Thirst. The physiological drive to drink liquid. It’s deadlier than hunger. You can survive without food for three weeks. But, without liquid sustenance, even in ideal conditions, you’d be hard pressed to make it a week before your body begins to shut down. Of course, the most abundant liquid in our world is water. Some species of animals and plants are made up of almost 95% water. We humans are only 68%, but every living thing we know of is at least 60% H2O. So- thirst. Other than breathing, it is the strongest compulsion that we have; more than hunger, more than sex… well, usually more than sex, at least in normal people.
Another urge that most species of fauna seem to share is the pursuit of altered consciousness. Grazing herd animals in North America seek out Jimson Weed- what is more commonly called Locoweed. Reindeer and caribou are known to forage for mushrooms and fungi in the boreal forests of Canada, and Scandinavia for the pursuit of a psychotropic trips (Maybe that’s how Santa Claus gets them to fly). And let’s not forget our household tabby cat, which if allowed to, would stay so looped on catnip that it might skip eating altogether.
But, the preferred substance to get messed up on by most species, from elephants, to birds, to snails, and man, is alcohol. We humans have perfected the intersection of these two instinctual desires of thirst and getting drunk.
We generally think of History, that is History with the capitol H, as one big monolithic thing; all of the activities of human beings since the beginning of man’s recordation of events. Sometimes we divide the history of mankind by a race of people, or a culture, or civilization or a society, or of a piece of land. But, as the philosopher of science, Karl Popper noted, “There is really no history of mankind, there are only the many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life.”
And the one aspect of human life that has been with us since before we even started to write down our history is alcohol.
In the Beginning There Was Sugar and Yeast
When did man start producing alcohol for consumption? Well, that’s the wrong question. The real question is when did alcohol first begin to occur in nature. The activity of fauna, that is animals and insects, getting drunk probably predates the human species by about 61 million years. Paleontologists and Paleobotanists tell us that as far back as the Cretaceous, 65.5 million years ago there is evidence of alcohol naturally occurring in nectar bearing flowers and fruit bearing plants. It could be surmised that many ancient species probably sought out fermented nectar and fruit, as many animals, birds, and insects do today.
Just go on line and Google, DRUNK BEAR, DRUNK MOOSE, DRUNK ANIMALS- you’ll find all kinds of wildlife getting smashed. We can only assume that it is because of the way it tastes and makes them feel, which is our same motivation for drinking beer, wine, and spirits. Also, animals in the wild will eat until there is no more food to be eaten; it’s the feast or famine survival instinct. Ethanol plumes, that is the gas that’s produced as a byproduct of fermentation, can attract animals from over many miles.
Video Clip: Bear Drunk on Fermented Apples
So, to create Ethanol (i.e. alcohol) all nature needs is some juicy fruit sugars, some wild yeasts, and just a little bit of time.
So Australopithecus Walks into a Fruit Grove…
Now, It appears as if the earliest ancestors of humans, frugivorous primates, were probably getting drunk from the beginning. Even today, if monkeys are given access to alcohol they will drink themselves into a wild stupor. In some countries monkeys seeking out places where humans drink in an attempt to steal alcohol is a major problem.
Video Clip: Drunk Monkey with a Knife
Now because the consumption of alcohol acts as an appetite stimulant, early primates and gatherer hominids probably ate as much fermented fruit as they could, when they could find it. Those early fruit eaters wouldn’t want to see that fruit go to waste, so binge drinking probably actually began as binge eating, and predates tool making, animal husbandry, or agriculture, and undoubtedly it remained an activity with the early hunter-gatherer groups of humans who moved out of Africa 50,000 years ago. These nomadic bands who went from place to place to exploit the seasonal food availability undoubtedly knew where the fruit trees were and when the fruit would ripen.
Now, with some fermented fruit being able to have an alcohol content as high as 10 to 12 %, (similar to low ABV wine and some naturally fermented hard ciders), it looks like we’ve been getting drunk for a long time.
