many herbs were added to beer before hops, also known as gruit. Hops were refined in France during the 800s and writerAbbess Hildegard explained "If one intends to make beer from oats, it is prepared with hops."