How Beer Gave Us Civilization

Hugh Pickens writes "Jeffrey P. Khan writes in the NY Times about how recent anthropological research suggests that human's angst of anxiety and depression ultimately results from our transformation, over tens of thousands of years, from biologically shaped, almost herd-like prehistoric tribes, to rational and independent individuals in modern civilization. The catalyst for suppressing the rigid social codes that kept our clans safe and alive was fermented fruit or grain. 'Once the effects of these early brews were discovered, the value of beer must have become immediately apparent,' writes Khan. 'With the help of the new psychopharmacological brew, humans could quell the angst of defying those herd instincts. Conversations around the campfire, no doubt, took on a new dimension: the painfully shy, their angst suddenly quelled, could now speak their minds.' Examining potential beer-brewing tools in archaeological remains from the Natufian culture in the Eastern Mediterranean, the team concludes that 'brewing of beer was an important aspect of feasting and society in the Late Epipaleolithic' era. In time, humans became more expansive in their thinking, as well as more collaborative and creative. A night of modest tippling may have ushered in these feelings of freedom — though, the morning after, instincts to conform and submit would have kicked back in to restore the social order. Today, many people drink too much because they have more than average social anxiety or panic anxiety to quell — disorders that may result, in fact, from those primeval herd instincts kicking into overdrive. But beer's place in the development of civilization deserves at least a raising of the glass. As the ever rational Ben Franklin supposedly said, 'Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.'"

Comments

Everything gave us civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Dogs, language, agriculture, evolution... the difficult part is saying what didn't give us civilization.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Jeremy Erwin]

Agriculture may have given us civilization but beer gave us agriculture.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Also, in the fertile crescent lands (Egypt especially), beer was one of the few (health-wise) safe means of hydrating yourself (I wouldn't want to touch the water of Nile, much less drink it), and also an important source of nutrients other than starch. (Of course, "beer" probably meant something slightly different back then, don't imagine the pasteurized clear liquid we're in the habit of drinking nowadays.)

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[MightyMartian]

Agriculture gave us civilization. Agriculture allowed people to transition from fully nomadic or nearly fully nomadic lifestyles to settled ones. It allowed relatively small areas to be settled by sedentary populations and then gave the techniques to support the growth of those civilizations.

Why anyone would attribute booze or dogs, or imagine that somehow we were fucking cattle before we started to drink (and I'm sure humans started to drink a looong time before we ever settled down) is beyond me. I guess you've got to sell something to a newspaper, but there's little enough mystery as to why civilization arose, and certainly there are enough examples to show the same thing over and over again... Agriculture, agriculture, agriculture.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[MightyMartian]

I doubt that claim as well. Beer was a byproduct of agriculture, not a causative agent.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That's a little bit too simplified. Truth is that there seems to have been a feedback loop between all of the following: grain agriculture, beer brewing, division of labour, social stratification, record keeping/taxation, and state-organized religion (time keeping/agrarian year planning). I guess one could draw a nice graph showing how every one of these supported all the remaining ones.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[MightyMartian]

The first evidence of the growing of grain predates the first evidence of beer by a considerable length of time. We don't know all the answers, but we do know that the earliest grain crops were grown in northern Iraq and northern Iran, and that it appears that it started as a sort seasonal planting by semi-nomadic groups that would return to harvest the grain later. The innovation, whatever drove it, was to be able to learn sufficiently advanced techniques to increase yields so that you could stay by the crops; to defend them, to maintain them. That's the feedback right there.

Beer is something that comes along, by the looks of it, after we have pretty much all the basics of sedentary agricultural societies already in place.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

that it was safe to drink was just a side effect of the boiling part of the brewing, if they had boiled water it would have been ok to drink too

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That is true, but the alcohol content helped preserve the drinking safety, and the yeast contents was important on it own, nutrition-wise.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Immerman]

Indeed. *Real* beer needs to be chewed.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[HornWumpus]

Beer brewing leaves an archeological trace? All you need is a container.

Apes get drunk on naturally occurring alcohol. I'm sure early hunter gatherers did the same. I'd be surprised if they didn't learn how to let the fruits lay around to make alcohol when they wanted.

That said, beer came after fruit wines. Sugar vs. Starch, simpler process.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You're certainly right, grain crops as such do predate all the things I've mentioned, but as far as I know, all the other developed quite synchronously later, together with organized irrigation works (which, by then, were basically large-scale state projects). The very first agricultural communities did not do any of this, but for that matter, they also suffered horribly, nutrition-wise. Paleopathology of the first agrarian communities draws a horrible picture of malnutrition (pollen analysis suggests the decrease of variety in consumed plants from hundreds to just 8-10 in space of two or three generations), skeletal deformations and other developmental problems. The beer would have helped them (at least partially) with the first one.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[SpazmodeusG]

Here's a simple way to rule out things that didn't give us civilization. Were there civilizations without those things?

If so that would indicate that item is not required for civilization. The Maui of New Zealand and other polynesians for example did not have dogs or beer but certainly met the requirements of a civilization. Dogs and beer are therefore not a requirement of civilization.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Immerman]

Actually, considering that many animals show evidence of intentionally seeking out alcohol (overripe fruit, etc.), and some such as elephants actually make it themselves (pulping and burying fruit that they later dig up and consume), I'm willing to bet human alcohol production predates agriculture by a pretty big margin. Admittedly that was probably more stuff like wine, mead, and possibly kefir (fermented milk). Beer is after all a rather complicated and roundabout way of producing alcohol, and I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't get invented until there were a bunch of bored, thirsty folks sitting around one winter wishing they had more wine, and that fruit kept as well as all the worthless low-sugar grain they had stockpiled. Necessity is the mother of invention after all.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Immerman]

Makes sense - beer is high technology when it comes to alcohol production. No reason to even consider grain unless you don't have a good source of sugar - like say you've settled down in one place and have mountains of grain, but not much fruit, honey, milk, etc. with which to make alcohol. Desperate men and all that...

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Beer brewing leaves an archeological trace? All you need is a container.

On ancient Middle-Eastern archaeological sites, you find beer breweries and bread bakeries side by side. It's virtually as regular as the floor plan of post-11th century Benedictine monasteries in Europe.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[mcgrew]

Why anyone would attribute booze or dogs, or imagine that somehow we were fucking cattle before we started to drink

Poor choice of words, I don't think bestiality has anything to do with it. But the fact is, we STILL follow the herd. We ARE Cattle.

When you said "dogs" was that an iPhone autocorrect and you meant "drugs"? Dogs were the first domestic animals and we've had them for over 100,000 years. Domestication of animals played a huge part in our becoming civilized.

You're right that we certainly were drinking before agriculture; fruit juice ferments naturally and there were certainly drunken cave men, and probably used other intoxicants as well (hemp, for example).

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Here's an example of an pre-dynastic Egyptian brewery:

The vats, with a height of at least 65cm and a maximum diameter of 85cm, are estimated to have contained about 16 gallons (65 litres) each. The six vats together could thus hold approximately 100 gallons (390 litres). If used on a full time basis, this brewery could produce 300 gallons a week allowing 2 days for fermentation in the vat. Output could be as high as 300 gallons a day if the liquid was transferred to other vessels for fermentation. This is output clearly far in excess of domestic needs. Using the capacity of the standard beer jar of Dynastic times, the daily output of brewery of 300 gallons a day could provide a daily ration for 454 people if each received one jar, or half that number if they received two (the standard Dynastic ration).

This was a substantial operation by the day's standards.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[SpazmodeusG]

Well i'm a fool. Looked it up and it turns out the Polynesians did have dogs (the Kuri). No beer though.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[HornWumpus]

You can ferment wine with nothing but a container. No boiling required.

I'm willing to bet you could make low efficiency beer with only malted grain. Most of the starch wouldn't ferment, but still some alcohol.

What you point to is clearly an advanced operation, I bet their are no signs of the first bakeries ether.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[HornWumpus]

They never made bread before that period? What signs where left of hunter gatherer grain processing? How would archeologists tell the difference between what they were doing with the grain?

Nobody addresses the fruit wine, much more likely path to first booze? Even monkeys get drunk when the fruit is dropping.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[ExploHD]

Vessels that had been used for making beer are identified by beer specific chemical traces on the inside of conatiners. Soot residue is a terrible indicator; and no, you do not need to place a container on the fire to boil water. You can boil water in water-tight weaved baskets by placing rocks that have come off of the fire. They hold a lot of heat and with multiple rocks you can boil for as long as you need.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

...and in Europe, chewed warm.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[ShanghaiBill]

Actually, considering that many animals show evidence of intentionally seeking out alcohol (overripe fruit, etc.), and some such as elephants actually make it themselves (pulping and burying fruit that they later dig up and consume)

I think this is baloney. When I Googled for information on elephants making their own booze, I instead got a page full of articles debunking the myth that they even get drunk at all, much less make their own. Here is a link from National Geographic. There are plenty more like it.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It's actually pretty easy to identify beer-brewing vats, they contain partially or almost fully carbonized starchy residue with embedded grains of fermented barley at the bottom.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[K. S. Kyosuke]

What you point to is clearly an advanced operation, I bet their are no signs of the first bakeries ether.

Depends on whether you're talking about domestic baking or large-scale public works; the latter leave unmistakable traces on archaeological sites (but of course, they don't apply to the earliest agricultural communities, say pre-3500 BCE).

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Banks.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

The alcohol content of beer-as-substitute-for-water was very low, like less than 2%. I don't think it was the alcohol content so much as the preparation and then subsequently storing the beer separate from sources of contamination. Obviously the alcohol and, more importantly, the Ph helped, but it probably wouldn't have been smart to put a cup of unboiled water into a cask of beer before serving.

Wine, as made around the mediterranean, had a much higher alcohol content, closer to modern beer. That was probably much safer to drink. I imagine people still got sick from contaminated beer, just not as often or as severely.

