The history of beer
Beer is one of humanity’s oldest drinks. Find out how it developed over thousands of years and how it is brewed and enjoyed in different countries.
Origins and early history
Beer is probably as old as farming. Wherever people grew grain, they noticed that a porridge of grain and water starts to ferment by itself. Some researchers even suspect that the desire for beer sped up the cultivation of grain.
In Mesopotamia and Egypt beer was part of everyday life. It was nourishing and only mildly alcoholic. It was brewed from malt and half-baked loaves, often with dates or honey, and drunk through long straws from large jars.
In Europe the Celts and Germanic tribes brewed beer, while the Greeks and Romans preferred wine and saw beer as a drink of barbarians. In the Middle Ages beer became a staple for all classes.
Monasteries and the Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages monasteries became centres of brewing. The monks brewed for themselves, for guests and pilgrims, wrote down their knowledge and improved the methods. The 9th-century Plan of Saint Gall shows no fewer than three brewhouses.
During Lent, liquid food was allowed. So the monks brewed particularly strong Lenten beers – the doppelbock of the Paulaner monks in Munich goes back to this tradition.
In the towns, brewers’ guilds formed. Hanseatic towns such as Hamburg, Bremen and Einbeck shipped beer across the Baltic, because hops made it keep long enough for long journeys. Weihenstephan near Freising traces itself back to 1040 and is considered the oldest brewery still operating in the world.
Purity law and brewing rules
In the past all sorts of things went into beer: herbs and spices, but also poisonous plants such as henbane. Towns and rulers therefore issued rules. The best known is the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot of 1516: beer could only consist of barley, hops and water. Yeast was still unknown at the time.
The law was meant to ensure quality, but it also kept wheat and rye for bread. There were exceptions all the same: for a long time only a few noble families, and later only the Bavarian dukes themselves, were allowed to brew wheat beer.
In Germany the principles of the purity law still apply today, and 23 April is celebrated as the Day of German Beer. Switzerland has no purity law: breweries may use other ingredients too, but must declare them.
Science and industrialisation
In the 19th century brewing became a science. Steam engines, thermometers and saccharometers made the work predictable, and the railways took beer to distant cities.
Carl von Linde’s refrigeration machine (1873) made it possible to brew lager all year round. Louis Pasteur showed in 1876 that microorganisms spoil beer, and Emil Christian Hansen isolated the first pure yeast culture at Carlsberg in 1883. In the same laboratory Søren Sørensen developed the pH scale in 1909 – the same scale we use to measure mash pH today.
Golden, clear Pilsner from Bohemia conquered the world, partly because glasses became affordable and people could now see the colour of their beer. Large breweries grew fast and pushed out many small ones.
The 20th century and craft beer
Two world wars, Prohibition in the USA (1920–1933) and many mergers sharply reduced the number of breweries. In many countries a few corporations dominated the market with pale, mildly hopped lagers. By the late 1970s the USA had fewer than a hundred breweries.
In response, the craft beer movement emerged from the 1970s. In England CAMRA fought for traditional cask beer, and in the USA homebrewing was legalised in 1978. Homebrewers founded small breweries and revived old styles such as pale ale, porter and IPA.
Today there is huge variety again. In Switzerland the number of registered breweries rose from 81 in 2000 to over 1,000, many of them small home and hobby breweries.
Beer festivals and drinking culture
Munich’s Oktoberfest began in 1810 with a horse race for the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig. Today it is considered the largest folk festival in the world; beer is served in the Mass, a 1-litre mug (about 34 fl oz).
The beer garden comes from Bavaria: breweries stored their beer in cellars under shady chestnut trees and were allowed to serve it right there from 1812. Since they could not sell food, guests brought their own – traditional beer gardens still allow this today.
The German toast “Prost” comes from the Latin “prosit”: may it do you good. In England people meet at the pub, in Belgium almost every beer has its own glass, and in Switzerland you order a “Stange”, a slim three-decilitre glass (about 10 fl oz).
Timeline
- about 13,000 years ago
In Raqefet Cave in present-day Israel, researchers found the oldest known traces of a beer-like drink made from grain.
- from 4000 BC
In Mesopotamia the Sumerians brew beer regularly. Clay tablets record beer rations as part of workers’ pay.
- around 2500 BC
In ancient Egypt beer is a staple food. The workers who built the pyramids receive bread and beer as pay.
- around 1800 BC
The “Hymn to Ninkasi” praises the Sumerian goddess of beer and describes how beer is brewed – one of the oldest surviving beer recipes.
