Man learns to guzzle beer and the beginning of Farming

Glass of beer with bottles in the background
Photo by KFP

The anthropologists tell us that farming began somewhere around 10,000 years ago in the Golden Triangle that we now know as Iraq.  Well that place is still causing problems for mankind today.  They also inform us that the reason why farming began was to raise grains for making bread.  That’s a bunch of hogwash man would rather get plastered then eat all the bread on Earth!

More then likely this is what really happened some ripe wild grass seed fell into a puddle and because it got wet it fermented.  Some animal then came along and drank some of the fermented water in the puddle and started acting pretty strange.  The local caveman was observing the antics of the animals that had drank of the puddle and decided he had to try the water to see what it would do to him.

So down he went to the puddle and scooped up a handful of the water, and liked the taste so much he kept getting more of the water until he became roaring drunk.  Then he told all his friends about the magic water, so pretty soon the whole pack of them were going from puddle to puddle until they were all roaring drunk.

After they were sobered up they decided that they had to have a ready supply of this miraculous water on hand so they could get plastered again.  Now man likes to experiment around, or fool around your preference with things.  Something as good as fermented water was just to good to let go.

So they brought some grain home and put it into a pot and nothing happened the beer refused to ferment, so they all spit into the pot.  Lo, a miracle happened the mixture of grain and water started to grow a head of bubbles.  They tried this mixture very carefully and found it was far better then running from puddle to puddle.  Man had invented the first true beer.  It is still made this way in parts of Africa only this beer is sweet instead of being bitter like we are used to drink.

For thousands of years all the beer mankind drank was sweet beer.  It wasn’t until man had settled Europe that they discovered that if you add certain herbs to the fermented water that its taste was vastly improved.  He also discovered somewhere along the line that if you malted the grain you could make beer without spitting in the bowl.

Some genius in Middle Europe finally discovered that the colder the water is the better the beer tastes.  This was the beginning of the modern beer brewing business that has grown to be a vast business indeed.  You think that man lives by bread alone?