In developing countries its usually safe to drink soda because a) the manner in which it was made and b) it doesn't contaminate as easily because of the CO2 and Ph. You can buy soda in a plastic zip-lock bag tied around a straw and it's relatively safe. That's the modern-day equivalent to beer, and there's no alcohol.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[AK Marc]

I've seen plenty of grain-processing tools. No, you can't tell 10,000 years later whether the grain ground up was going in beer or flour for baking. But baking and beer could be determined by the oven/stove setup. You sound like a smart person with a large gap of knowledge who is asking stupid questions without any deference to authority. If someone says "it was done this way" don't argue unless you know that to be wrong. Otherwise, it makes you look stupid. Go take a college class if you really want to know. There are thousands of years of anthropology you are asking for in a couple sound bites. It isn't going to work very well, and the ones persistent enough to continue answering are likely ones that don't know that much, but enjoy the arguing.

And yes, sugar-heavy fruits were likely fermented well before grains.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on people! Did none of you watch the Discovery Channel, at least before it changed to a reality TV format?

There are countless tribes in the Amazon, Africa, Polynesia, etc who ferment grains and starches. None of them practice agriculture to any large extent, and many are purely hunter-gatherer.

Spit into a bowl of pulp-of-some-tree, mix, wait, get drunk. This isn't rocket science. We've clearly been doing it long before agriculture.

And animals do it, too, apparently, if other posts in this thread are to believed. Apparently fermenting shit is really easy, except for, perhaps industrial man. The problem is that you're all perfectionists. 10000 years ago people weren't so damn picky.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[roman_mir]

what didn't give us civilization

- herpes?

By the way if beer gives us civilisation, vodka takes it away.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Attila Dimedici]

Nobody addresses the fruit wine, much more likely path to first booze?

That's because the topic of conversation is the advent of beer, not wine, not even the advent of human consumption of alcohol.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[HnT]

Aaah yes, they call it "Mudder's Milk"! Now let's hear of our hero Jayne once more!

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[HornWumpus]

I'm not arguing about the oven/stove setup.

I'm saying there is no way of knowing if hunter gatherers had devised a way of making beer like beverages because they would have left no trace.

This is all happening thousands of years before the period that you reference, which is clearly after the agricultural revolution.

If you are discussing which came first ag revolution or beer, citing references clearly after the ag. revolution doesn't really advance the discussion. Permanent bakeries/breweries aren't in question. When you say 'it was done this way' be sure you are talking about the correct era. Otherwise, it makes you look stupid.

How did hunter gatherers process grain to eat? If they made gruel it is easy to imagine they stumbled onto fermentation and made small batches during harvest periods. It's hard to imagine anybody 'inventing' bread without simultaneously inventing 'beer'. Especially in light of drinking natural fruit wines.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[dreamchaser]

Why do you think people started growing barley in the first place? Hint: it wasn't to make bread for eating. It was for making beer.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Jeremy Erwin]

Kava? Bush beer?
Arts and rafts of the Cook Islands

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[TapeCutter]

It was the same in Europe until relatively recently, the Mayflower landed where it did because it had run out of beer and needed to find clean water.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Immerman]

Huh, learn something new every day. I notice that the article very specifically targets a specific marula fruit legend and makes no claim about any other alcohol source, but I would think the situation would be similar for most other fruit as well.

I do question their claims as to the quantity it would take to get an elephant tipsy though - if they don't drink regularly they're going to be complete lightweights. Heck, after abstaining for a few months I can get buzzed on just a couple swallows of beer on a hot day. Still, I'd hope they at least looked in on some known alcohol consuming elephants, it's not unheard of for them to get into alcohol stores when raiding villages (though I think even raids aren't exactly common), and I have seen some videos where mahouts mention giving their elephants a little alcohol occasionally.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[AK Marc]

I'm saying there is no way of knowing if hunter gatherers had devised a way of making beer like beverages because they would have left no trace.

Beer requires more work than wine or bread. Wine could be done with no lasting trace, but beer would be *impossible*. Why? Because there'd be some trace of tools or brewing. You "could" do it and leave no trace, but you'd have to go out of your way to do so, and unless you can come up with a plausible reason why a pottery-making society would use pottery for everything *except* brewing beer, then I'll invoke Occam and move on.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Immerman]

Sure, alcohol production is easy and probably spectacularly ancient, but alcohol != beer. Fermenting starches is a more involved process than sugars.

It's also not fair to compare modern-day hunter-gatherer societies with pre-agricultural ones - just because some cultures didn't see widespread adoption of particular technologies (agriculture, metalworking, etc) doesn't mean they spent the last 10,000 years in stasis, it just means they weren't subject to the same pressures that drove other cultures to embrace them. For example there's no shortage of food in a rainforest, and so no incentive to pursue agriculture beyond encouraging particularly tasty or useful plants to grow in convenient locations. Ironworking appears to have been known in North America, but very few iron tools were made, possibly because stone tools had evolved far beyond anything seen in Eurasia. The wheel was known in Central America, but apparently only used for children's toys, who knows why.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that civilization advances along some particular path - if not for the combination of gunpowder and potent bioweapons bred in European cities the Americas would look far different today, and quite possibly have taught Europeans a thing to two in their own right.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[zifferent]

True. Barley makes for terrible bread.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[TheLink]

Fruit flies too. See also: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-fruit-flies-medicate-larvae-alcohol.html

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Ocker3]

Except that soda is usually made in a local factory from local water supplies, that may not be properly treated. Coke in Pakistan for many years was made with polluted and unsafe water, sickening many drinkers before there was a huge public outcry.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[dotar]

At least some animals do: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=animals-like-to-get-drunk

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Mabhatter]

Because Agriculture gave us a steady food supply, but Beer and Bread gave them a way to KEEP IT and round out the seasonal ups and downs. That also caused the need to put down roots for the time needed to create and store the stuff, and people brought the crops to the new villages creating trade.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[ultranova]

Here's a simple way to rule out things that didn't give us civilization. Were there civilizations without those things?

2+2=4 is true. Therefore, 1+3=4 cannot be true.

Do you see the fault at this logic?

If so that would indicate that item is not required for civilization. The Maui of New Zealand and other polynesians for example did not have dogs or beer but certainly met the requirements of a civilization. Dogs and beer are therefore not a requirement of civilization.

Ah, but we're talking about what specific combo gave us civilization, not what might have been able to do so. Current global culture is mostly descended from beer-making and dog-breeding cultures of Mediterranean, with some influence by China and Japan, while the influence of Polynesians is not really noticeable. So the Internet certainly was built on a foundation of beer and MAD, which explains quite a bit.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[NeutronCowboy]

You can make some pretty good alcohol from honey, which is already known during the hunter/gatherer phase of civilization. Technically not beer, but as quite a few similar properties, especially when it comes to drinking safety.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Sardaukar86]

The Maui of New Zealand and other polynesians for example did not have dogs or beer but certainly met the requirements of a civilization.

I think you probably mean Maori, as Maui is quite a different kettle of fish (being an island of Hawaii or a Maori/Polynesian mythological hero, depending on who you talk to) :)

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Curunir_wolf]

Beer is something that comes along, by the looks of it, after we have pretty much all the basics of sedentary agricultural societies already in place.

How? What are they growing the grain for? Because the wild grains they started with were not really suitable for bread - it's too small to be able to separate the nut from chaff, so even if they could have made something like bread it would have barely been palatable.

It's much more likely that the first use of grain was for brewing beer, which is easier to do with the grains that nomadic / early agricultural societies had access to. As they improved the grain by selection, making bread would be the next technology, but from a practical viewpoint, it's easier to chew / spit / boil and strain the stuff to make a beverage than learn to turn it into a nutritionally valuable food.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Opportunist]

In the words of a buddy of mine, US beer is the result of real beer being filtered through your body.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[scottrocket]

Why is American beer served chilled? There's no other way of telling it from piss.

American beer is cold; piss is warm.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[OldSport]

Macrobrews, maybe. But the USA has an unbelievable variety of extremely high quality microbrews and craft beers. Might be hard to find them abroad, but if you look at beer contest winners the world over, you will see USA brews in the top spots constantly.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[sjames]

However, birds will eat fermenting berries and get drunk. Elephants DO like to get drunk, but they do it by stealing brewed alcohol from humans. I have no idea how the widely reported drunk moose stuck in a tree got it's alcohol.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Buchenskjoll]

True, the Nile contains substances that are bad for you, such as crocodiles...

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Sulphur]

Except that soda is usually made in a local factory from local water supplies, that may not be properly treated. Coke in Pakistan for many years was made with polluted and unsafe water, sickening many drinkers before there was a huge public outcry.

So there was a Pakistani Bloomberg?

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Sulphur]

. Apparently fermenting shit is really easy, except for, perhaps industrial man. The problem is that you're all perfectionists. 10000 years ago people weren't so damn picky.

"As drunk as I am, I can tell this is shit."

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[TheRaven64]

Why is American beer served chilled?

Because, during prohibition, bootleg beer had no quality controls and usually had a very strong (and unpleasant) yeasty taste. If you chill a drink, it deadens your taste buds, and so it doesn't taste as bad. The amusing thing is that Americans mock other countries for producing beer that you can drink in a way that doesn't take the taste away...

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[hb253]

I'm not so sure beer is all that great for hydrating purposes. It works too well as a diuretic.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the alcohol content but the boiling that makes beer safe to consume. Ancient beers probably didn't go over 4% ABV, well within the tolerance range of many bacteria. Boiling, however, kills any enteric bacteria, worms, and any other bugs / critters in the water likely to cause disease. Wine tends to be safe without boiling since it's made from fruit juice, not fruit + water from that filthy pond over by the latrine.

A more technical answer is that, if you simply toss water and milled (cracked, but not ground into flour) grains together, you don't get a particularly lively fermentation. Boiling gelatinizes the grains and helps break down long chain starches into shorter ones that are chewed up by yeast and bacteria faster than they would otherwise be. From there, you take some of the sludge from your previous, best tasting batch of beer and use that to kick start the fermentation of the new beer. Supposedly, ancient Egyptians boiled loaves of bread to make their beer.

FWIW, ancient brews were probably a LOT like kefir -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefir

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[drinkypoo]

I'm saying there is no way of knowing if hunter gatherers had devised a way of making beer like beverages because they would have left no trace.

They probably didn't have time to sit down and discover beer and figure it out, but it's possible they might have made something like chicha. They may well have had alcohol, but it probably wasn't much like beer.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[drinkypoo]

The amusing thing is that Americans mock other countries for producing beer that you can drink in a way that doesn't take the taste away...

