Beer

Appears in

Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America

Published 2004

About

With the desire to form settlements, rather than remaining nomadic and gathering crops where they grew wild, early humans developed the practice of agriculture, and civilization was born. There is some debate as to whether grain was first cultivated specifically for use in brewing beer or baking bread. However, there is no doubt that the earliest days of farming took place around 8000 BCE, in the Middle East, between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

Even before that civilization, the fruits of fermentation were considered gifts from the gods and were offered back to them. Wine may have been a happy accident that happened after someone left fruit juice uncovered for a day or two and noticed the foamy froth that began to appear on the surface of the juice, and it has been suggested that the original beer was discovered when prehistoric ancestors let their bowl of grain mush sit for a day or so and sipped the frothy liquid that rose to the surface.