Beer - what would we do without it?
We take our fresh,
clean water for granted today. In earlier times life was not so simple and
drinking untreated water could very often prove fatal from the cocktail of
animal and vegetable life that it held. Beer was an answer.
There are two advantages to beer; firstly it has been boiled and secondly it
contains alcohol which is a preservative. It would perhaps not be an
exaggeration to say that without it's development the human race could never
have flourished the way it has done! Anyhow, that's my excuse for drinking
it and I'm sticking to it!
There is evidence that beer was made from Barley over 8,000 years ago in
Babylon and Sumeria and manufacture was still going strong around 2400 BC in
Ancient Egypt, as we can see from tomb paintings. Roman historians relate
that the Saxons, Celts and Germanic tribes were very fond of beer - no
surprises there - but it must have tasted quite different to today because
hops, the vital ingredient of our present day product was missing and it
wasn't until the 15th Century that these were introduced to England as an
additional preservative. In the same way that Greeks have adopted to the
(ghastly!) taste of retsina after resin was used to seal their wine
containers we all developed a taste for hops as well so modern beer was
born.
The first beers in Britain British beers were based on repeated malt
extracts from the same malt batch. The first extract produced a flavourful
drink high in alcohol called strong beer; the third an usually final extract
produced only a thin, poor quality specimen with a low alcohol content known
as small beer, which is still a term used for poor quality substitutes. Much
of this found it's way onto Royal Navy ships where it was drunk instead of
fresh water, which was of much more uncertain quality. The alcohol content
was so low that a man would be bloated before he became intoxicated so it
was universally detested by the ordinary seamen!
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