The First Beer in the World

I would like to say that beer was created by a famous Belgian or German alchemist, designed to be a great drink to inebriate people around the bonfires or a secure source of hydration in the disease’s times. If we work harder in the storytelling, we could say that beer was developed to face wine and spirit markets, brewing a beverage to all folk’s tastes.

Sadly, all that would be just a tale. Beer is not the result of creation but something that happens naturally. In fact, beer is not even the first fermented drink consumed by humans. With rain falling in a honey hive and the action of wild yeast, the mead was created and rapidly discovered by thirsty people. Bears also love to drink this beverage and any similarity with modern bearded brewers were purely coincidental!

With beer was not different. Ancient people used to collect grains to prepare porridge or bread, and the heat applied in cooking activated the enzymes that created a sweet-like taste. When the leftovers are filled with rainwater, the wild microbial fermented it into the primitive beers. Historians believe the beer has been consumed for more than 10.000 years.

It is accepted that the intended beer brewing began in Mesopotamia (3500 – 3100 BCE). The Mesopotamians worshiped Ninkasi, the goddess of brewing. The hymns to praise her are the first beer recipe ever registered.

Many anthropologists claim that brewing was one of the reasons humankind abandoned the hunter-gatherer culture in favor of agriculture. Even though it was possible to find barley and other grains in the nature, brewing required a great quantity that forced humans to settle down and produce it. An indication of that is the first grain harvest was varieties of barley, ideal for brewing but not so good for baking.

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