The amusing thing is that American (read "Californian") IPAs are winning beer competitions left and right around the world, and one of them is broadly considered to be the world's best beer. Just like our wines defeat the French.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[RabidReindeer]

I'm saying there is no way of knowing if hunter gatherers had devised a way of making beer like beverages because they would have left no trace.

Beer requires more work than wine or bread. Wine could be done with no lasting trace, but beer would be *impossible*. Why? Because there'd be some trace of tools or brewing. You "could" do it and leave no trace, but you'd have to go out of your way to do so, and unless you can come up with a plausible reason why a pottery-making society would use pottery for everything *except* brewing beer, then I'll invoke Occam and move on.

The original version of the cauldron was a skin draped on sticks over a fire. It operates the same way as the more modern "boil water in a paper cup" trick. In fact, possibly the first pottery was an attempt to improve this idea by smearing clay on the skin.

All sorts of nasty things have been cooked up at one time or another in a skin vessel, so why should beer be any different? But since skins usually rot, the odds of finding a "smoking gun" left behind by a group of wandering hunter-gatherers is pretty low.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[thomasw_lrd]

Apples fall from a tree into a stagnant body of water. Enough rotting apples, stagnant water and wild yeasts, you get cider. Moose and most other cervids love apples. You just hear about drunk moose more often, because they live in pretty swampy areas from my limited understanding.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[nitehawk214]

that it was safe to drink was just a side effect of the boiling part of the brewing, if they had boiled water it would have been ok to drink too

That is true, but as soon as the water cooled down it would start to get infected with bacteria and mold again. Sealed containment of pure water did not exist until the 20th century (probably post WWII). The slight alcohol content would help preserve the water.

And when we say "beer" in this context, we are really talking about Gruit which was a beverage flavored with herbs not hops. Hops did not become popular until the middle ages, and primarily in Europe (invented in Germany, where else?). Also we talk about something that is very very light, at 3% or less, not heavy enough to make an active person drunk.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Hatta]

Why anyone would attribute booze or dogs, or imagine that somehow we were fucking cattle before we started to drink

Yeah, usually the cattle fucking comes after we start to drink.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello? Never heard of belgium?
http://www.ratebeer.com/RateBeerBest/bestbeers_012013x.asp

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[drinkypoo]

My beer friend has said the same. Something like, The American's version of something is usually shit until they get made fun of enough. Then they drop enough time, effort, and money into it to become the best in the world.

Before prohibition we had beer from around the world, then prohibition reduced the market to what was cheap, easy, and fast to brew, especially with a lot of adjuncts. That meant pilsner, and it means cheap nasty stuff made with a lot of corn and/or rice. Now we're having to reinvent beer, but along the way we're accomplishing some pretty great things. It's a shame we had to break the stove to make an omelet.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[dywolf]

I declare you the winner of the internets for today

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[T.E.D.]

Ironworking appears to have been known in North America, but very few iron tools were made, possibly because stone tools had evolved far beyond anything seen in Eurasia.

First off, no. Ironworking was unkown in pre-Columbian North America. The only exception to this I know of is the Norse settlements in Greenland. There was some use of native copper.

If you want a good explanation for why. I'd suggest reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. If you want a lazy Slashdot answer instead, I suggest trying to imagine a (horseless) tribe trying to follow a buffalo herd around the plains while dragging an anvil with them on a dog travios (drag sled).

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Pope]

Yes, we have, now stop swearing!

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[sesshomaru]

Next you'll be telling me that the best fried chicken in America isn't KFC and the best hamburgers don't come from McDonald's.

That's treading close to Heresy, that is!

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[HornWumpus]

Sib poster points out skin caldrons.

I would add animal skulls.

But I do think that bread making and beer making are so similar that they would be discovered within a very few generations of each other. Likely cooking the 'bread' on a hot rock, gruel in a skin/skull and beer in whatever they were using to carry water (animal skins?). I think gruel had to be first.

Thinking along those lines and asking: When do we see the first tooth wear based on grain grinding grit? Pre agricultural revolution?

IMHO The sophistication of the bakery/breweries you reference upthread imply an earlier version.

Finally how do you prove a negative? You know of pottery using cultures that provably didn't make beer*?

* For definitions of beer that amount to sour gruel.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[cusco]

The carbonic acid (which causes the carbonation) didn't kill everything? I'm quite surprised. As an experiment we once poured half a Diet Coke into an equivalent amount of pond water, and an hour later everything was dead. Maybe it was chemical contamination?

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Immerman]

Iron was quite rare, but not completely unknown (sorry, can't find the reference at the moment), and you probably highlighted one of the reasons for that, though far from all North American tribes were nomadic - the buffalo chasers were mostly a Great Plains phenomena. It is possible that the few iron artifacts discovered originated from Norse or South American cultures, but IIRC the designs are inconsistent with that premise, suggesting they were at the very least reworked extensively. It's also possible it was simply limited to meteoric and other "pre-refined" iron - note that they only there is only no evidence of *smelting*. That would be consistent with the fact that retreating glaciers had left behind plentiful surface copper deposits that could be worked directly - making the jump directly to iron smelting without prior copper smelting experience would likely be a daunting technological leap.

Personally I suspect a big part of the difference may also have been the nature of American "warfare" - the incremental benefit of iron is relatively small in other endeavors, and when conflict consists primarily of raiding parties rather than empire building having the strongest weapons and armor is of far less benefit.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Reziac]

Here's a reverse possibility -- bread as a side effect of beer, thus: Whoops, not enough water in this batch, why is it puffed up and leaning over the fire like that? Dang, crunchy, pretty good. Let's try doing it on purpose.

I'm guessing the first beer was more like fermented gruel than what we'd call beer, and if you bake the same glob of goo after it's set a bit longer, you get something like bread.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Alioth]

The trouble is that they don't get exported. Outside of the US, by and large all we get is the output of the mega-brewers (Coors, Anheiser Busch etc.) and they are all like horse piss.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[NewYork]

you forgot taxes

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Reziac]

A while back some SCA types tried recreating medieval brews, and found the alcohol content was closer to 12% than our modern 3-4%. They were surprised, but following the recipe made durn strong beer.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[cusco]

That would be the first Eurasian grain crops, people in Mexico were doing the same thing about the same time with maize, and quinoa was being planted in the Andes as well. Bottle gourds were deliberately planted and harvested in Africa considerably earlier, IIRC before 10,000 BCE. Squashes and Andean root crops also have an extremely early estimate for their domestication as well, although I don't remember at the moment whether it was before or after grains. Both maize and bottle gourds have been domesticated for so long that they're now unable to reproduce in the wild, and it took decades to even figure out what the originator grass was for maize.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[tehcyder]

A while back some SCA types tried recreating medieval brews, and found the alcohol content was closer to 12% than our modern 3-4%. They were surprised, but following the recipe made durn strong beer.

Isn't the argument that back when most people were agricultural workers, you basically sweated off the booze as you were working physically hard all day, plus the tasks were fairly simple, didn't involve complicated machinery or anything like too much thinking, so being a bit pissed would have been quite manageable?

I know that less than a hundred years ago in the UK, farm workers used to drink strong scrumpy (cider ) through the day quite happily.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Reziac]

Haven't heard the argument, but from personal experience, it seems reasonable... I find a beer when working hard in the sun has far less effect than one consumed lazing about in the shade.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Tyler Durden]

No problem.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[cusco]

Go hiking in Central and South America and you'll very quickly find out why the wheel wasn't terribly useful. Wheels need roads (or at least passable grasslands like the Asian steppes), and roads are difficult to construct and almost impossible to maintain there at the population densities that existed prior to the 20th century.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[cusco]

Early usage of grain would mostly have been boiled as gruel. Crack grains, toss them in water, and some of the hulls float to the top. Boiling them swells the kernel up and separates it from the rest of the chaff. Skim off the surface and it's quite edible. I've seen this done just recently in Peru, when my wife's cousin was making dog food.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[RatherBeAnonymous]

It's not the alcohol content but the boiling that makes beer safe to consume. Ancient beers probably didn't go over 4% ABV, well within the tolerance range of many bacteria. Boiling, however, kills any enteric bacteria, worms, and any other bugs / critters in the water likely to cause disease. Wine tends to be safe without boiling since it's made from fruit juice, not fruit + water from that filthy pond over by the latrine.

A more technical answer is that, if you simply toss water and milled (cracked, but not ground into flour) grains together, you don't get a particularly lively fermentation. Boiling gelatinizes the grains and helps break down long chain starches into shorter ones that are chewed up by yeast and bacteria faster than they would otherwise be. From there, you take some of the sludge from your previous, best tasting batch of beer and use that to kick start the fermentation of the new beer. Supposedly, ancient Egyptians boiled loaves of bread to make their beer.

FWIW, ancient brews were probably a LOT like kefir -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefir

I agree that the boiling process is important for making beer, but it is only of secondary importance for safety. Boiling the wort (the liquid beer before fermentation) does tend to result in stronger, better storing beer, but once it passes some thresh hold alcohol and acidity threshold it is essentially safe. The modern reasons for boiling the wort are to create a more or less sterile environment where the yeast doesn't have to compete for resources, and to extract flavors and preservative compounds from herbal additions, like hops. Many modern beers don't go over 4% either, and there are no known pathogens that can survive the combination of alcohol and acidity of even a modern "light" beer. There are plenty of bacteria that can infect a modern beer, but they are not harmful to humans, just the beer. I suspect that our ancestor were making perfectly safe beef for generations without boiling.

Another thing I'd like to mention is that when you make beer you don't just boil grains. Boiling starch does not break it down into sugar. You wet your grains before hand, causing the grain to sprout and release enzymes that transform the starches into sugar. Then, extract this sugar using warm water and you have a nutrient rich, high energy food source for yeast. But, if you just throw the grain into boiling water it denatures the enzymes before they can convert an appreciable quantity of starch. The Incas did it a little differently with Maize. Saliva contains enzymes for converting starches into sugar. They would chew the maize before brewing. Incidentally, women tend to have more of this enzyme in their saliva and made better beer.

