The first alcoholic beverage was either wine or beer. Although wine apparently originated in Babylonia, it seems that beer or “wine made from barley” was also known at the same period, as early as 6000 to 5000 BC.
One early method was replaced barley in a pottery vessel and then bury it in the ground until it began to germinate.
Then it was milled, made into dough and baked. The cake could then be taken as a lightweight item on travels and when stopping at an oasis for water it would be soaked until fermentation began.
The very acid tasting beer was known in the 20th century AD as “boozah,” apparently the origin of the English word with a similar meaning.
Records of beer being served have been found in Babylonia as early as 2225 BC and both the Egyptians and the Babylonians used beer as a medicine.
The Greeks imported the concept of barley beverages from Egypt.
Since few physical remains or artifacts survive from the beer making process, very little is known the diffusion of beermaking. Scattered literary references help document the fact that beer of different varieties was widespread throughout the ancient world, including frontier regions and among peoples generally regarded as beyond the fringes of civilization.
By the end of the classical period, in the fourth century AD beer was known throughout northern Europe. Varieties included mead, which involved a fermented mixture of honey and water in Britain.
Another type was metheglin, mead with herbs added to it. A dark beer, similar to modern porter, was in use in Britain even before the Roman invasion, and in the 1st century AD the Irish had developed a local beverage similar to ale.
History of Beer
