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A fine beer may be judged with only one sip, but it's better to be thoroughly sure.
—Czech proverb
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Brewing has been part of human history for over six thousand years. It is thought that the Sumerians discovered the fermentation process by chance, perhaps when bread became wet. The earliest account of brewing pictures wheat or barley bread baked, crumbled into liquid, and fermented—a process involving natural yeasts—into a tasty drink.
Beer (sometimes called "liquid bread") has been an important foodstuff in many cultures, especially in places where the water was impure. People of all ages drank it throughout the day, and workers were often paid with jugs of beer. Some beers played an important part in worship, where they was considered to be the source of inspiration from the gods, and were ceremonially prepared and ritually drunk by priests, such as the Druids who celebrated the Celtic Feast of Brewing. Laws were frequently made to regulate the consumption of beer. For example, the Puritans were allowed to drink only two quarts of beer for breakfast.
Hops were not added to beer until the seventeenth century. Instead, other herbs provided a more subtle, complex flavor: bog myrtle, yarrow, rosemary, juniper berries, ginger, caraway seed, anise seed, nutmeg, cinnamon, wormwood, sage, broom. And rather than barley or malt, some herbs—such as ginger, nettles, St. John's wort, and dandelions—were the primary ingredient of some delicious beers. Ginger beer was a much-loved nineteenth-century drink, in both England and America.
Miss Beecher's Famous Ginger Beer (1857)
3 pints yeast
½ pound honey
1 egg white
½ ounce lemon essence [lemon zest]
10 pounds sugar
9 gallons water
9 ounces lemon juice
11 ounces gingerroot
Boil the ginger half an hour in a gallon of water, then add the rest of the water and the other ingredients, and strain it when cold, add the white of one egg beaten, and half an ounce essence of lemon. Let it stand four days then bottle it, and it will keep good many months.
—Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt-Book
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Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.
—Dave Barry
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Read more about herbal beers:
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