Also, ancient people really had no concept of yeast. If you threw yeast from your last batch into a new vat of wort and boiled it, it would kill off the yeast as well. So there would have been a period of trial and error and experimentation and failures before brewers figured out when to boil. Wine has another story to tell here. Wild yeast tends to colonize grape skins, and originally, the brewers would rely on those wild yeasts to ferment the wine. If they had boiled the wine, it would not have fermented. Fruit juices do have higher starting sugar content, so the yeast will consume it until the alcohol content kills the yeast. This is unlike beer, where the yeast consumes all available sugar and goes dormant. Due to the higher alcohol content, wine does keep longer than beer because there are fewer microbes that can stand the alcohol content. But again, this is not a safety issue as much as a flavor issue

Boil too early and there will be no starch to sugar conversion, and no beer. Or boil too late and you kill the yeast, and there will be no beer. So, since boiling is an extra step and would have involved much experimentation and failure, it seems likely that our ancestors were doing it for ages without boiling the wort. Since we exist, it would seem like the beer was safe enough.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[RatherBeAnonymous]

Have you every tried to drink Budweiser warm? It's probably the most tightly quality controlled beer in the world and it tastes like shit above 55 degrees.

Beer was not bootlegged during prohibition because it was harder to smuggle than liquor. Liquor was more concentrated and could get more people drunk per gallon, so it was more valuable and made smuggling it more worth the risk. This also gave rise to the modern mixed drink. The few beer brewers that survived, like Anheuser-Busch, did so by selling malt extract and soft drinks. After Prohibition ended, Americans didn't really remember what beer was supposed to taste like. It was also 1933, when the US was in the depth of depression, that Prohibition was repealed. At that point, Americans couldn't afford good beer, so only cheap beer made with adjuncts like rice, were commercially viable. That gave Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Coors, and Pabst a nearly competition-free market to take over. Each of these brewers make remarkably similar pilsner-style lagers. Even now they still represent about 80% of the US beer market. So for two generations Americans have drunk beer that had to be chilled to be drinkable, so Americans drink beer cold, and any new beer that hits the market has to be formulated to taste cold as well.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[mpe]

it just means they weren't subject to the same pressures that drove other cultures to embrace them. For example there's no shortage of food in a rainforest, and so no incentive to pursue agriculture beyond encouraging particularly tasty or useful plants to grow in convenient locations. Ironworking appears to have been known in North America, but very few iron tools were made, possibly because stone tools had evolved far beyond anything seen in Eurasia.

IIRC the first iron tools were not as good as bronze tools. What made the difference was that iron was cheaper. If the Americans already had cheap sophisticated stone tools then iron tools could have been things for the rich to show off.

The wheel was known in Central America, but apparently only used for children's toys, who knows why.

The Romans could have built steam powered machines. But they didn't...

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[underlord_999]

Alright, let's drink our brew and sing about ol' Jayne:

Jayne, the man they call Jayne....

{Chorus}
He... robbed from the rich and he...
Gave to the poor!
Stood... up to the man and he...
Gave him what for!

Our love for him now, ain't hard to explain!
the Hero of Canton, the man they call Jayne!

{Verse 1}
Now Jayne saw the mudders' back breakin'....
He saw the mudders' lament

He saw that magistrate takin'....
every dollar and leaving 5 cents

He said, "You can't do that to my people!
...You can't crush them under your heel!"

So Jayne...
Strapped on his hat and in 5 seconds flat...
Stole everything Boss Higgins had to steal!

[to Chorus]

{Verse 2}
So here is what separates Heros, from...
Common folk like... you and I

The man they call Jayne,
He turned around his plane and let...
That money hit sky!

He dropped it onto our houses...
He dropped it into our yards

And the man they call Jayne, He...
Turned 'round his plane and headed...
Out for the stars!

[to Chorus]

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[tragedy]

Pre-Columbian North America had plenty of non-nomadic city dwellers with no need to drag anvils around with them after buffalo. The more likely explanation is that, compared to working with copper, working iron is hard with no immediately obvious benefit. Steel is great, but if you don't already know how to produce and work steel, all you end up with is brittle black iron that isn't any better than a chunk of rock. Even if you do know how to work it, you have to take care of it once you've produced it. It's the sort of thing that, unless you put in a lot of work and experimentation, looks a lot like a dead end.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Immerman]

>The Romans could have built steam powered machines. But they didn't...
The aeolipile was an interesting proof of concept, but not really capable of useful work. The available torque was extremely low compared to the energy input, and it had to stop frequently for refueling. It wasn't until much later that anyone figured out how to harness steam in a useful manner, and other than the steam-jack the designs were considerably more sophisticated.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[akeeneye]

When I spent some time in Germany recently, I could -not- find a decent, hoppy beer. I'm used to, and love, American IPAs. The stronger and more bitter, the better. The closest to that I could find in DE was Jever, and that was just a shadow of the beers that I'm used to. The Bier store people hadn't a clue what I was talking about when I tried to describe massively hoppy beer. I'm tempted to take them some (if that's possible) when I go back. I did read some lamenations in Germany about the state of the brewing scene there. The gist of it seemed to be that the "purity laws" were preventing beer innovation in the country. You're right, the quantity and quality of craft brews here in the US is astonishing. The varieties available seem to have mushroomed over the past few years. Now if only the really innovative stuff came in 12oz bottles instead of $8 20oz bottles.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[redlemming]

Also, in the fertile crescent lands (Egypt especially), beer was one of the few (health-wise) safe means of hydrating yourself.

Beer in Nubia (south of Egypt) was also a likely source of the anti-biotic tetracycline, according to research by George Armelagos and Mark Nelson. This was originally discovered when large amounts of tetracycline were found in mummies from that area.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[Immerman]

I wish people would stop making these hideously hyperbolic, even libelous claims about our industrial scale American brews.

The horses are getting offended.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[T.E.D.]

Yes. If you want to delve deeper into the whys than my flip one-liner, as I said that's what Guns Germs and Steel is all about.

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[cwsumner]

Even though this is interesting, arguing about such things is pointless:
When you were back in school, what was the answer to a multiple-choice test?
"D: All Of The Above."

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

The theory is that mead was brewed before the beginnings of agriculture and may have spurred it on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

But maybe not Mead, which uses honey, not grains, so agriculture wasn't a big help. Yeah it's not beer but kind of related.

"It can be regarded as the ancestor of all fermented drinks," Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat has speculated, "antedating the cultivation of the soil."
"The earliest archaeological evidence for the production of mead dates to around 2000 BC."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead

Re:Everything gave us civilization

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

Head for the islands.. of bush, bush beer.

Homer said it best.

[Tristao]

"To alcohol! The cause of--and solution to--all of life's problems." Homer (the one not from Greece).

Re:Homer said it best.

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

Homer (the one not from Greece).

Thank you for clarifying that. Wasn't sure at first.

Someone mod parent Woo-Hoo!

Re:Homer said it best.

[AchilleTalon]

Yeah! So many words to say that drunk guys are hilaritaringly stupids and dumbs making fools of themselves for the joy of others, especially when there is a campfire.

It might be true but

[peragrin]

The real reason beer was important was that it was clean water. brewing beer kills off most of the bad things in fresh water supplies.

Lower inhibitions isn't a factor until after we had started forming cities and groups of more than a couple hundred.

Re:It might be true but

[multiben]

Interesting if true, but I'm sceptical. My understanding has always been that beer is a diuretic and not a good source of fluids as it will dehydrate you over the longer term.

Re:It might be true but

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Ever tried to drink nothing but beer for a week? I know a guy that did, by the end of it his teeth were loose, gums bleeding, regular blackouts, sallow skin, he was a mess. If the alcohol is strong enough to kill germs, it won't do you any good, plus as another poster pointed out it is a diuretic, you'll be thirstier by the end than when you started. So I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on that particular theory.

And from a quick glance at the story, this theory doesn't seem that far behind it.

Re:It might be true but

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Why do you think that beer and (watered) wine were so popular with ancient and medieval populations? In most places, you could basically only choose between being constantly tipsy, or getting killed by some nasty infection (it you were lucky you'd "only" get some progressively debilitating parasitic infection instead). It wasn't until the Roman period that people bothered to provide large masses of population with water that was actually safe to drink, and even then, the conditions in the Middle East never allowed for that with contemporary level of technology. (Romans at least had hills, clean mountain streams, and lots of building stone for aqueducts.)

Re:It might be true but

[dargaud]

Well, beer in the old days wasn't as strong as know, so yes you could leave mostly drinking only beer. Check out 'small beer'. Workers had two gallons or so of the stuff to drink daily!

Re:It might be true but

[jlowery]

I don't know that beer will kill microbes... read this.

Re:It might be true but

[MightyMartian]

The early beers and wines had pretty low alcohol levels, so the downside of alcohol consumption was likely pretty minimal. I agree that if they'd gone around drinking some of the wild high alcohol beers and wines out on the market now, hydration would have been a massive problem.

Re:It might be true but

[mcgrew]

It isn't the alcohol in the beer that kills germs, it's the brewing process itself. If your tappers (or mugs) are dirty you'll get sick.

Re:It might be true but

[Anne_Nonymous]

Its also a great way to store grain.

Beer is liquid bread, lovely, lovely bread.

Re:It might be true but

[Anonymous Coward]

Beer back then may have had a lower alcohol content then. The boiling of water is the first factor in killing harmful bacteria. Fruit was added after the mashing process (extracting of sugar from grain) to add the yeast needed for brewing. From what I understand, beer was the reason that ancient civilizations started to farm so they could harvest grain.

Re:It might be true but

[Immerman]

Beer may not, but the beer-making process will.

Re:It might be true but

[Osgeld]

beer "back then" had extremely low alcohol content, thats why they could drink it morning noon and night without catching more than a slight buzz

Re:It might be true but

[Osgeld]

I would argue bread is a bigger factor of cultivation, but beer is a close runner up

Re:It might be true but

[Guppy]

The real reason beer was important was that it was clean water. brewing beer kills off most of the bad things in fresh water supplies.

During the construction of America's Transcontinental Railroad, a similar phenomenon was noted with regards to tea. The Chinese workers would prepare large containers of tea in the morning, then drink it lukewarm throughout the day, as their main source of hydration. And while tea leaf extracts have some antimicrobial properties, it was primarily the boiling process which sanitized the water, reducing the outbreaks of dysentery that were common among other workers.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tcrr-cprr/

Re:It might be true but

[Intrepid imaginaut]

The only citation in that article is a recipe to make the stuff. Not to mention that our early ancestors would have needed industrial brewing facilities to produce the amount of beer they would have needed to survive, even if that were possible.

