14 things you didn't know about the history of beer

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Beer has a long and fascinating history. Douglas Miller/Keystone/Getty Images

You probably don't think about it every time you crack open a cold one, but beer is one of the oldest bedrocks of human civilization, brewed all over the world for longer than recorded history. On National Beer Day this Sunday, we celebrate this age-old beverage. 

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From the Agricultural Revolution to the American Revolution, beer has been around to quench the thirsts of virtually all classes of all societies. Here are some facts you may not have known about the history of beer.

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Beer dates back to ancient Mesopotamia, and held an important dietary role.

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Beer was thought to be safer to drink than water. Flickr/k.ivoutin

Archaeologists have dated the practice of beer brewing as far back as 3500 to 3100 BCE, in what is today Iran.

It's believed to have been safer to drink than water, because harmful microorganisms were boiled out, and it contained nutrients absent from other drinks, according to the Ancient History Encyclopedia.

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The straw was invented by the Sumerians for drinking beer.

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Straws used to be used for beer. Horia Varlan/Flickr

As sophisticated as ancient brewing practices were, there was still a chance for sediment to end up in a drinker's pint, so Sumerians, Babylonians, and Egyptians were known to drink beer with straws made of reeds or gold, depending upon one's social class, according to Mercury News.

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Beer has existed in China for about 5,000 years.

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A type of grain called "Job's tears" was most likely used. GettyImages

Archaeological chemists have recently found evidence for an early brewing technique in China during the late Yangshao period, using broomcorn millet, barley, Job's tears (a kind of grain), and tubers. The scientists behind these findings suggest that barley may have introduced to central China for the purpose of beer-making.



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Some experts on the history of beer credit the drink with the rise of civilization.

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Beer may have played a large part in the development of civilization​. Roberto Pfeil/Shutterstock

Scientific American quoted Charlie Bamforth, Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Brewing Science at the University of California, Davis, as saying, "Beer is the basis of modern static civilization," explaining that the discovery of bread and beer enticed early nomadic humans to settle, eventually (if indirectly) leading to the development of whole societies. This opinion has been echoed by others as well.

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Yeast has always been an integral part of brewing – but humans didn't know how it worked until the 19th century.

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Yeast is essential to brewing beer. Dave Martin/File/AP

Fermentation happens when yeast metabolizes sugar (like that in barley) and turns it into alcohol and carbonation. The microorganisms are prevalent in nature, and so were a part of beer- and wine-making long before anyone knew they existed.

Yeast was first discovered in the early 1800s, and its role in fermentation was discovered by Louis Pasteur in the mid-1800s, according to Nature Education.

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Monks played an important role in modernizing the brewing process, including the addition of hops.

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The Weihenstephan brewery has monastic origins. Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan/Facebook

Monks in the sixth century C.E. and beyond made advances in brewing. Under the directive of St. Benedict, monks were to sustain themselves by their own handiwork, and many monasteries north of the Alps – particularly in Bavaria and Bohemia – were well-suited, climatologically, to undertake beer brewing, according to Beer Hunter.

Breweries still in operation today, like Weihenstephan and Paulaner, come from monastic origins. Because the church was a major site of study at this point in history, monks were able to experiment with and thus refine the process, even discovering the benefits of hops as a preservative, reported the Loyola Press.

The cold climates of modern-day Germany and the Czech Republic gave the Western world lagers.

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Lagers are rather new compared to ales. Syda Productions/Shutterstock

Up until the middle ages, all brews known to history were ales. "Lager" means "to store" in German, and when German brewers began storing their beers in the icy caves of the Alps, they accidentally began culturing bottom-fermenting yeasts (rather than top-fermenting yeasts, which are more susceptible to damage from hot weather). Thus, according to Beer Hunter, the lager style of beer was born.

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But the ancestor of lagers seem to have existed in South America first.

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Evidence has traced a particular strain of yeast to Patagonia. dsaprin/Shutterstock

Recent findings have traced that cold, bottom-fermenting strain of yeast to Patagonia, where, according to Smithsonian magazine, evidence suggests that people were using it to brew alcoholic beverages 200 or more years before the first Bavarian lagers. The details are still unclear, but researchers think the yeast may have traveled across the ocean on wood (like ship timbers) or animals.

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A 500-year-old law shaped the course of beer history in Germany and beyond.

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Germany is known for good beer. Jack Harris/AP

In the year 1516, Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria enacted the Reinheitsgebot, also known as "German beer purity law," which stated that the only ingredients that could be used in beer were hops, barley, and water (later revised to include yeast).

The law was part consumer protection, as it prevented brewers from using cheap fillers, and part economic in nature, preventing wheat from being used for beer rather than bread. Although the law is no longer in effect in its strictest form as of 1987, many breweries in Germany and beyond still uphold its standards, boasting the purity and quality it guarantees.

But some argue that it has stifled beer innovation in Germany, preventing brewers from experimenting with other ingredients until recently.

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The Guinness brewery at St. James' Gate in Dublin was leased for a period of 9,000 years.

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The Guinness factory is still in Dublin. bjaglin/flickr

In 1759, Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease for the space that would be, and still remains, the Guinness hub. The lease is no longer in effect, as the brewing company now owns the land outright.

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The hop farming community of Boonville, California, developed its own folk language in the late 1800s.

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Boonville's residents had their own jargon. Clinton Steeds/FLickr

Boonville, in the Anderson Valley, was an isolated community in Northern California known primarily for logging and hop farming.

According to The Paris Review, residents came up with their own jargon called "Boontling," spoken in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The language has all but died out since, but local organizations and businesses work to preserve the heritage – including the Anderson Valley Brewing Company, whose slogan is Bahl Hornin' – Boontling for "good drinking."

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George Washington was an enthusiastic home brewer.

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George Washington is said to have a recipe for beer. Wikimedia Commons

The Digital Public Library of America houses a notebook the president-to-be kept in 1757, during the French and Indian War, which included a recipe for "small beer," a low-alcohol and low-quality beer commonly made by soldiers. Later on, his estate at Mount Vernon became a prolific brewery as well.

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