Beer and History

I am not going to bore you with history lessons (Unless you are a history buff) from the start of civilization to now. Whoever is interested in it can find more info in the books I recommend in the special sector of this blog. You don't need to remember dates or places to start brewing, so read on only if you are interested in it or just want to get a general idea.

One of the things that I find very interesting about beer is that it started in several remote locations and around the same time. According to research, beer brewing starts in South/Central America, Mesopotamia (known as Iraq/Iran these days), Egypt, and some find claims China-Thailand. The oldest written receipt known today comes from about 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia. Egypt has a receipt of beer from about 4000 years ago on the wall of one of the pyramids in hieroglyphs.

  • ~5000BC - Mesopotamia (Iraq/Iran) - Start of a spontaneous fermentation beer brewing
  • ~4000BC - Egypt, The first receipt for beer brewing
  • 55 BC - Roman legions introduce beer to Northern Europe.
  • 500-1000 - The first half of the Middle Ages, brewing begins to be practiced in Europe, shifting from family tradition to centralized production in monasteries and convents
  • ~750 - Hops were first added to beer by monks in monasteries
  • 1516 - Bavarian brewing guilds push for the Reinheitsgeobot purity laws to make it illegal to use any ingredients but water, barley, and hops in the brewing of beer. Yeast was still unknown at the time.
  • 1721 - First appearance of beer style: Porter
  • 1759 - Arthur Guinness opened the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland. The beer market in Ireland and the EU changed forever.
  • 1841 - First appearance of beer style: Marzen/Oktoberfest
  • 1842 - First appearance of beer style: Pilsen
  • 1862 - Guinness introduced their trademark label, a buff oval label with the harp and Arthur Guinness's signature.
  • Late 1800s - First appearance of beer style: Helles Beers
  • 1873 - German engineer Carl von Linde invented the first refrigeration system for fermentation tanks.
  • 1876 - The Harp was registered as a trademark of Guinness Brewery.
  • 1876 - Pasteur unraveled the secrets of yeast in the fermentation process, and he also developed pasteurization to stabilize beers 22 years before the process was applied to milk.
  • 1886 - Guinness became the first major brewery to be incorporated as a public company on the London Stock Exchange
  • 1920 - Prohibition Law in the USA
  • 1933 - Prohibition ends for beer (April 7). Only 160 breweries survived
  • 1935 - The beer can is introduced (American Can Co. & Kreuger Brewing).
  • 1959 - Draught Guinness was first introduced.
  • 1959 - Guinness began using nitrogen in their beer, and the stout is not the same.
  • 1978 - Microbeer has been legal in the USA, and the beer world is not the same again.
  • 1988 - Draught Guinness in a can was launched, using a widget (ball the size of a ping-pong fill with nitrogen) to recreate the creamy surge. We can enjoy a bar draught Guinness at home too.
  • Present Days