Re:It might be true but

[Intrepid imaginaut]

It wasn't until the Roman period that people bothered to provide large masses of population with water that was actually safe to drink, and even then, the conditions in the Middle East never allowed for that with contemporary level of technology. (Romans at least had hills, clean mountain streams, and lots of building stone for aqueducts.)

You mean except for things like the Persian qanats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat

Re:It might be true but

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Well, Iran is pretty benign in this respect, at least comparatively; what I actually had in mind was the lowland Mesopotamia with swamps everywhere and Nile in Egypt with its own share of health issues. These are the regions where building long-range infrastructure for bringing fresh water from distant sources was virtually impossible, and they were also areas with a very large concentration of people. Not a healthy combination, this one.

Re:It might be true but

[Aranykai]

And I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on your anecdote, sorry.

The whole "x is a diuretic and makes you thirstier than before you drank it" is patent nonsense. This is not what a diuretic does to the body. Also, ancient beer approaches high 90s in percentile water by volume, (hint, most beer today is still over 90% water by volume).

As to the health effects of drinking nothing but beer, you are aware that early travelers had nothing but beer to drink for the majority of their sea voyages, right?

Re:It might be true but

[Intrepid imaginaut]

And I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on your anecdote, sorry.

The whole "x is a diuretic and makes you thirstier than before you drank it" is patent nonsense.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Beer:-Pros-and-Cons&id=240782

Beer is 98% Water, but Still a Diuretic

Although 98% water, beer is a diuretic because it contains alcohol. That means you should not drink too much and never replace water with beer. To avoid headaches and hangovers caused by dehydration you should always have a glass of water between each glass of alcohol you drink.

As to the health effects of drinking nothing but beer, you are aware that early travelers had nothing but beer to drink for the majority of their sea voyages, right?

Utter bullshit. Even in the rum days a shot of 'grog', heavily watered rum, was a treat.

Re:It might be true but

[Intrepid imaginaut]

From the article: "Qanats are also called krz (or krz from Persian: ) (Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, derived from Persian: ), kahan (from Persian: ), kahriz/khriz (Azerbaijan); khettara (Morocco); galería (Spain); falaj (United Arab Emirates and Oman); Kahn (Baloch) or foggara/fughara (North Africa).[1] Alternative terms for qanats in Asia and North Africa are kakuriz, chin-avulz, and mayun. Common variants of qanat in English include kanat, khanat, kunut, kona, konait, ghanat, ghundat.

The qanat technology is known to have been developed by the Persian people sometime in the early 1st millennium BC and to have spread from there slowly west- and eastward.[2][3][4][5][6]

The value of a qanat is directly related to the quality, volume and regularity of the water flow. Much of the population of Iran and other arid countries in Asia and North Africa historically depended upon the water from qanats; the areas of population corresponded closely to the areas where qanats are possible."

For my money substituting beer for water is a non runner.

Re:It might be true but

[AK Marc]

And lead poisoning. Though it was at a low enough level that it didn't cause *real* problems until after childbearing age.

Re:It might be true but

[CrimsonAvenger]

I would argue bread is a bigger factor of cultivation, but beer is a close runner up

Back in the day, beer was basically fermented bread. Not only could you drink it, but you could CHEW it, since it had a lot of solids....

Re:It might be true but

[AK Marc]

I know a guy that didn't eat food on the weekends for years. His only calories from Friday lunch to Monday breakfast were from beer. For years.

What did your friend drink? Was it American lite beer? Or something like Guinness?

Re:It might be true but

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You know, I *did* read it, you didn't need to quote it to me. Still doesn't apply to the Egyptian and Mesopotamian environment.

Re:It might be true but

[Intrepid imaginaut]

I know a guy that didn't eat food on the weekends for years. His only calories from Friday lunch to Monday breakfast were from beer. For years.

Big difference between a couple of days and living on the stuff. Feel free to try it and get back to us though, calories do not equal nutrition and alcohol does not equal good for you.

What did your friend drink? Was it American lite beer? Or something like Guinness?

The kind you buy in a shop? I've no idea, it was cheap whatever it was.

Re:It might be true but

[AK Marc]

The more meady beers would be more likely to not kill you if you lived off them for a week. And yes, you can get the thick ones in a shop, just not generally for cheap.

Re:It might be true but

[kermidge]

If all that guy took in for a week was a modern beer, of course he got messed up. Are you saying he ate nothing?

The comparison is apples to oranges on many grounds. A modern beer is ~5% alcohol on average, the beer in discussion is best guesstimated (and by modern-day attempts at reasonable replication) at around 2%.

Modern generic beers are heavily filtered; the beer in question might have at best been around the consistency of buttermilk or so, with lots of solids including grains and yeasts. So I'd have to figure the old stuff gave a lot more in the way of sustenance. We're also not talking about taking in nothing but beer, but rather having it as part of one's daily diet. A beer at that low a proof has got to be only a very mild diuretic at best and given the water content from one's diet likely not an issue. (The story and the linked articles make interesting reading for almost anyone interested in beer, by the by.)

Generally, the addition of hops as a preservative is a fairly recent practice going back to, oh, late-Middle Ages from what I recall reading. In the history of beer and to this day all manner of 'stuffs' have been added for a variety of reasons: flavor; whatever the reason du jour; and grins.

Re:It might be true but

[Vitriol Angst]

Well brewing Beer is kind of a resource intensive process if all you wanted to do was kill bacteria.

What is forgotten here is that the "earlier form of beer" was more of a Meade. It's a high protein, high carb health drink in comparison to today's beer.

So the "Meade" allowed nomadic tribes to convert grains into more available proteins -- whatever it did socially, just from the dietary basis the production of "Meade" made a lot of sense for a stationary society.

Re:It might be true but

[dwye]

Beer back then may have had a lower alcohol content then. The boiling of water is the first factor in killing harmful bacteria. Fruit was added after the mashing process (extracting of sugar from grain) to add the yeast needed for brewing.

Small beer, the daily brew, had about 2% alcohol -- enough to allow storage after brewing killed the germs in the original water and on the ingredients. Full strength beers, ales, and mead had about the same alcohol content that you can find today (except where limited by law). Fruit doesn't necessarily add yeast nor is it necessary to get yeast; often it comes from the environment just like bread molds do.

From what I understand, beer was the reason that ancient civilizations started to farm so they could harvest grain.

No. Grain, whether for beer or bread or both, led nomadic tribes to settle down to farm, then to make defensible towns to keep the surplus from nomads, which eventually led to civilizations to keep the largest towns safe from smaller towns or nomadic hordes wanting to steal all the surplus wealth and grain. There were no ancient civilizations before farming, Conan The Barbarian and Kull The Conqueror notwithstanding (although there were fish farms in Japan before grain farms).

Re:It might be true but

[Kahlandad]

I'll meet your (unbelievable) anecdote with an anecdote of my own:

I lived with a close friend and his father for about 5 months back in the 90's and I literally never saw the dad eat a meal or drink water. I'd estimate 90% of his calories came from beer and the rest from whisky or the occasional glass of wine. Both the father and I were jobless at the time and we shared the apartment together for the entire day, so it wasn't like he was grabbing lunch at the office.

I talked to my friend about it and he said that's just the way his dad is. He couldn't even remember the last time his dad actually ate food.

He probably had some sever deficiencies and I have no idea what his internal organs looked like, but just looking at him you'd guess he was the epitome of health... about 130lbs and could run up the 4 flights of stairs without losing his breath. So, I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on your particular theory.

Re:It might be true but

[skine]

Even though alcohol and caffeine are known diuretics, it is a myth that they dehydrate.

Unless you're drinking everclear, you are absorbing more liquid than you expel.

Re:It might be true but

[fremsley471]

In what could have been an awful piece of television, 6 European and 6 Japanese bankers in the City of London were sat down in a bar and given beer. After only 2 glasses, 4 of the 6 Japanese were bright red and visibly uncomfortable. One of the two exceptions was a noticeably small woman who polished-off half a dozen without problems. None of the Europeans were similarly affected.

The premise (which is widely accepted in Europe) is that beer and wine gave clean drinking water. If you reacted badly to it, good ol' Evolution found its path through unsanitised water. In the East, the drink was tea, so the tolerance of alcohol is not an innate part of the population.

Hell, beer WAS food for many generations. It is only very recently that food became cheap in the modern world. Before decent nutrition, beer was a way for manual labourers to get cheap calories quickly. We're talking up to the 1960s here, not just the 1690s.

Re:It might be true but

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Don't take my word for it champ, by all means try it for yourself. Take before and after photos, that should be entertaining.

Re:It might be true but

[Intrepid imaginaut]

90% of your post is sheer conjecture. Consider the practicalities of trying to replace the potable water of an entire population with beer for starters - you'd need major industrial factories in every population centre, like half the city would be a brewery, long before the idea of mass production ever appeared. And were infants weaned onto beer or did they just take water? Economically everyone had to pay for beer, and probably quite a lot - are you saying that even the poorest (of which there were likely a great many) could afford their daily beer?

It's nonsense any way you look at it, and yes even 2% alcohol will result in a net loss of fluids, I linked to an article discussing it earlier. I've no doubt it was popular but a replacement for water it really wasn't.

Re:It might be true but

[shikaisi]

Ever tried to drink nothing but beer for a week? I know a guy that did, by the end of it his teeth were loose, gums bleeding, regular blackouts, sallow skin, he was a mess. If the alcohol is strong enough to kill germs, it won't do you any good, plus as another poster pointed out it is a diuretic, you'll be thirstier by the end than when you started.

This sounds like garbage to me. I used to work in a "hot shop" in the steel industry with guys who were forming pieces of red hot steel on presses all day. That meant that levels of perspiration were extremely high. A lot of those guys used to go out at lunch times and drink four pints of beer to rehydrate themselves then work the rest of the shift and go out afterwards and drink another 8 pints of beer. Six days a week, every week. I can assure you that although they were probably not doing their long-term health a whole lot of good, they had none of the symptoms that you describe.

