Beer and Its Contribution to Humanity and the Creation of Modern Society

Beer has been around for quite some time. Some think that the production of beer and bread derived from grain cereals containing certain sugars are directly responsible for the development of civilization. Here’s my view of history, beer and civilization and how they have contributed to the development of modern society.

History records that beer has been around for about 7,000 thousand years now. Scientists have uncovered ancient stone tablets with depictions of beer brewers from Samaria dating to as far back as 6,000 years. There are also many depictions of people drinking beer from a bowl with straws (This is an interesting concept and one in which I have tried to emulate on many occasions while attempting the ancient Scottish tradition of playing golf. You need to try this some time.)

Other significant evidence of beer contributing to civilization as a whole comes from the likes of the Egyptians, and central Europe, dating back as far as 3000 B.C. and many argue that beer and bread production directly led to the development of technology and civilization. In fact, ancient prayers have been uncovered concerning beer, bread and onions. Why the inclusion of onions is present is a mystery to me, but I do like them on hamburgers from time to time.

It is a widely held understanding that in ancient times, the best and probably only brewers of beer were women. I have some thoughts on why this is probably true. Women are crafty and never do anything without a purpose. The purpose for brewing brew is straightforward; women were tired of following all those crazy male hunters around looking for game. It was time to settle down and what better way to get a man’s attention than to brew up a batch of beer. Instant success on the woman’s part I would say! The women’s influence on technology can’t be over stated either, they needed better pots to brew the beer in and men were happy to oblige!

History indicates that people overall were not always monogamous in their relationships. The concept of marriage came about because of beer. Let me explain. Since women were brewers of beer and men like beer and most prefer to drink the finest of the delicious nectar, two things had to happen. First, the man needed to establish a permanent domicile and second they had to capture the best brewers of beer and keep them. This led to what we know of today as the family domicile and the invention of marriage. The line in the marriage vow “until death doeth part” can be directly attributed to the production of beer. You see men of the time were quite selfish and didn’t want to share their best beer or lose their best brewers of beer, so they came up with the idea of marriage and thus the institution we have today. I told you women were crafty, brew some beer and capture the hunter of her dreams!

Now with all this said, you may be thinking "Isn't this blog about Lucy the White Boxer"? Yes, but sometime I just have to lighten things up a bit and discuss more important topics such as beer and its contribution to humanity. Until next time, Cheers!