Blog: Beer and History

It can be said that beer is as old as human society. We do not know exactly, but sites of beer and breweries have been found that are dated to 11,000 BC. The area this covers spans from modern Israel to Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Egypt.

Nomads learn to grow grasses and use them as the basis for bread and beer. With the invention of arable farming, nomadism comes to an end and urban civilization begins.

Mesopotamia

The invention of writing makes it much easier to describe the history of beer and its role within early civilizations. Archaeological finds of clay tablets with proto- cuneiform writing are numerous. The symbol for beer in Sumerian cuneiform writing is a pitcher with a pointed bottom. This has also given us a good idea of how beer was brewed.

 

The Sumerians first bake a type of bread called bappir, which they then crumble in water. They let the resulting porridge ferment. If necessary, they flavor the beer with spices, honey or dates and grapes. Because all kinds of bread crusts are still floating around in the beer, the first beer drinkers drink their beer with a straw, an invention of the Babylonians.

Egypt

Ancient Egyptians in the time of the pharaohs were also great lovers of beer. Beer is a staple of daily meals for all walks of life. It is also used as an offering to the gods. And to avoid getting thirsty after death, miniature breweries - made of wood and plaster - are also given in tombs.

Rome

Among the Romans, beer is no longer held in high regard. It is the drink of the barbaric Germanic and Celtic tribes living on the western and northern borders of the Roman Empire. The Roman writer Tacitus notes that Germanic tribes were so fond of the barley that it was easier to defeat them with drink than with weapons.

Middle Ages

In the early Middle Ages, brewing beer was a domestic activity reserved for women. In addition to baking and washing bread, they brewed a hearty pot of beer for the family. To earn a living, monastics (monks and nuns) also brewed various beers. In St. Gallen in Switzerland, a monastery brewery from 820 is partially preserved. In Charlemagne's time (around 800), larger breweries emerge to brew the quantities of beer needed for the court or for larger households. In addition to home brewing, so-called merchant brewing by craftsmen comes into use.

 

Hops were not widespread at that time and are known to give beer its familiar bitter taste. Brewers brew and flavor beer with a compound of a variety of grains and herbs called gruit. It brings the landlords a nice buck. Brewers, who are obliged to use gunpowder, must pay taxes to the lords, on whose land the gunpowder is harvested. This special tax - the gunpowder duty - is the forerunner of the excise tax as we still know it.

 

The medievalist is a thirsty type. With ease, each man, woman or child drinks 300 liters of beer per year. This is the lowest estimate; the highest runs as high as 1,000 liters of beer per person, per year. It is a myth that people drank beer because water would make you sick. This myth has its origins in the 18th and 19th centuries, when cities were growing rapidly at the time of the industrial revolution and people were living ever closer together. Epidemics of cholera and diphtheria, among others, broke out in the process, spread by contaminated water sources in those cities. In the Middle Ages, regular farmers and citizens have excellent access to suitable drinking water, derived from spring, slush, and rainwater. Canals in early cities are even flushed to provide them with clean water suitable for industries such as brewing. However, the reasons why the medievalist drank so much beer are quite simple. Alternatives such as coffee, tea and soft drinks do not yet exist or, like wine, have to be imported and are too expensive for the common people. In addition, beer has a social status. If one could only afford the (free) water, you were in the lowest class. Another important reason is that beer was part of the daily diet. People drank beer as early as breakfast. This then involved table beer or dun beer. As the day progressed, those who could afford it drank heavier and more nutritious beer. It is certainly not the case that all beer of this period was thin, weak, sour, dark, and smoky. Recent studies show that medieval brewers were able to brew beers close to what we now call a heavy blonde.

 

With the merchant brewery, the commercial brewery was also born. The number of breweries is steadily increasing. Cities with more than a hundred breweries are no exception. Famous brewing towns of the time are Amersfoort, Delft, Haarlem and Gouda. The brewers unite in guilds and are often the most powerful merchants in the city or region. It is even claimed that the victory over the Spaniards during the Eighty Years' War was financed largely with beer excise taxes.

 

In the numerous monasteries and abbeys, the art of beer brewing is increasingly refined. Probably there, too, the idea of replacing gunpowder in beer with hops arises. Beer with hops is tastier. Moreover, it spoils less quickly. The use of hops in beer probably dates from around 800 A.D., and makes its appearance in the Low Countries around 1300. Commercial brewers soon see the benefits of this. It becomes possible to export beer without loss of quality. The holders of gunpowder rights tried for a long time to stop this beer by means of all kinds of prohibitions. After all, without gunpowder no income! It was a futile struggle. Hop beer proved irresistible to consumers. City after city, the gunpowder right was converted into an excise tax on the quantity of beer brewed. From the fifteenth century onwards, almost only hop beer is brewed.

Modern times

The major and most important technological developments in brewing came only after about 1800. Knowledge of chemistry and biology developed steadily and became the basis of modern brewing. Around 1870, Frenchman Louis Pasteur is the first to discover the action of yeast. The book he writes about this is called "Etudes sur la bière" (Studies on beer). It is remarkable that a Frenchman does this pioneering work with beer instead of wine. Pasteur also discovers that if one heats the beer to 70-80 degrees Celsius before filling, various bacteria and the yeast die and therefore cannot damage the taste of the beer. This process is named after him: pasteurization.

 

Meanwhile, a new kind of beer was invented in Bohemia, a beer we now know as pils. To brew lager, it must ferment and lag at low temperatures. This could not be done effectively in our country until the chiller was invented around 1880. Until then, brewers must chop bars of ice from ditches, rivers and lakes in winter to keep the beer cool even in summer. But when Dutch brewers mastered the art of brewing pils, things moved quickly. Pils rapidly became the most widely consumed style of beer. So much so, that by the 1970s almost only pils was brewed in the Netherlands. Historical and regional beer styles practically disappear. Beer and lager have become synonymous.

 

In the mid-1980s, a countermovement begins. Different tasting beers from Belgium become popular and it does not take long before existing and new small breweries start brewing special beers in the Netherlands as well. Sometimes old recipes are revived, often a brewer invents a new recipe. Despite the popularity of lager, the Dutchman turns out to be less thirsty than their neighbors in Germany and Belgium. A low point is reached in the years just after World War II. In 1949, the Dutchman drank an average of no more than ten liters of beer per year. To turn the tide, the Centraal Brouwerij Kantoor (now Nederlandse Brouwers) launched an advertising campaign in the 1950s with the slogan, "Beer is best again." The campaign was successful. In the mid-1960s, beer consumption rises to 40 liters. The early 1990s shows a provisional high of 90 liters. We now drink an average of between 65-70 liters of beer per Dutchman per year.

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