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Why Do We Drink Beer?

Blog: FineForWine
Posted by: Stevo101 Wednesday 3rd December 2008, 8:38pm

A brief history of our favourite pastime!

I've been doing a bit of research about the history of beer and why we drink it, so I thought I'd share my findings. It's quite interesting I think.
So, why do we drink alcohol? Any idea? Yes, to get drunk I know, but what I mean is why do we drink alcohol as a species, why is it a social activity and when did it all begin? Actually no-one can be sure when the first alcohol was imbibed as our hairy ancestors no doubt ate any fermenting fruit they happened across, but made-for-purpose beer jugs dating back 12,000 years have been found by archaeologists. Which means, remarkably, that beer was invented before the wheel, by about 2,000 years. (No doubt the guy who invented the wheel had a beer to celebrate, then crashed into a mammoth).
It's believed by some that beer, in it's original form of a thick gloopy substance full of nutrients predated bread as a staple, but certainly one was the by-product of the other. In fact the Saxons used to refer to beer as \"liquid bread\" (Saxons weren't renowned for their sandwiches).
So, if beer began life as a form of food, how did it become the central focus of our social culture? I mean, no-one ever says, at the end of a hard day's graft, \"fancy coming for a pie?\" do they? The answer is, surprise surprise, alcohol, or the effect it has on people. Imagine the ancient races sitting around a camp fire, night after night (there was no Sky Sports then) with no alcohol. What would they talk about? Try it. Invite everyone you know round to your house, switch off the tv and offer them water to drink. Oh what fun. Break open the pop though, and you have a party.
Travelling was another major factor in the history of social drinking. Because journeys of more than a few miles might take a day or two people would stop over at coaching inns, the forerunner to the modern pub. So you had a lot of strangers in one place, drinking beer and realising they were enjoying themselves. Plus, beer was more healthy - or at least, less unhealthy - than water to drink, as it had all the impurities boiled out during the brewing process. During the Industrial Revolution water became so polluted that beer was consumed by almost everyone as their main source of fluid, children included. Navvies digging canals and railroads during that time were given eight pints of beer a day to keep them going. Mention this to your boss, you never know.
So there we have it, a brief history of beer drinking and how this activity we now look upon as a recreational and social passtime began as an almost essential part of human development. And in some ways it probably still is.

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