MdV: Merchant du Vin beer e-newsletter – Wednesday, June 7, 2006:  the History of Beer

 

We have recently announced two fine additions to our menu of great beers:

-Lindemans Pomme, Belgian apple lambic.  Supremely refreshing & available now; more info:

www.merchantduvin.com/pages/1_about/lindemans_pomme_intro.pdf

-Rochefort 6, Belgian Trappist Ale, joining Rochefort 8 & 10 in our portfolio on July 1.  More:

http://www.merchantduvin.com/pages/1_about/Rochefort_6_MdV_4_3_06.pdf

 

Lindemans in Food & Wine magazine;  Rochefort 10 in the Austin, TX, newspaper;  . . Plus: beer festivals, dinners, and events are offering beer lovers all across America a chance to discover the classic styles – it is a great time for fine beer!  Full national news & event listing at:

www.merchantduvin.com/pages/1_about/news.html

 

 

 

Beer Chat from the Beer Court Jester:  the History of Beer

 

Greek philosopher Plato, who lived 2,400 years ago, wrote that “it was a wise man who invented beer.”  At that time, beer was already ancient.

 

Beer – that is, a fermented grain beverage – could be the oldest form of beverage alcohol:   there are depictions of people drinking beer from 6,000 years ago on a Sumerian tablet, and there’s a written beer recipe from 4,000 years ago. 

 

As we know, beer is made from grain – barley, sometimes wheat – that has been malted and mashed.  (A recap is available at our e-news archive; the March 24, ’04, edition describes mashing:  http://www.merchantduvin.com/pages/1_about/enews_archive.html/  )

 

Here’s a likely scenario from seven or eight thousand years ago: a barley crop – maybe growing wild, maybe planted – was harvested.  A rainstorm hit, dampening the barley, and the chagrined (and hungry) harvesters tried to rescue the grain, probably by drying it over a fire.

 

Without knowing it, they were malting the barley.  The moisture had caused the barleycorns to sprout, and the drying stopped the growth.  The natural enzymes in the barley were activated, just as they are today by professional malting companies.

 

Later, when this batch of malted barley was cooked up as cereal or made into bread dough, another process occurred: the natural enzymes in the barley, derived from malting and activated by heat, converted the starch in the barley to sugar.  (Brewers now call this part of the brewing process mashing; then, as now, mashing makes barley available to yeast, which consumes sugar.)  And wild yeasts are abundant, floating in the air all over the world.  Some wild yeast landed in this batch of malted barley cereal or dough, and they began to do what yeasts still do to this day: they converted the sugar to alcohol and CO2.

 

It must have been an adventurous spirit who saw the changes in this historic batch of barley, and went ahead and tasted it.  Maybe the aroma was compelling.  Maybe she or he was starving.  Fortunately for us, people were able to recreate the scenario and beer was born.

 

Beer became an important part of ancient culture, and later of western culture.  Where barley grew – including regions we now call Germany, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom – people used it to make beer.

 

Eventually over the years, beer was fine-tuned:  While early beer was sometimes porridge-like, eventually brewers began to separate the husks of the spent grain from the liquid.  Also, brewers began to add herbs & spices to beer; by 1600 AD or so hops had become the most common seasoning – the bitterness of hops was a good balance to the rich, sweet grain flavor of malt.  As a side benefit, hops provided a preservative quality. 

 

In this same period, two main strains of beer yeast diverged, based on regional climate and brewing techniques: in temperate climates like England and Belgium, beer was generally brewed year-round and fermented relatively quickly by yeasts that function well at typical human room temperature – ale yeast.  In Germany and Czechoslovakia, brewers made beer only in the spring and fall when it wasn’t too hot or too cold.  In order to have beer to drink year-round, they stored their fermenting beer in cool caves over an entire season.  Even without an awareness of micro-organisms, they were selecting a distinct strain of yeast that preferred cool temperatures and slow ferments – lager yeast.  (More on ale and lager in the e-news archive.)

 

As with other commodities, beer gradually moved from home production to professional production and by the mid-19th century beer was mostly made by professional brewers.  At this period in history, a number of factors came into play:

 

-Production and distribution of goods expanded exponentially due to huge population growth in cities, industrial-scale production, rail transportation, and the beginnings of marketing.

-New modern malting techniques made very pale barley malt available to brewers, who could now make very pale-colored beers.

-Cheap clear glass became available to virtually everyone.

 

A newer style of golden lager, pilsner, which originated in Czechoslovakia and was embraced by German brewers, became very popular between 1840 and 1880.  Before 1840 or so, all beers were fairly dark (pale ale – which is amber colored – was so-called because it was pale compared to other beers).  Pilsner, or pils, was tasty, brilliant gold in color, and it looked great in the clear glasses that ordinary folks could now afford.  It was during this period that many Europeans – especially from heavily-populated Germany – emigrated to the US.  They brought their beer style with them, and to this day, despite a gap in beer sales from 1920-1933 known as Prohibition, golden lagers are still the biggest-selling beer style in America. 

 

But the diversity of classic beer styles never went away in Europe.  In Germany, beer drinkers can choose beers of all colors & strengths, whether pils, Doppelbock, or wheat ales.  Belgium has always had many dozens of styles, mostly ales; in the United Kingdom ales range from gentle subtle mild ale to barleywines and roasty strong stouts.  Over the last 25 years, there has been an amazing beer evolution in the US – the range of European classics available here, as well as great American-brewed beers, and the beer consumers who drink them have made this chapter of beer’s history a happy one: we probably are living in the best beer era the world has ever known.

 

But patronize great stores, bars & restaurants that carry fine beer, and experience it yourself! 

 

Please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone who is interested in beer; if you received it as a forward, you can sign yourself up at the Merchant du Vin website.

 

Merchant du Vin, America’s Premier Specialty Beer Importer Since 1978

http://www.merchantduvin.com