Beer has always played an important part in human society.
Beyond the obvious social implications of the affects of alcohol,
the cereal-based beverage was a crucial part of the diets
of our ancestors. Beer's nutritional benefits aside, its position
as a relatively safe drink during times when the quality of
drinking water and/or milk were questionable, ensured its
development into one of the world's most popular beverages.
For hundreds of years, beer was a part of everyday life; it
graced lunch and dinner tables, was present at celebrations
and fostered community growth and spirit — not to mention
innovation both in brewing techniques and taste applications.
The fundamental ingredients of beer have remained essentially
unchanged for thousands of years. Ancient societies in China,
Egypt, Africa, India and Mexico developed grain-based alcohol
before the first mention of beer by the Sumerians over 5,000
years ago. The Sumerians, who discuss over 20
different varieties of beer in surviving stone tablets, honoured
their gods, fed the sick and paid workers with a type of beer
called 'sikaru.' Beer had healing qualities to the Sumerians,
as well as spiritual and monetary ones. Their process was
simple enough: cereal seeds were ground into flour and then
baked into cakes, which were soaked in water and allowed to
ferment. The beverage was drunk through reeds to avoid debris.
Greek historians like Herodotus wrote that beer was an inferior
drink to wine, despite its popularity in 'barbarian' states.
Unfortunately, many countries in Europe were unable to grow
grapes, hence the need to become more inventive with their
production of alcohol, and the development of cereal-based
beers. Beer was a popular drink in Egypt, where it was called
heget, or zythum. In fact, the Egyptians were the ones to
perfect the malting process. One of the other
places around the globe experimenting with their own grain-based
alcohol products was Germany, as Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79)
discussed in his Historia Naturalis .
In Germany during the 5th century, beer was mainly produced
at home. Outside of the home, beer was made in monasteries.
The beer the monks brewed was a thick, heavy beverage that
could spoil easily. The production of beer was important to
the monk's society for many reasons, the foremost of course
was for their own use, but they also sold their beer to pilgrims
and other travelers. Bavarian monks were responsible for many
of the innovations present in beer brewing to this date.
Because beer would spoil quickly, German monks tested many different
methods over the years to counteract nature's will. For the most
part, spices were added to the recipe in a mixture called 'gruit.'
Some of the additions included rosemary, bogmyrtle, yarrow and other
spices. It wasn't until hops were added in the 12th century that
beer began to take on its modern attributes. Although the bitter
taste may have insulted some purists, the addition of hops increased
the shelf life of the brew. By the end of the 1300s, hops had completely
replaced gruit within the production of German beer.
Another primary problem with beer production was the weather. In
the hot summer months, the beer would spoil quickly, the heat encouraging
out of control fermentation leading to bacterial growth that would
spoil the batch. By the mid-1500s, Bavarian monks began to make
beer in cool cellars, and they found that the yeast would drop to
the bottom of the beer leading to a lighter, less-dense product
they called 'lager.'
By the mid-9th century, alehouses had become popular in England.
Yet, beer was still made by women in the household as a part of
the daily routine of making bread. In fact, alehouses developed
as a result of beer being shared throughout a community by the most
talented brewers. Ale was the standard in Britain at the time, and
hops were not introduced onto the island until the early 1500s.
Many early pamphleteers felt that the German-style lagers with their
hops were not true ales and warned against the "foreign"
beverages. In 1484, a law was actually passed banning the addition
of hops to British ale, but by 1574, when Reginald Scott published
his tract, A Perfite Platforme for a Hoppe Garden, which
professed the advantages of the addition to brewing techniques,
the tides had begun to turn. Before the 18th century, ale denoted
a local brew and 'beer' referred to an imported recipe or a foreign
beverage; in the decades that followed, the two words came to have
interchangeable definitions.
Like so many other aspects of society, the Industrial Revolution
had a huge impact upon beer manufacturing. Steam engines now powered
many different aspects of the process and, among other things, made
it easier to ship the barrels from manufacturer to merchant. Other
inventions that first came into use in the mid-1700s are thermometers,
hydrometers and mechanical mashing rakes. This time
period saw many of Britain's most established breweries begin business,
including William Younger in Edinburgh and William Bass in Burton;
and in 1759, Ireland's Arthur Guinness started his company.
In Canada, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia, in the
beginning "beer making was a cottage industry," and the
first commercial brewery was built in Quebec City in 1668 by Jean
Talon, New France's Indendant at the time.1 Over the
next 200 years, Canada's major brewing families, the Molsons, the
Labatts and the Carlings, would begin their companies, creating
legacies that live to this day.