Somewhere in the Fertile Crescent: a Brewer is Born
Fast forward to 10,000 BCE; in the Middle East, particularly between Mesopotamia and the Nile Valley- the area known as the Fertile Crescent- where humans first abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of the Paleolithic period and begin to adopt farming and animal husbandry, ushering in the Neolithic. At the end of the last Ice Age, the uplands of this region were densely populated by herds of wild goats, sheep, cattle, and swine, which were attracted to dense stands of wild grain-bearing grasses. It was a proverbial promised land for these hunter-gatherers. Over the next 5,000 years they learned how to domesticate all of these animals, began harvesting the wild grains, and eventually figured out that if you kept some of the grains and planted them again, more grasses, more grains, every year, equals a constant food supply. And the nice thing about grain is that it keeps well if stored in a dry environment, so it becomes the staple food source year round.
Now, with this behavioral shift from nomadic hunting to sedentary farming, man settled into villages that later grew into cities. One of the things that farming did for these groups was free up time whereas other activities could be pursued beyond just finding food, such as the development of new technologies including pottery, masonry, wheeled vehicles, metalworking, writing, and (most importantly as far as we’re concerned) brewing.
Beer was first brewed some time between the end of hunter-gathering cultures and the development of early agricultural cultures.
When the first beer was intentionally brewed is not known, but it most certainly happened between 10,000 BCE and 4,500 BCE. A pictogram from 6,000 years ago found on a ceramic seal in Mesopotamia shows two figures drinking beer through straws from a large pottery jar. The use of straws in the picture is the key clue to let us know that it was beer; ancient beer had bits of grain, chaff, yeast, and other residue floating on the top or settling on the bottom of the vessel, so using a straw to pull the liquid from the middle of the jar was necessary to avoid swallowing this gunk.
Earliest known depiction of drinking beer, clay pictogram from Mesopotamia, ca. 4,000 BCE
The earliest written documents from 3,400 BCE tell us nothing directly about the origins of beer, but what is certain is that the rise of beer is associated with the cultivation of cereal grains, like wheat and barley. Archaeologists have found ruins of a huge brewery in Egypt dating from this period. The brewery was so large that it could produce up to 300 gallons of beer each day, so it can be assumed that since the brewing process was being done on such a large scale by then, it had to have been around by then for a very long time. But, the question is how much earlier?
Drink like an Egyptian.
Wild cereal grains gathered were probably first consumed by hunter-gatherers, eaten like berries or nuts, then they began making porridges or as soups, with the grains being cracked, soaked, and cooked. Other foodstuffs would have been mixed in with the softened grains; berries, meats, nuts, and so forth, creating a stable and nutritious diet. The earliest cooking methods consisted of placing the grains with water into plaster lined basket or ceramic vessel, then heating stones and dropping them into the vessel using forked sticks and crude shovels. The grains, of course, contained starches, and in the hot water the starches were released, thickening the broth considerably, and the longer you cook it, the thicker the soup would become.
But, what happens if you forget to cook the soaked grains? Whole grains when left in warm water will begin to germinate, that is, sprout. The germination process converts the starches in the grain into sugars, including glucose, maltose, maltotrioses, and maltodextrines; the processes related to Malting. Other enzymes also develop, called proteases, which break down the proteins in the grain allowing yeasts to process the fermentable sugars into alcohol.
Undoubtedly, beer, or any other fermented beverage, was discovered complete by accident, sometime around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. The grains were probably left to soak in the water, the water became warm, but not hot enough to cook the grain, thus the grains germinated. The germinated grains, or malt, turned the starches into sugars, and yeasts converted the sugars into alcohol. Rather than throwing the grain out, they undoubtedly ate it, perhaps even drank the water, liked the way it tasted, really liked the way it made them feel. Of course, consumption of alcohol leads to other fun things, like sex (see accompanying photo). So, undoubtedly in an effort to recreate the magic that the Gods had given them in this delicious concoction, they began to experiment and try to replicate the creation of this wonderful concoction.
Terra Cotta plaque from Ancient Babylonia, ca. 1,800 BCE, proving that alcohol and sex have been associated for a long time.