Re:It might be true but

[FictionPimp]

And yet I'm so damn thirsty after a night of drinking.

Re:It might be true but

[FictionPimp]

Only if your family didn't put in the work. I can brew 20 gallons of beer with minimal work using only fire, a kettle, and a bucket. Hell 5 gallons is the exact same amount of work as 20 gallons.

Re:It might be true but

[drinkypoo]

We still have small beer. We call it "lite". Different grades of shitty beer come off of the same massive fermenter, as if it were oil. Tastes about as good.

Re:It might be true but

[FictionPimp]

You say Guinness like its some kind of amazing heavy beer that is nowhere comparable to products made by Budweiser. They are both 4.2% beers and Guinness is also pretty low in calories. It's not like it's Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot (9.6% and 300 calories)

Re:It might be true but

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Bullshit, and here comes the science: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/02/28/3441707.htm

Re:It might be true but

[cusco]

We drink a **LOT** more liquids than is necessary today. If you live in a place where all the water has to be boiled before drinking, and where boiling water is relatively expensive and time consuming, you'll quickly learn why most of the world gets by on three or four cups of tea for the entire day. If your friend had kept to a similar intake of beer he would have been finishing off two or maybe three cans throughout the course of a day, an amount that wouldn't have caused blackouts in a ten year-old much less an adult. At that rate of ingestion the diuretic effects are negligible.

Did your friend by chance subscribe to the utterly baseless 'we need to drink 8 glasses of water a day to be healthy' fad? Of course his diet would also have to be taken into account, as people in most of the world eat a lot more soup than we do here as well.

Re:It might be true but

[ultranova]

Although 98% water, beer is a diuretic because it contains alcohol. That means you should not drink too much and never replace water with beer. To avoid headaches and hangovers caused by dehydration you should always have a glass of water between each glass of alcohol you drink.

Unless alcohol's diuretic effects only count for the specific water molecules ingested from the beer mug alongside their ethanol brethen, I don't really see how this advice would do you any good over simply drink weaker beer.

Also, beer usually varies from 0.5 to 6% alcohol per volume, with 4.6 being a typical amount, thus your quote seems to be saying that beer can contain more 104% of its own contents. Verily it is a brew concocted by the very gods themselves, unchained by logic and mathematics of mere mortals.

Re:It might be true but

[cusco]

Almost all of the potable water your community consumes is used for things other than drinking. Even then, I can pretty much guarantee that you drink a lot more fluids than someone in the Middle Ages did, or even people in the Third World do today. The idea that boiling water made it safe to drink is relatively recent in Europe (although the Chinese knew it for a very long time before), and until the 20th century boiling water just to drink it was expensive. It still is in most of the world for that matter. My in-laws in Peru drink a cup of tea at breakfast, another at lunch or maybe a small glass of soda, sometimes one with dinner, and a cup before bed. Between that and soup their liquid intake is miniscule compared to yours or mine, and they're perfectly healthy. Replacing their tea intake with beer would not have been a large issue at the population levels of the Middle Ages.

Yes, breweries were big businesses in Europe, brewers, millers, and bakers were people of importance in the Middle Ages and later. The desperately poor drank water, they didn't have any choice, but anyone who didn't want to be shitting their pants or puking in the street paid the penny or two per day to drink something safe.

Re:It might be true but

[AK Marc]

The fact that it is much darker implies it contains something the Bud doesn't.

Re:It might be true but

[Intrepid imaginaut]

The desperately poor drank water, they didn't have any choice, but anyone who didn't want to be shitting their pants or puking in the street paid the penny or two per day to drink something safe.

Utter nonsense. And here comes the science: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/02/28/3441707.htm

Re:It might be true but

[FictionPimp]

Darkness is not a indicator of flavor or substance. I can brew a black IPA that tastes identical to my normal IPA. I just add midnight wheat.

I love how people will say "Oh I don't like dark beers, they are too heavy." only to drink my IPA which is the exact same beer just golden.

Re:It might be true but

[cusco]

That's not a refutation of my points in any way. The article is about the quantities of beer consumed in a social drinking setting, not about four or six ounce cups of beer drunk four or five hours apart. Let me make a guess; you're a teetotaler whose main prior exposure to alcohol consumption is in a party- or bar-type of setting, right? Because for all your pontificating you really don't know very much about the subject.

Re:It might be true but

[Intrepid imaginaut]

You guess very much incorrectly. The article is quite clear, it's not physically possible to hydrate yourself with alcoholic drinks. Even drinking water simultaneously is largely pointless. I've no idea why I'm having to spell it out for you, unless you aren't arguing in good faith, which seems entirely likely.

Honestly, this rubbish about beer replacing water when simple boiling alone is easier and cheaper by far, not to mention the fact that you can't hydrate yourself with alcohol.

Re:It might be true but

[cusco]

Boiling is indeed easier, but boiled water couldn't be stored. Wash a jar with water contaminated with cholera. Boil water, drink part of it and put the rest in the jar. A few hours later drink from the jar. You now have cholera. Pour the boiling water into the jar, now the jar has been sterilized (assuming it doesn't shatter, like cheap pottery often does). Once the water is cooled have someone infected with typhus cough over it. A few hours later drink from the jar. You now have typhus. Remember, the Germ Theory of disease didn't even exist until the 19th century, people had no real idea how diseases were spread or how to prevent contamination.

The advantage of beer wasn't that the alcohol would kill the bugs, it was that the PH wouldn't allow them to reproduce to levels that the gut couldn't handle. The diuretic effects of alcohol don't really kick in at low levels of consumption, the liver just processes it. It isn't until the quantity is higher than the liver can easily handle in an hour or two that the kidneys get stimulated, and a six ounce cup of beer isn't going to do that. If the next cup of beer isn't until four or five hours later there really isn't an issue. If that weren't the case the first time you ate overripe fruit you'd be pissing like a racehorse, which doesn't happen (speaking from experience) (overripe mangoes are wonderful).

Re:It might be true but

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

Early beers didn't actually have much alcohol content from what I've read. The wine was more like what beer is now for alcohol percentage and beer less.

Re:It might be true but

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

There's a pork chop in every beer :)

Re:It might be true but

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

Tea is a diuretic too. I wonder how it compares though... do you still get more hydrated with tea than with beer? Is tea a positive hydrator? (people above said beer is a negative hydrator).

Book on beer archeology

[dargaud]

For those who want to know more, I just read this interesting and quite complete book on the archeology of alcohol. It would be worth a book review on /., but I'm not good at writing those.

Beer doesn't make you more creative

[93 Escort Wagon]

But it certainly makes you think you are!

And handsomer, too!

Re:Beer doesn't make you more creative

[mcgrew]

Yeah? Then why were so many great writers drinkers? Although I've found that pot oils creativity more... if you can remember your idea by the time you find a pencil.

Part of Nobots (not finished, it's in my journal) was written in a bar. Of course, it has to be cleaned up a bit when I get sober.

I don't feel handsomer when I'm drinking, but the women certainly look better.

Re:Beer doesn't make you more creative

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Then why were so many great writers drinkers?

Because all writers are great drinkers.

Jared Diamond covered this in his book about what a civilization needs to succeed, titled:

"Guns, Germans and Beer"

Re:Beer doesn't make you more creative

[93 Escort Wagon]

Correlation does not imply causation.

Re:Beer doesn't make you more creative

[mcgrew]

Neither does it rule it out. Possibilities:

1. Alcohol makes some people creative
2. Being creative leads one to drink
3. A third action causes both
4. coincidence.

Ask Mr. Occam if you can use his razor. Or do a real study.

SHIT, slashdot fucked up ordered lists. Sigh.

Re:Beer doesn't make you more creative

[EngnrFrmrlyKnownAsAC]

Jared Diamond wrote Guns, Germs and Steel. It is an excellent book but doesn't mention beer...

Drinking doesn't make we want to write but writing makes me want to drink!

Re:Beer doesn't make you more creative

[cupantae]

It's funny how silly the anti-drug slashdotters can be.

No, beer doesn't "make you more creative". What does that even mean? Creativity is not a measurable quantity. It's not something which can be simply turned up.
However,
- Happiness is important for creativity. Alcohol tends to make people happier.
- Varied thoughts are crucial for creativity. Alcohol causes us to think along very different lines.
- Relaxing is always good. Alcohol makes us relax.
- Sometimes it's important to think less analytically, and alcohol certainly helps that.

I'm sure there are more factors. There are similar arguments (or the same ones) to be made for just about all drugs. Drugs have been central to human creativity since time immemorial. They do not cause creativity in themselves, they are not necessary for creativity and they do not take the burden of creation away from the creator. What they do quite effectively is alter the mind, and many people find that some altered state helps them to create. The notion that people only think that drugs help their creativity is laughable. It's simply not true, no matter how many of you say it.

You lost me at...

[Kwyj1b0]

" ... to rational and independent individuals in modern civilization"

I'm not sure where the author is really coming from, but he seems to claim that modern individuals are (a) less herd-like, and (b) innovation was helped by drinking

The only reason we are less herd-like (and we still are very herd like in our thinking - just look at how certain topics are still taboo) is that our survival doesn't directly depend on acceptance by those around us. Sure, I might not have a job if I'm a douche-bag, but chances are I can still find a way to survive. On the other hand, getting kicked out of a prehistoric tribe meant you would pretty much have to hunt alone (assuming you ran away from the tribe before they butchered you), and you wouldn't survive for long.

Also, the reaction to alcohol varies by culture. You have this idea that people lose inhibition when they drink, but in some cultures they become more harmonious (less likely to cause trouble or act out - see here).

I'd say that the leaps and bounds in infrastructure and tech have allowed us to lead more solitary lives, which also means we have less inclination to conform. Now, if you can claim that a lot of innovation/changes was created under the influence (Windows 8 design? ;) ), that would be cool (I'm not an alcoholic, I'm just creative).

Re:You lost me at...

[mcgrew]

I'm not sure where the author is really coming from, but he seems to claim that modern individuals are (a) less herd-like

You're right, the herding instinct is so strong most don't even notice it. Take a drive down the interstate with your cruise set at 5 mph below the speed limit sometime and you'll see how strong the herding instinct is. No traffic for miles, then a herd comes up behind you and follow you for a while, one guy will pass you and everyone else will follow him. The solitary car is rare.

