February 25, 2019

Beer

We have talked about wine several times in Random Facts, but what wine's less celebrated cousin; beer? Beer is almost as old as civilization itself and was produced by almost all ancient cultures.

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Today's Random Fact:

The oldest known recipe is for a 4,000-year-old beer made by the Sumerians.

Sumeria's neighbors, the Egyptians, built the pyramids under the influence. Workers at Giza received about four liters of beer a day, according to Patrick McGovern, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

Beer (in part because it contains antimicrobial ethanol) was a healthier drink than polluted Nile river water.

Bonus Fact:

You might have known that fact if you were a beer expert, or cerevisaphile - a word derived from the Latin name of the Roman goddess of agriculture, Ceres, and vis, meaning strength.

Hops, the bittering agent in beer, belong to the family Cannabaceae, making them marijuana's close cousins and lending a little perspective to the term "hopped up."

In Europe during the Middle Ages, beer, often of very low strength, was an everyday drink for all classes and ages of people. A document from that time mentions nuns having an allowance of six pints of ale each day.