The History of Beer - A Map-Based Summary

We begin around 15,000 years ago. Humans are not yet sedentary and live from hunting and gathering. Among the plants they consume are cereals, but as the grains are too hard to be eaten raw, they likely had the idea to soak them for several days in water, sometimes heated, to soften them and make a kind of porridge. During that time, wild yeasts naturally present in the air begin to ferment the mixture, turning the sugars of the cereals into alcohol and carbon dioxide, thus making the preparation slightly fizzy and alcoholic. This accidental discovery happens in various places around the world, depending on local cereals like barley, wheat, or millet, for example. The oldest known trace of such a drink dates back 13,000 years, to a cave in what is now Israel, where it was likely consumed during funeral rites. Over time, the process of making this ancestor of beer improves, and might even be one of the reasons early humans settled near rivers, to facilitate the irrigation of their cereal crops. Beer is mentioned as early as the first written records. In Mesopotamia, it is called chikaru, which means liquid bread. The goddess Ninkasi is dedicated to it, and brewing is reserved for women. They first prepare a barley bread, which they crumble into heated water to speed up fermentation. Once ready, the chikaru is flavored with honey, dates, or spices, and served in a container with a straw, so as to avoid swallowing bread residue. In Egypt, beer, sometimes called hekat, is a central element of society. It is consumed daily by all social classes, and even serves as wages for workers building the pyramids. As a result, massive breweries are established early on to produce large quantities of hekat, which is delivered in jars. In China and India, since ancient times, fermented beverages made from rice or millet are prepared along the Yellow, Indus, and Ganges rivers. In China, however, the joe is gradually replaced by a stronger rice wine. In sub-Saharan Africa, beer is made from millet and sorghum, while in the Americas it is made from maize, which is chewed beforehand to start the fermentation process. Thus, beer is produced and consumed very early, all over the world, in various forms. But in the Mediterranean, the Greeks and then the Romans prefer wine, considering beer, which they call carousia in Latin, as a barbarian drink. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Catholic Church preserves Latin tradition and favors wine, the symbol of Christ's blood. It is only in the 9th century that Charlemagne encourages beer production in northern European monasteries, notably to welcome pilgrims. Monks, being experts in agriculture and fermentation, improve old recipes and develop different beers with varied flavors and alcohol levels. They mainly grow barley, germinate it in water, then dry it over wood fires. This creates malted barley, which is fermented in heated water to make beer. The monks add a mix of spices and herbs, called grut, to flavor and preserve the drink. This blend is kept secret to keep control of beer production within the monasteries. But in the 12th century, in the Holy Roman Empire, Abbes Hildegard of Bingen publishes a botanical treatise in which she describes the antiseptic properties of hops. The plant then gradually replaces grut, and beer leaves the monasteries to be brewed in independent breweries. In Hamburg, hundreds of breweries open and specialize in producing hopped beer. Taking advantage of their central location in the Hanseatic League, brewers export this well-preserved beer throughout northern Europe. In France and England, the word beer is then used to refer to this new German hopped beverage, distinguishing it from traditional non-hopped beer, still called servoise in France and ale in England. At the same time, near Munich, brewers use the Alps to store their beer in caves where the temperature is cool and stable. Over time, they select yeasts that best withstand this environment and thus produce a more stable beer with a better shelf life. This bottom-fermented beer is called Lager, meaning to store in German. In 1516, Bavaria enacts a law prohibiting any ingredients other than spring water, barley, and hops for brewing. While it ensures the quality and purity of beer, it also ends traditional recipes and, notably, the use of Groot. Until that time, malt is mainly dried over wood fires, which gives beer a dark color and smoky taste. In England, brewers have the idea to use coke-fired kilns with no direct flame to produce a paler malt, with which they brew an amber-colored beer with no smoky flavor. This higher-quality beer is called Pale Ale and competes with traditional ales that are still brewed directly in pubs. At the same time, other breweries adopt hops to produce, on a larger scale, a darker beer with a strong flavor. This cheap beer quickly spreads throughout the country and is especially consumed by porters, hence the name porter. In Ireland, a man named Arthur Guinness is inspired by this beer and launches his own brewery. Over time, he develops a stronger beer called Stout Porter, using roasted malt that gives it a very dark color and intense taste. Guinness rapidly becomes successful and is exported throughout the British Empire. Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution and the invention of the thermometer and hydrometer improve brewing techniques and increase production, using progressively larger vats. In 1814, one of them, full of porter, explodes in London, flooding a neighborhood with beer and killing eight people. Another innovation is hopped Pale Ale. At first, this beer is reserved for the upper classes, but due to its excellent shelf life, it withstands long sea voyages and is adopted by the East India Company to supply its colonies. In India's warm climate, this light beer is soon preferred over dark porter, earning the name India Pale Ale. However, the exact origins of this beer and its name are still debated today. In 1833, two brewer friends, Gabriel Settlemeyer II of Munich and Anthony Dreyer of Vienna, visit English breweries to study local brewing techniques. They discover the famous Pale Ale and discreetly collect samples of malt and yeast to analyze back home. Then, they each brew their own amber beer by combining pale malt techniques with yeasts adapted to bottom fermentation. Dreyer creates the Vienna Lager and Settlemeyer produces the Spaten. Brewed in March, the latter is stored cool for six months before being consumed, especially during Munich's famous Oktoberfest, which has been celebrated since 1810. Not far away, in Pilsen, Bohemia, the local population wants its own bottom-fermented beer and hires Bavarian Joseph Grohl to brew it. Thanks to recent innovations, he produces an even paler malt, with which he creates a blonde and light beer called Pilsner. It quickly becomes popular and gives its name to this new category of beers. Taking advantage of the glass industry boom, breweries begin replacing pewter and ceramic mugs with transparent glasses in order to showcase the new beer's colors. In Munich, Settlemeyer trains a Danish student, one Jacob Christian Jacobsen, who then returns to Copenhagen with yeast samples to brew his own beer, Carlsberg. In France, Louis Pasteur studies fermentation and identifies the role of microorganisms. He realizes that by heating beer at high temperatures, bacteria and fungi are eliminated, preserving the drink for a longer period of time. Meanwhile, in Germany, Karl von Linn further develops industrial refrigeration. Breweries rapidly adopt the technology, enabling year-round production of bottom-fermented beer without relying on seasons or natural caves. In Denmark, Jacobsen invests in scientific research, and his lab becomes the first to isolate pure yeast so as to grow it on a large scale without contamination. All of these discoveries benefit the few breweries that produce large volumes of bottom-fermented beer, who then export them across Europe thanks to the ever-expanding railway network. But their success comes at the cost of smaller craft breweries. Europeans then export their model worldwide. In St. Louis, USA, the German-American Anheuser-Busch family is inspired by a pilsner brewed in Bootweiss, Bohemia, to create their own beer, Budweiser. In Asia, in the German colony of Qingdao, a brewery is established to supply the settlers. During World War I, Germany loses the colony, which is renamed Qingdao. But the brewery remains and continues to produce Qingdao, which will, a century later, be the second most consumed beer in the world. In the United States, World War I strengthens movements to ban alcohol, both to combat alcoholism and to weaken the major breweries founded by German immigrants. At the end of the war, a constitutional amendment is passed, and prohibition begins in January 1920. While German-American breweries were the initial targets, they adapt by producing alternatives like sodas, ice cream, and sometimes even cheese. Meanwhile, thousands of small craft breweries shut down. The alcohol market falls into the hands of mafias running smuggling operations. In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt ends prohibition. The beer market is now dominated by the surviving large industrial breweries. They produce a light pilsner beer with less hops to reduce bitterness and with rice or corn added to lower costs and create a milder flavor. This beer, called American Lager, is also sold in cans. After World War II, these major groups heavily invest in advertising, sports sponsorship, and export networks, becoming true beer multinationals. In less than a century, bottom-fermented beer dominates the global market. In contrast to this global standardization, Belgium stands out with numerous breweries that preserve, improve, or revive top-fermented beers, some of which are centuries old. The country becomes famous for its wide variety of beers, such as Abbey and Trappist, which are still sometimes brewed by monks, white beers made with unmalted weed and spices, and Lambex, very old spontaneously fermented beers produced in Brussels and its environs. Starting in the 1970s, in the U.S. and the U.K., many microbreweries emerge and revive craft beer production, bringing back ales, porters, and especially India pale ales, exploring new hop varieties. This craft beer wave then spreads across Europe and to the rest of the world. Today, beer is the most consumed alcoholic drink worldwide, with an estimated annual production of 1.9 billion hectoliters. The vast majority remains controlled by a few beverage giants, like Belgian AB InBev, Dutch Heineken, and Danish Carlsberg. In Asia, the Chinese brewery China Resources Snow Breweries, founded in 1993, sells Snow, currently the world's most consumed beer, but almost exclusively in China. In terms of per capita consumption, the Czech Republic, the birthplace of Pilsner, holds the record, with about 150 liters of beer consumed annually per person. Finally, a recent trend, alcohol-free beer is also gaining ground, already representing 5% of beer sales in Germany.