A Little History
The first fermented beverage on record, known as kui, was brewed in China c. 7000 BCE. This concoction, however, was created using rice water. For this reason, most historians do not recognize the invention of beer until c. 4000 BCE in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iran), when the Sumerians created the first beverage using the brewing process we recognize today. Sumer is known as the first modern civilization, and the people loved beer so much, it was a daily dietary staple!
For much of history, beer was brewed primarily by women. In Sumer, beer was originally brewed by the priestesses of Ninkasi. Brewing then became part of meal preparation for the common woman. And the Sumerian women were not alone; as the practice of brewing spread across borders and empires, women continued to be the main brew masters in places like Egypt and the Celtic lands of Northern Europe.
During the Medieval period, monks mastered the art of brewing what they called “liquid bread” using a scientifically sequenced process. The beverage was created with an eye towards nutrition; the monks needed some sort of nutritious and good tasting beverage that they could drink during periods of fasting.
Though today’s accepted process of brewing was created in Mesopotamia, the art was perfected by the Germans. Between 800 BCE and 1516 CE, the Germans slowly refined the brewing process, eventually instituting the Reinheitsgebot (purity law), which limited the accepted ingredients for beer to water, barley, hops and, later, yeast.