Politicians understand the herding instinct.

Or look at iFans at a product launch, or a Star Trek convention, or any high school. The fact that we are perhaps the most highly social species on the planet is what led to modern society; "shoulders of giants" and all.

Now, if you can claim that a lot of innovation/changes was created under the influence (Windows 8 design? ;)

Not sure of that was alcohol, they had to be on crack for that clusterfuck.

Re:You lost me at...

[nightcats]

The really important next question here must be: what will happen to us in the 24th c. when Synthehol takes over? OK, note to non-Trekkies: that's the alcohol that doesn't get you drunk or hung over but (supposedly) tastes a lot like wine/beer/whiskey anyway. Consumed on board various incarnations of the Enterprise.

Re:You lost me at...

[Vitriol Angst]

our survival doesn't directly depend on acceptance by those around us. Sure, I might not have a job if I'm a douche-bag, but chances are I can still find a way to survive.

Ironically, a lot of douchebags today figure dream of a future where society breaks down. In the dream, they all survive -- figuring nobody else will think to use a gun. They also don't dream about the time and energy it takes to procure and process food -- as it doesn't befit their glamorous notions of survival.

Douchebags are allowed to survive and thrive because of society, and thus society is in jeopardy if too many douchebags are allowed to survive. Truly, they are the seeds of our own undoing.

Re:You lost me at...

[T.E.D.]

Ummm....I pretty sure no known Ape species exhibits a lot of herding behavior.

Chimps, the closest related extant species to humans, live in smallish tribes. They band together quite often for hunting and warfare with other tribes, but otherwise are even more individualistic than humans are.

If anything, the behavioral problem associated with "civilization" is the need for poeple to behave less like individuals and more like a herd, so that larger populations can live together without constantly breaking into tribes and starting to kill each other. So if you are looking for why some kind of chemical behavioral alteration might have been required, your need to look in exactly the opposite direction.

Perfect St Patrick's day story!

[mcgrew]

TFS says "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." That goes along with an old Irish saying: "God invented alcohol to keep the Irish from conquering the world."

"...rational and independent individuals..."

[John Hasler]

ROFL.

Re:Good grief...

[Jeremy Erwin]

Probably a few kegs of beer.

Re:Safer than water too

[wisnoskij]

Well the problem is that areas will large civilizations invariably had horrible dysentery filled water.
Beer was the only way to have civilization

Re:Good grief...

[Frosty Piss]

Probably a few kegs of beer.

I would assume that's one of the standard kickbacks on the Slashdot Rate Card... You get a little more if you toss in some "cube toys" and maybe a Nurf weapon or two...

That's right....blame the beer for civilization...

[Bob_Who]

Step One “We admitted that we were powerless over our alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable”. I'll drink to that....

Errant twaddle

[Stirling Newberry]

Domestication of grains starts 2000 years, at latest, from the earliest brewing of beer. The "beer hypothesis" also lacks skeletal evidence, and also genomic evidence. More interesting is the rapid spread of later lactose tolerance, which has an extremely high selective index. Also contradicting the reductive understanding of the role of beer is the lack of pottery containers for it in many early cultures, or lack of evidence for brewing in places such as China, even though rice and grain cultivation were quite early there.

So summary: beer is late, it is missing from many cultures, and the genomics would support a much higher selection for digesting of it –as they do with milk –if a small area invented brewing and this was the core civilizing agent.

further, linguistic convergence argues for language being close to 100,000 years old, and cultural progressions, that is "fashion" are as much as 70,000 years old. The understanding of band organization - that is groups smaller than tribes that do not produce a surplus, and there fore have little to no "state" apparatus or long term castes - is not the placid realm before angst. The Australian aboriginal mythology is filled with a sense of angst as their climate changed, and they are band organized.

There are many better hypotheses for the role of intoxication in human history. Far more likely beer takes off as soon as agriculture becomes intertwined with water, because over the long term the water becomes fouled. It also has an important role when economic castes in settlements start to become forces in themselves. It may have been used as part of combat, as the only medication they had.

This doesn't even pass a simple date match of events to create a timeline.

Re:Errant twaddle

[slimjim8094]

the genomics would support a much higher selection for digesting of it –as they do with milk –if a small area invented brewing and this was the core civilizing agent.

Uh, as I understand it, northern Europeans in fact do have a much higher alcohol tolerance than people of Asian and Native American descent. The metabolism of alcohol is highly variable with ethnicity.

Re:Errant twaddle

[Stirling Newberry]

That is, where there is large consumption of milk as a staple, the genes for lactose tolerance are selected for heavily. The same would be true of alcohol: there would be adaptations that correspond to civilized areas. For reasons of my current research, and can state categorically that we don't see a good overlap between early domestication of grain, and alcohol digestion, this would include maltose tolerance, alcohol tolerence, adaptations of insulin response, and so on. Lactose selectivity is extremely high, if beer were the water of early cities, we'd expect similar levels of selection for the same reason.

The "birth of consciousness" error isn't new: several authors have labelled some particular recent reductive change as being "what makes us modern humans." So far, we have not found any good genomic evidence for this. It may be there, we've missed big things before, but this one makes undergraduate levels of blunder and is being pushed out with out even a basic filter.

Beer is SEO friendly, what can I say.

Re:Errant twaddle

[Osgeld]

I dont know about that, I used to work with a bunch of blue collar South Koreans, I can drink pretty good, but these guys would match me with their beers topped off with vodka ... sometimes more than 25% vodka in a pint.

Re:Errant twaddle

[stenvar]

Domestication of grains starts 2000 years, at latest, from the earliest brewing of beer. The "beer hypothesis" also lacks skeletal evidence,

The hypothesis is about fermented beverages, not beer specifically. Consuming alcohol from fermentation is older than humanity itself; even monkeys and elephants get drunk on fermenting fruit. Mead used to be popular and goes back much further than the domestication of grains.

As to the hypothesis itself, mostly, fermentation probably just served to preserve beverages and kill pathogens.

Re:Errant twaddle

[Stirling Newberry]

"The hypothesis is about fermented beverages, not beer specifically"

You are welcome to present evidence for regular fermentation from the Younger Dryas settlements. But you won't find any.

Re:Errant twaddle

[Rufty]

Chemical analysis of traces absorbed and preserved in pottery jars from the neolithic village of Jiahu in Henan province in northern China has revealed that a mixed fermented beverage made from rice, honey, and fruit was being produced as early as 9,000 years ago. This is approximately the time when barley beer and grape wine were beginning to be made in the Middle East.

Re:Errant twaddle

[SteveFoerster]

further, linguistic convergence argues for language being close to 100,000 years old,

Language at all, or the most recent language common to all those that survive?

Re:Errant twaddle

[stenvar]

Which part of "consuming alcohol from fermentation is older than humanity itself" did you not understand?

Re:Errant twaddle

[david_bonn]

In general, whether your grain of choice is wheat, rice, barley, maize, or quinoa, you'll need to cook it. And you won't necessarily need pottery to cook it either. Lots of native american cultures cooked in baskets, by transferring hot stones to the baskets which were full of liquid. This amazingly didn't burn the basket.

Chances are this was how our distant ancestors cooked their grains. While pottery surfaced in Japan about 9000 years ago, it took quite a while to disperse.

So a similar thing could obviously be done with beer, and the beer could easily be stored in watertight baskets, and wouldn't exactly leave a whole lot of evidence for the archaeologists.

And before you ask about watertight baskets, I have an Eyak basket made of seal gut which is quite watertight. Anyway, you could always seal the basket with animal fat.

Re:Errant twaddle

[drinkypoo]

And before you ask about watertight baskets, I have an Eyak basket made of seal gut which is quite watertight. Anyway, you could always seal the basket with animal fat.

The Pomo people who still live where I live now were once renowned far and wide for their watertight woven baskets. In spite of that, they didn't have alcohol any more than the rest of the native north americans, probably because they weren't really collecting grains. They primarily ate acorns, which were abundant here; the whole county was oaks, except for some of the western parts which were covered in redwood. I have no idea if they had pencillin here, but I'd bet.

Re:Uh - no

[Jeremy Erwin]

Name one.

Ben Franklin didn't say that

[the eric conspiracy]

For the record, here, in a letter addressed to André Morellet in 1779, is what Benjamin Franklin actually did say:

Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.

Re:Advanced?

[MightyMartian]

You must be a fun guy at parties.

Beer is proof

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

That it was necessary to invent ale...

I can't stand beer.

[Anonymous Coward]

To me beer tastes like piss. Not that I drink piss, but if I were to drink piss I'd imagine it'd taste a lot like beer.

Oh damn. I forgot this is slashdot. Let me rephrase that:
Actually, to me beer tastes like piss. Not that I actually drink piss, but if I were to actually drink piss, I'd actually imagine it'd actually taste a lot like beer.

Re:I can't stand beer.

[ejgibsonfosslinux82]

well you've probably only tried the big corporate swill water beers like bud or miller lite. There are so many good tasty craft beers out there it's impossible to list them all. I'm sure theres a brew out there you'd like.

Re:I can't stand beer.

[KiloByte]

There's beer other than Bud Light. (Ok, ok, to even call that beer requires heavily bribing consumer protection inspectors.) Actual beer doesn't taste like piss.

Re:I can't stand beer.

[Osgeld]

I call it beer, but then I KNOW theres two worlds of beer

One is a fine crafted beverage meant for enjoyment, maybe with a nice dinner and company of good friends during a peaceful evening.
The other is mass produced piss that has to be consumed ice cold so you cant taste it, and drank in bulk for the sole reason of getting shit faced.

I have room in my life for both.

Re:I can't stand beer.

[Anonymous Coward]

if I were to actually drink piss, I'd actually imagine it'd actually taste a lot like American beer.

ftfy

Re:Uh - no

[RussR42]

Nope. They came along much too late to be relevant to this discussion.