Today we would find this early kind of beer almost unpalatable. Fortunately, somebody discovered how to control the malting process and then a few millennia later, some Benedictine monks in France added hops into the brewing process, which is really when the modern ale styles began to emerge in Europe. Lagers came later in Germany.
In the great civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt, beer was the one thing that everybody would have drank on a daily basis, especially where there were large populations and the water supply would have been tainted by diarrheal microbes from animal and human waste. And when I say everybody drank beer, I mean everybody; from babes and toddlers who were off of the teat, to the elderly. Everyday beer at this time would have only been about 3% alcohol, which will kill most dangerous bacteria. Beer was nutritious, delicious, safe to consume, and it made you feel good. These civilizations flourished because of it. But alcohol also helped other civilizations on their rise, as well.
Other Civilizations, Other Ways to Get Buzzed
In China: Archaeological discoveries in the Yellow River Valley show that a type of Rice Mead (made from rice, honey, water) was being fermented as far back as 9,000 years ago, making it one of the earliest verified intentionally brewed beverages. Early Chinese societies preferred rice and grain wines, which were made from either rice, millet, grain sorghum, or a mixture thereof.
In Persia, that is modern Iran, the early Persians seem to be the first civilization to actively practice the art of ‘viticulture,’ that is cultivate grapes and make wine, going back to 7,500 years ago. From Persia, the art travelled first to Babylon (who already had their beer), and then by 2,000 BCE onward to Greece. Through trade routes, viticulture subsequently spread far throughout the entire Mediterranean world, from Phoenicia to the Iberian Peninsula, and was the dominant beverage by the time of the rise of the Roman state.
Before they learned about wine, the early Greeks drank mostly mead, fermented honey water. Evidence of mead brewing was has also been found as early as 2,800 BCE by the Bell Beaker Culture in Central Europe, spreading from there throughout the continent.
In the Indus Valley, evidence shows that a beverage called Sura was being consumed as early as 3,000 BCE. Sura was brewed from rice meal, honey and/or sugar cane, along with botanicals and fruit. It was considered the favorite beverage of the Hindu gods.
And even Pre-Columbian American cultures and societies were brewing alcohol. We usually don’t think of alcohol when we talk about the Native Americans, because of the stereotypical idea that they “couldn’t hold their liquor,” but this is because of a perceived racial intolerance to strong distilled spirits, that were introduced with the European invasions of the Late Second Millennia AD. Truthfully, almost all agricultural societies of the New World, especially in Mesoamerica and the Andes, brewed beverages, made from crops and plants specific to their cultures; agave, pineapple, maize, manioc root, yucca, and saguaro. Even the Iroquois of Northeastern North America made a mildly alcoholic drink from fermented maple sap.
Final Toast: To Our Ancestors!
Next time you sit down with a delicious pint of beer, or a glass of wine, or some sake or mead, thank our now long gone forbearers, who sought to find a better way to brew and ferment alcoholic beverages. Every glass represents countless generations of knowledge about brewing and fermentation. So, raise a glass to those who brewed before us, because, you can’t have a beer, unless somebody learned how to brew it. Cheers!
HISHTORY Episode 1
Producer: Allen Tatman
Technical Director: Brian McGeorge
Recorded at Rivers Edge Studios and Paddy Malone’s Pub, in Jefferson City MO.
Music for Hishtory Theme Song is from www.bensound.com
Hishtory is a Wylde Irish Production, LLC, all rights reserved.
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Works consulted:
Dudley, Robert, 2004. “Ethanol, Fruit Ripening, and the Historical Origins of Human Alcoholism in Primate Frugivory.” Oxford Journals, Vol. 44, No. 4
McGovern, Patrick. Interview: Were Humans Built to Drink Alcohol? Why I Brew Ancient Beers. National Geographic, September 2016
Preedy, Victor R., Ronald Ross Watson, eds. Comprehensive Handbook of Alcohol Related Pathology. San Diego, Elsevier Academic Press, 2004
Samorini, Giorgio. Animals and Psychedelics: The Natural World and the Instinct to Alter Consciousness. (English Translation) Rochester, VT, Park Street Press, 2002
Standage, Tom. A History of Civilization in Six Glasses. New York, Walker & Company, 2005