A Brief History of Beer – Part 1 4300 BC C. – 1502 d. C.
4300 BC C.
Babylonian clay tablets detail beer recipes.
3,000 BC
Beer made in China called “Kui”.
3,000 BEFORE CHRIST
The imperial Egypt of the pharaohs: beer was already an important food in the daily diet and was made with lightly baked barley bread. Beer was also used as a sacrament.
2100 BC C.
Hammuabi, the sixth king of Babylon, specified provisions regulating the business of innkeepers in his great legal code covering the sale of beer. These laws were designed to protect the public. If an innkeeper gave them a small measure, their punishment was to drown.
2000BC
Mesopotamia – A 4,000-year-old clay tablet suggests that brewing was a highly regarded profession, as the maltsters were women.
2000 BC
Fragments of drinking glasses found on the Isle of Skye in the Scottish Highlands suggest that the drinks were made from heather flowers.
2000 BC
An Assyrian tablet suggests that beer was one of the first provisions Noah brought to the ark.
1800 BC C.
A hymn to Ninkasi, the Sumarian goddess of brewing, it is a song of praise and also the oldest recorded beer recipe.
1600 BC
A medical document lists around 700 prescriptions, 100 of which contained the word “beer.”
1550-1100 BC C.
Archaeological excavations have found the presence of utensils for making beer in the kitchen of the temple of Queen Nefertiti in Tel el-Armana.
1200 BC
Pharaoh Ramses II made an annual offering of 30,000 gallons of beer to the gods.
1000 BC
3,000-year-old beer mugs were unearthed in Israel in the 1960s.
The residue from a Norse ceremonial drinking bucket gives evidence that the Danes were making beer from wheat, berries, and swamp myrtle.
450 a. C.
The famous Greek writer Sophocles emphasized moderation and recommended a diet of “bread, meat, vegetables, and zythos (beer).”
55 a. C.
The Roman legions introduced beer to Northern Europe.
49 a. C.
Julius Caesar, after the fateful crossing of the Rubicón River in 49 BC. C., toasted with beer by his officers. This was the beginning of the Roman Civil War.
438-441 AD
Senchus Mor, the ancient law book of Ireland states that Saint Patrick had in his house a brewer, a priest named Mescan.
540 AD
St Mungo, the patron saint of Scotland’s oldest city, Glasgow, established a religious brotherhood and one of the brothers began brewing beer to supply the others.
580 AD
Arnold, who was ordained bishop of Metz, France in AD 612, was the patron saint of brewing.
616 AD
During the reign of King Ethelbert of Kent, beer was made with spices instead of hops. This ale called Gruit was the drink of choice for 500 years in England.
742-814 AD
The Christian emperor and ruler Charlemagne, who thought that beer was an important element of moderate life, trained the kingdom’s brewmasters himself.
AD 822
Hops began to be cultivated in England.
1000 AD
Hops began to be used in the brewing processes.
1040 AD
‘Weihenstephan’, a Benedictine monastery in Germany, was the first known brewery.
12th century
Hofbraus in Freising, Germany, was originally the bishop’s domestic brewery.
1158 AD
When Saint Thomas A’Becket went to France in 1158 to seek the hand of a French princess for Prince Henry of England, he took several barrels of British beer as a gift.
AD1200
Brewing is firmly established as a trading company in Germany, Austria and England.
AD1251-1295
Duke Jan Primus of Belgium was hailed as the ‘king of beer’ and could drink 144 cups during a single feast. He also passed a law prohibiting the adulteration of beer.
1260 AD
Duke Luis de Baviera maintained his own brewery.
1295 AD
King Wenceslas grants Pilsen of Bohemia the brewing rights. (formerly Czechoslovakia, now Slovakia and Czech Republic).
1300 AD (late)
London had 2,000 pubs to serve its 35,000 citizens.
1367-1404 AD
William of Wykeham founded a Bread and Beer Pilgrim.
1400 AD
The original ‘lager’ beer was made in Germany by storing beer in caves in the foothills of the Alps, promoting slow and clean fermentation.
15th century
Dutch beer begins to be imported to England.
Before the 15th century, beer was always known as ale and was made from malted barley (or other grains) and water.
In the 15th century, beer was introduced from Flanders in Belgium using hops to bitter and preserve.
By the end of the century, beer had almost replaced the old English sweet ale and was being exported to Europe.
AD 1489
Germany’s first brewing guild, ‘Brauerei Beck’, was established.
AD1490
Columbus found the Indians making beer with corn and black birch sap.
16th century AD
Flemish hop farmers migrate to Kent in England bringing their hop farming skills and its uses in brewing.
The Dean of St Pauls is credited with inventing bottled beer.
Beer first arrived in the United States on Christopher Columbus’s ships.
1502 AD
· Columbus discovered that the natives of Central America made beer with “corn, similar to English beer.”
The Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock, rather than further south as planned, in part because they had run out of beer.