Cows

[Anonymous Coward]

I do controls engine for a major beer company... And I tell u farmers love buying the waste yeast and grain cuz their cows love it. I should we be careful lest we become cows for the cows

Mayans

[ejgibsonfosslinux82]

I know that the Mayans brewed beer and if you made a bad batch they would drown you in it. The egyptian beer from what I've read was roughly around 3% ABV or so. I was on G+ and saw this article and what do you know I'm drinking a beer right now. Cheers!! Happy St Patricks Day slashdot!!

Re:Mayans

[shikaisi]

I know that the Mayans brewed beer and if you made a bad batch they would drown you in it.

I bet the directors of Budweiser are glad that law isn't enforced any more.

Re:Mayans

[cusco]

What did the Mayans brew beer from, they didn't have either barley or wheat (or rice, if you work for Budweiser)? Chicha is what's made from corn.

Vikings

[Immerman]

> Lower inhibitions isn't a factor until after we had started forming cities and groups of more than a couple hundred

I don't know about that, aren't the Vikings supposed to have had a rule of thumb that you should never implement any major plan until you've discussed it while drunk? Of course that's another agricultural society, even if they weren't big on cities and the like.

A solution in search of a problem.

[pubwvj]

This doesn't make sense. There are a lot of people and even cultures that do not do beer or other alcohol. This article really sounds like a solution in search of a problem.

Re:A solution in search of a problem.

[50000BTU_barbecue]

I'll bet the same cultures "do" plenty of other stuff, like khat, betel, peyote, coca leaf, tobacco, etc...

Re:A solution in search of a problem.

[pubwvj]

Actually there are plenty of cultures that don't imbibe or intoxicate. Since your culture does you have a hard time seeing this, you think you are the norm. Classic egocentric anthropomorphism.

it also kept us alive

[stenvar]

Fermented beverages are important because they tend to kill off food-borne and water-borne pathogens, pathogens that would frequently just kill you.

Not thinking about what used to be in your food and water because you get drunk is just a pleasant side effect.

Re:it also kept us alive

[cusco]

Boiling as part of the preparation for brewing kills off everything in it, the altered PH of the resulting brew is what keeps the critters that may arrive after the fact from multiplying. The alcohol is just a present from the yeast beasties for providing them such a nice home.

Re:it also kept us alive

[stenvar]

Did I say anything about beer or boiling or alcohol? I talked about how fermentation in general tends to make things safer to eat and healthier, no boiling required.

Oblig

[ma1wrbu5tr]

Friar Tuck: This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption. Let us give praise to our maker and glory to his bounty by learning about... BEER.

old news..

[houbou]

Seriously, I remember myself reading this stuff over 35 yrs ago in various books and magazines. Why is this news today?

Re:old news..

[infinite.intimation]

Well, I have yet to read the articles linked... but like you say, this is not "news", this is a well established (though "controversial", in that it often seems to induce giggles from undergrads who say "hey, that's me, and ritual/feasting cultural events that help facilitate people who might not get along to celebrate X are important... but beer-lol").

So no, probably not "news" to those who were already aware of this. But I guess it is also "things that matter", so I am very much looking forward to what is *hopefully* a well crafted presentation of/collection of links and sources describing this theory of cultural origins.

It is another beautiful example of what Colin Renfrew might refer to as "at the edge of knowability" (with regards to the "origins" of PIE) - there are thousands of points of evidence, but the "truth" lies in that niche of "invisible elements of the human/social/internally lived past", which means we cannot point and say "here is the book that tells us how true the theory is regarding the absolute 'origin' of culture"... because obviously, the earliest examples of this were pre-writing cultures (the Egyptians did it, and it was definitely a "Civilization factor"... used to marshal loyalty, and labour, a "thing", a "gift" that workers would otherwise be completely unlikely to gain access to), but in the earliest cultures, we do not have the meticulous scribes and records of actions, tallies of labour and gratuities... and so the *Truth sits invisible, attested to by the contents of containers, and association with ritual sites, and sites of feasting, but, ultimately, we cannot (yet) say "here lies the Cup that Started Culture with the Beer that was inside of it, and it operated socially and culturally in This manner, and people Reacted Like This".

(Like, the summary talking about "shy" people... that might be projecting a modern social aspect on a situation in a manner that is undue).

So, anyway, not news, but hopefully a nice collection of and presentation of an argument regarding "stuff that matters".
Cheers.

Re:old news..

[DerekLyons]

Thirty five years ago, it was mostly conjecture with little evidence to support it and widely accepted because it "made sense". It's in the news today, because there's increasing amounts of evidence that it is in fact correct.

or beer is proof

[jsepeta]

that god hates us and wants us to get knocked out in a tavern brawl. because god is a dick.

Re:or beer is proof

[rubycodez]

no god hates geeks and has that divine plan for them only. Meanwhile, God wants others to get women drunk at the bar, to have their procreative ways with them.

I don't know about civilization....

[Ol Olsoc]

...But beer is a great way for ugly people to get laid.

Nowadays we have anti-alcohol culture

[Taco Cowboy]

While it might be the alcohol that had helped jump start the human society, in places around the world alcohol is being banned

If this anti-alcohol trend is to continue, we might even seen a reverse course of human civilization ... from individualistic behavior back to the herd-like behavior

Re:Nowadays we have anti-alcohol culture

[tqk]

While it might be the alcohol that had helped jump start the human society, in places around the world alcohol is being banned

Moonshiners will save us.

Re:Nowadays we have anti-alcohol culture

[Ghaoth]

It's too late already.

Re:Nowadays we have anti-alcohol culture

[Opportunist]

As if the Facebook generation needs beer bans to act like sheeple. Or, to paraphrase an old saying, individualism is great, at least as long as my peers do it, too.

Re:Nowadays we have anti-alcohol culture

[flyneye]

On a related side note. Cannabis is credited for mankinds introspection which led to social codes.
Consuming cannabis and beer got us here.

Re:Nowadays we have anti-alcohol culture

[TheRaven64]

Where is alcohol being banned (as opposed to excess consumption discouraged), outside of Sharia states?

Re:Nowadays we have anti-alcohol culture

[thomasw_lrd]

You must not pay attention to the United States voting scene, if you don't think we are still very much a herd society.

Re:Nowadays we have anti-alcohol culture

[CaptainLard]

Credited by who? Cypress Hill? The guy in the drum circle who always bogarts the bong? I hope your sig isn't an example of the introspection that got us here. (By here I mean the internet which is comprised of a mind boggling number of technical achievements). I kid, I kid...mainly because I've heard a fair number of potheads speak.

Re:Nowadays we have anti-alcohol culture

[Zaatxe]

Roads.

Re:Nowadays we have anti-alcohol culture

[Marxist Hacker 42]

GK Chesterton wrote an entire novel about that. He also wrote a very interesting Essay that got included in All Things Considered http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/gkc16028.htm

Re:Nowadays we have anti-alcohol culture

[flyneye]

http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/SEN/Committee/371/ille/library/Spicer-e.htm

Here's one that gives it a little background. Look down around; 3.Ancient Near East A. The Sumerians

The origins of my sig can be found at http://www.subgenius.com/

The idea that beer allowed nomads to cope,

[Vitriol Angst]

is a compelling theory.

However, the "modern" person has more to cope with, than just the loss of nomadic freedom.

Now we've got long forms, complex investments, licensing fees. Most of us aren't farming or doing the things that the herders turned farmers had to cope with.

So perhaps we now use ritalin and oxycontin to "cope" with the coping for our new, non-nomadic technical lifestyle.

I'm not sure however, so I'll tweet the idea to my friends and take another anti-depressant.

So we're all the product of drunks? Figures!

[Chas]

It explains a lot.

Honestly, having heard people extol the "virtues" of alcohol for decades now, I'm heartily sick of all the bullshit.

No one thing "gave" us civilization. Alcohol generation, consumption, and the ancillary skills required to do so are merely one of NUMEROUS building blocks.

Anyone telling you differently and yammering about how IMPORTANT alcohol/beer is, is merely trying to excuse all the idiocy that goes with alcohol consumption.

"What'd you do two nights ago?"

"Got drunk, wrecked a car and woke up with a fat girl."

"What'd you do the night after that?"

"Got drunk, wrecked another car and woke up with an ugly girl."

"What'd you do last night."

"Got drunk, wrecked YOUR car and woke up to the realization that both the previous night's companions had actually been guys..."

"Oh man! I didn't need to hear that!"

"But it's okay! Because beer gave us civilization man!"

"Man! God must LOVE us!"

No. All this proves is that some mental defective has killed too many brain cells.

Re:Advanced?

[dwye]

Mormons love humans, whereas AC thinks that they are wretched things no better than monkeys. AC is just a killjoy.

I consider any form of intoxication to be depraved

Seriously a killjoy. Probably against sex because it can lead to more humans even with the best birth control, as well.

I call BS

[codeButcher]

the painfully shy, their angst suddenly quelled, could now speak their minds.

As as "painfully shy" individual, I can tell you that by the time I have drunk enough to "quell my angst", I don't have much of a mind left to speak.

Also: Ballmer limit.

Drugs in General

[Internetuser1248]

This argument can be made for any form of mind altering substance. Beer was traditionally used as cheap fuel for slave labour so it is probably a stronger argument if you use psilocybin or marijuana.

The real value of beer

[HuguesT]

Beer helped civilization in the sense that its fermentation made water drinkable, as opposed to a microbe culture broth that would almost certainly kill you if you drank it. Other than that this summary sounds like nonsense.

eh beer doesn't contain lactose

[DABANSHEE]

WTF lactose intolerance among Asian has got to do with evidence that Asians weren't into beer drinking in neolithic times?

All Asian lactose intolerance seems to indicate is a big gap between past transhuman migration/herding & modern dairy products in their diet, without a long culture/history of settled dairy farming in between.

What this has to do with beer is beyond me.

socialization

[WakeelMurad6109]

well said.i really appreciate it..from willingways.org

Humans are Predators

[sesshomaru]

We should not talk about humans as a "herd." That would be like talking about a herd of wolves.

Animals need to Inbriate

[YaddaMinski]

This is b.s. An Italian doctor traveled for years documenting how all animals, not just mammals but birds and insects, try to alter their consciousness with "booze". He wrote a book titled "Animals and Psychedelics: The Natural World and the Instinct to Alter Consciousness".

Re:Uh - no

[cusco]

The Maoris were a culture, but not really what is considered a civilization.