A History of Beer

The oldest proven records of brewing are about 6,000 years old and refer to the Sumerians.  Sumeria lay between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers including Southern Mesopotamia and the ancient cities of Babylon and Ur.  It is said that the Sumerians discovered the fermentation process by chance.  No one knows today exactly how this occurred, but it could be that a piece of bread or grain became wet and a short time later, it began to ferment and a inebriating pulp resulted.  A seal around 4,000 years old is a Sumerian "Hymn to Ninkasi", the goddess of brewing.  This "hymn" is also a recipe for making beer. A description of the making of beer on this ancient engraving in the Sumerian language is the earliest account of what is easily recognized as barley, followed by a pictograph of bread being baked, crumbled into water to form a mash, and then made into a drink that is recorded as having made people feel "exhilarated, wonderful and blissful." It could be that baked bread was a convenient method of storing and transporting a resource for making beer.  The Sumerians were able to repeat this process and are assumed to be he first civilized culture to brew beer. They had discovered a "divine drink" which certainly was a gift from the gods.