Brewing History
Brewing, in one form or anther has been around at least as long as humans have been cultivating cereal corps (eight thousand years) and may be even older. We certiainly know that the Egyptians brewed a form of beer that they drank with a straw.
To the Celts brewing (especially of Mead) was an important part of their culture and they had at least five gods in their pantheon dedicated to mead and drunkenness. It seems that the Celts have been fermenting mead for at least four thousand years and they even used it to engender courage before going to battle (which is why several of their warrior gods, like Medocius and Dyfed contain the words 'mead' or 'drunkenness' in their names).
However, the discovery of the plant's appetite-suppressing qualities was discovered by the San people of southern Africa who have traditonally used the plant as an appetite suppressant and thirst quencher. They cut stems which are about the size of a cucumber and nibble on it for a few hours. It is particularly used when travelling long distance as it allows the tribesmen to movie without the need for a meal break.
The Importance of Beer
For those with European ancestry, beer has actully been an important factor in your being here reading this today. Don't believe me? Well, read on...
For much of our history water and water-sources have not been the clean, healthy, product that we take for granted today. Most water was polluted or infected in some way and it needed some form of treatment to render it safe. In the orient, creating a herbal infusion that we call 'tea' was invented to overcome the problem. As water is boiled for making tea, this renders it safe for consumption. Europeans came up with a totally different mechanism for rendering their drinking water safe. They turned it into beer.
Water is also boiled in the making of beer, as boiled water is added to the raw ingredients (whether honey, flowers, wheat or barley) to isolate the sugars. This sugared water is then allowed to cool before the yeast is added and fermentation begins. Not only does the initial boiling sterilize the water, but the yeast takes most of the oxygen out of it and start pumping-out carbon dioxide as they convert sugars to alchohol, which helps sterilize. Then when alcohol production begins the alcohol itself sterilizes the resulting beer and renders it safe for drinking.
In Medieval and Elizabethan times there were three classes or grades of beer: Goode Beer (10% alcohol), Beer (5–6% alcohol, which is what we normally buy today) and smalle beer (3% alcohol which was the serfs and children would drink). At the time beer consumption was quite prostigious, with most men drinking six or seven litres of beer a day.
Interestingly, this difference between the tolerance for alchohol of those with European as compared with those of Asian descent may be tracet to how the two societies rendered water safe during the early Middle Ages.
Home Brewing
During 1990s the art of brewing was re-discovered and many micor-breweries and on-site breweries began to spring up both in the US and in Europe. The diversity of beer, beyond what was avialable from the big brewers started to become apparent again.
This increase in the range of beers available conincided with a boom in the home-brew market as people began to realize how easy it was to create all manner of different beers with different flavours in their own homes, with relatively simple ingredients. A whole range of home brewing kits are now available to make just about any kind of beer imaginable, from meads through to dark ales and with a little knowlege and imagination you can take one of the basic kits, add a few ingredients and turn out a beer that's not only good to drink but which is highly individual as well.
