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The ancient origins of beer - Malcolm Purinton
The ancient origins of beer - Malcolm Purinton
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Phụ đề (86)
0:06
Somewhere in medieval Switzerland,
0:08
a weary traveler is relieved to see a monastery up ahead.
0:14
He’s welcomed, guided to a crowded guesthouse,
0:17
and promptly served the abbey’s specialty: a tall glass of beer.
0:23
For centuries, monasteries across modern-day Europe
0:27
were the primary large-scale brewers of beer.
0:31
But this is hardly where this drink’s journey began.
0:36
Beer refers to any alcoholic beverage made from fermented cereal grains—
0:42
the edible seeds of a particular group of grasses.
0:46
The oldest evidence of beer brewing dates back 13,000 years
0:51
to what’s now modern-day Israel,
0:53
but experts believe the drink developed independently across the world.
0:58
In each of these regions,
1:00
its composition was shaped by native grains.
1:04
For example, 9,000 years ago in eastern China,
1:08
people drank a sweet, cloudy beer made from rice, millet, and tubers.
1:14
In the Andean region of South America,
1:17
5,000-year-old pottery suggests production of chicha,
1:21
a brew of fermented maize.
1:25
Whatever the ingredients, ancient beer brewing required two main steps.
1:30
First, the starches in the cereal grains
1:33
had to be converted into fermentable sugars.
1:37
Some groups achieved this by chewing them,
1:40
while others soaked them in water to trigger germination,
1:44
a process that naturally breaks down starches.
1:47
The second step was fermentation.
1:50
Unbeknownst to brewers at the time, wild yeast found its way into the mixture—
1:56
carried through the air, on fruit, or via reused tools
2:01
still harboring yeasts from prior brews.
2:05
With time and storage, yeasts converted some of these sugars into alcohol
2:10
while releasing carbon dioxide.
2:13
This ancient beer was often imperfectly filtered,
2:17
so it contained much more fiber, B vitamins, and protein than modern beer.
2:23
And some cultures boiled the initial sugar mixture,
2:27
which killed many unwanted microorganisms,
2:30
making it safer to drink than other available water sources.
2:35
The oldest surviving recipe describing this process
2:38
appears in a Sumerian poem dedicated to their goddess of beer, Ninkasi.
2:45
The Babylonians built on this adoration—
2:48
Hammurabi’s code mandated daily beer rations for every citizen.
2:53
And any brewer caught overcharging for a pint
2:57
was condemned to death by drowning.
3:01
In Ancient Egypt, beer was primarily made in the home by women,
3:06
and was a staple of the daily diet.
3:08
It also played a central role in religious festivals,
3:12
and served as an offering at temples and the tombs of pharaohs.
3:18
By the 20th century BCE, beer had spilled over from Egypt into Greece,
3:23
though it wasn't as popular as wine.
3:26
Nevertheless, over the following centuries,
3:29
a thirst for beer spread through Europe and beyond.
3:34
In the early Middle Ages,
3:36
European monasteries pioneered large-scale beer production,
3:40
both to provide to traveling pilgrims and to sell to support monastery upkeep.
3:46
Around this same time,
3:48
brewers from Central and Eastern Europe made a key change to their recipe:
3:53
they began adding hops.
3:56
These green flowers are rich in acidic compounds,
3:59
imbuing beer with a new bitter flavor and acting as a preservative.
4:05
Hops became so closely associated with beer that in 1516,
4:10
a Bavarian duke issued a beer purity law, known as the Reinheitsgebot,
4:16
that defined beer’s composition as strictly barley, hops, and water.
4:23
The Industrial Revolution ushered in other essential beer innovations,
4:28
including advances in refrigeration.
4:31
In 1876, French chemist Louis Pasteur
4:35
identified yeast’s role in beer fermentation.
4:39
With this, a key beer ingredient was finally made visible.
4:44
Brewers began selecting for different yeasts
4:47
to refine recipes and experiment with flavor.
4:51
Today, there are well over 100 distinct beer varieties,
4:56
with lagers and ales being the two main types.
5:00
Lagers, which include pilsners and bocks,
5:04
are fermented with yeasts that thrive at colder temperatures
5:08
and live at the bottom of fermentation vessels.
5:11
Ales, like porters, stouts, and pale ales, ferment quicker,
5:16
with yeasts that live at higher temperatures
5:19
and float at the top of the mixture.
5:21
But some beers break this mold.
5:24
Kölsches, for example, start with ale yeast,
5:27
but are finished at colder temperatures like lagers.
5:31
Others draw on ancient methods, like Belgian Lambics,
5:35
which rely on spontaneous fermentation with wild yeast.
5:41
Meanwhile, there are still new challenges to navigate.
5:44
The growing demand for non-alcoholic beers has pushed producers
5:49
to find ways to limit or remove alcohol while still preserving flavor.
5:54
And if history is any indication,
5:57
beer's story will continue brewing for many years to come.
