History of Beer
A Brief History Of Beer- Noah took beer onto the ark.
- The Babylonians were brewing beer as long ago as 4300 BC - their recipes are preserved on clay tablets.
- Around 1600 BC the Egyptians were using beer as a medicine - what a prescription to get!
- Julius Caesar toasted his troops in beer after crossing the Rubicon and starting a civil war.
- In 23 BC the Chinese brewed beer called "kiu"
- By 1000 AD hops were being used to brew beer.
- In the middle ages brewing was largely done by women, known as brewsters. There is an argument that the period should be renamed the 'too good to be true' ages.
- In 1420 the Germans started making lager - and shortly after that the British began drinking it in vast quantities.
- In 1490 Columbus found that Native American were already making beer (presumably to sell to the British.)
- Elizabeth I drank beer for breakfast.
- The first beer in a can was produced in 1935, and was later left in a shop doorway.
- Beer was only made legal in Iceland in 1989.
- The worlds strongest beer is 'Samuel Adams' Triple Bock, which has reached 17% alcohol by volume. To obtain this level, however, they had to use a champagne yeast.
- The saying 'Mind your P's and Q's' comes from the time when alcoholic beverages were served/sold in Pints and Quarts. Thus, to mind your P's and Q's meant to be careful how much you drank.
- During war times, the British army provided its overseas troops with an allowance of one penny a day to purchase six pints of beer, which was a vital nutritional source and also a safe alternative to potentially polluted water.
- Between 1687 and 1860, patients at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London were given three pints of beer a day as part of their diet.
Famous Beer Quotes
- "Make sure that the beer - four pints a week - goes to the troops under fire before any of the parties in the rear get a drop." - Winston Churchill to his Secretary of War, 1944
- "An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger, or a beer." - Confucius
- "If God had intended us to drink beer, He would have given us stomachs." - David Daye
- "Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed - Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, 'It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.'" - Deep Thought, Jack Handy
- "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin
- "They who drink beer will think beer." - Washington Irving
- "He was a wise man who invented beer." - Plato
- "[I recommend]… bread, meat, vegetables and beer." - Sophocles' philosophy of a moderate diet
- "You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer." - Frank Zappa !!
- "Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza." - Dave Barry
- "No soldier can fight unless he is properly fed on beef and beer." - John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough
- "This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption... Beer!" - Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, Friar Tuck
- "Do not cease to drink beer, to eat, to intoxicate thyself, to make love, and to celebrate the good days." - Egyptian proverb