- around 1750 BC
The Code of Hammurabi in Babylon regulates the sale of beer. Cheating with beer is punished severely.
- AD 98
The Roman historian Tacitus describes the Germanic tribes’ drink made from barley or wheat in his “Germania”.
- around 820
The Plan of Saint Gall shows no fewer than three brewhouses: for the monks, for distinguished guests and for pilgrims and the poor.
- 12th century
Abbess Hildegard of Bingen writes that hops make drinks keep longer. Gradually hops replace gruit, a herb mixture used for flavouring.
- 1516
On 23 April the Bavarian dukes issue the Reinheitsgebot (purity law) in Ingolstadt: beer may only be brewed from barley, hops and water.
- 1553
Bavaria bans brewing in summer. Beer may only be brewed between late September and late April – the cool fermentation favours bottom-fermenting yeast.
- 1810
The first Oktoberfest takes place in Munich to celebrate the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese, back then with a horse race.
- 1842
In Pilsen the Bavarian brewer Josef Groll brews the first Pilsner – a golden, clear lager that conquers the world.
- 1873
Carl von Linde’s refrigeration machine starts working at the Spaten brewery in Munich. Lager can now be brewed all year round.
- 1876
Louis Pasteur publishes his “Études sur la bière” and shows that microorganisms spoil beer.
- 1883
Emil Christian Hansen isolates the first pure lager yeast culture at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen. Carlsberg shares it with breweries all over the world.
- 1892
William Painter invents the crown cap in the USA.
- 1920–1933
Prohibition in the USA: alcohol is banned and hundreds of breweries close for good.
- 1935
The first canned beer goes on sale in the USA. In the same year the Swiss beer cartel begins, fixing prices and sales areas until the early 1990s.
- 1971
In England beer lovers found the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) to save traditional cask beer.
- 1978
US President Jimmy Carter signs the law that legalises homebrewing. Many of the first craft brewers were homebrewers.
- 2016
UNESCO adds Belgian beer culture to the list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
- today
Craft beer has brought back variety: Switzerland has over 1,000 registered breweries, the USA more than 9,000.
Fun facts about beer
- The oldest known evidence of a beer-like drink is around 13,000 years old: residues in the Raqefet Cave in what is now Israel.
- The Sumerians drank their beer through long straws from large jars – that way the husks and grains floating on top stayed in the jar.
- The Code of Hammurabi from Babylon says that a tavern keeper who cheats her customers over beer shall be thrown into the water.
- In 1989 the Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco brewed a beer following the Sumerian “Hymn to Ninkasi” – a recipe almost 4,000 years old.
- In ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia beer was a form of payment: workers received part of their wages in beer.
- For thousands of years brewing was mainly women’s work – in Mesopotamia as well as among the Germanic tribes and in medieval England.
- The Vikings liked to drink beer and mead from drinking horns. They did not, however, wear horns on their helmets – that is a 19th-century invention.
- The idea that people in the Middle Ages drank only beer because all water was contaminated is a myth. But beer was nourishing and part of almost every meal.
- Weihenstephan near Freising traces itself back to 1040 and is considered the oldest brewery still in operation in the world.
- Gambrinus, the legendary king of beer, probably goes back to Duke John I of Brabant, who lived in the 13th century.
- The scientific name of brewer’s yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, means “sugar fungus of beer”.
- Hops are related to hemp: both belong to the cannabis family.
- People used to stuff pillows with hops, because they are said to calm you and help you fall asleep.
- Until the 17th century almost all beers were dark and smoky, because the malt was dried over an open fire. Only kilns heated with coke made pale malt possible.
- Brown bottles protect beer from light better than green or clear ones. Light can give beer an unpleasant “skunky” taste.
- Despite its name, barley wine is not wine but a very strong beer.
- The world’s strongest beers have over 60% alcohol. Like Eisbock, they are concentrated by freezing out part of the water.
- In 2010 divers found bottles of beer in an 1840s shipwreck off the Åland Islands. Researchers analysed it in the lab – it is one of the oldest surviving beers.
- In 2009 Sapporo released a beer made from barley whose ancestors had grown on the International Space Station – “Space Barley”.
- Someone who loves beer and knows a lot about it is called a “zythophile” – from the Greek word “zythos” for beer.
- In Germany and Scandinavia people look each other in the eye when they clink glasses. According to folk wisdom, anyone who doesn’t faces seven years of bad luck.
- Today there are Oktoberfests on every inhabited continent – from Blumenau in Brazil to Windhoek in Namibia and Goa in India.
Beer history by country
Europe
- Austria
- Belgium
- Czechia
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Italy
- Lithuania
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom