Six drinks that changed the world
Posted on 12. Oct, 2005 by Cassandra in Uncategorized
Mmmm…beer is yum….but when you’re at Forries and chugging down pint after pint, do you ever think of the historical significance of your favourite brew?
The ancient Sumerians, who built advanced city-states in the area of
present-day Iraq, began fermenting beer from barley at least 6,000
years ago.
"When people started agriculture the first crops they produced
were barley or wheat. You consume those crops as bread and as beer,"
Standage noted. "It’s the drink associated with the dawn of
civilization. It’s as simple as that."
Beer was popular with the masses from the beginning.
"Beer would have been something that a common person could have
had in the house and made whenever they wanted," said Linda Bisson, a
microbiologist at the Department of Viticulture and Enology at the
University of California, Davis.
Not much has changed really. [Via The Republica]
