A couple of years ago a friend and I had occasion to journey down to Alabama for the wedding of my friend’s youngest brother. The wedding itself went just fine, but an unexpected guest named Hurricane Georges roared in from out of town and threw the post-wedding plans in to disarray. Ordered to evacuate by the Governor we high-tailed it to Jacksonville Florida where my friend had family.
It was a LONG ride. Being from New England I tend to forget how large a state, or even a town, can be. Many hours later we rolled in to Uncle Buck’s (yes, seriously, Uncle Buck) driveway and poured out of the car all sweaty, stiff and generally unhappy. Buck, a gruff ex-navy Chief, ushered us inside and before even saying as much as hello plunked down two sixteen ounce mugs of foaming amber home-brew. One sip and I could feel the knots melting out of my spinal column.
“Now that’s bloody civilized,” I sighed. Buck laughed.
“You don’t know the half of it, son,” Buck exclaimed. “Beer is the cornerstone of all of civilization.”
“Now you’ve done it,” my friend Steve groaned. “Better finish that off and get another.”
Buck leaned back in his chair and began to explain. It seems that the some of the oldest written words in history, a tablet from some 1800 BC, are a recipe for brewing beer. Not the pale pilsners that Americans seem fanatically hooked on for certain, but a brewed beverage designed to lighten the mood and elevate the spirit none-the-less. Most historians and archeologists agree that agriculture was one of the central building blocks of civilization, but why did ancient man, nominally a hunter/gatherer, suddenly take up the growing of grain?
“To increase the food supply, of course,” I opined, my own second helping of Buck’s Basement Brewery’s bitter best loosening my tongue just a bit.
“Horse-shit! Wild grains and fruits were already being harvested and there was no real need to go to all that trouble just for food. Remember, we’re talking about people who have not sat still in the same place since the dawn of time.”
It seems that even that early, Man had discovered that certain fruits and grains, properly prepared, could yield a number of intoxicating beverages. Once those ancient wanderers got a taste they wanted more. But the food supply would not support much beer making, so in an example of the problem-solving skill that has elevated Man above all other land-dwelling primates, agriculture was born.
As Buck drained his beer stein I managed to pull something up from my old high-school history days. I’m sure my history teacher, Miss DeYoung, would have been proud. I said, “Didn’t agriculture spring up about 8000 BC? Couldn’t the brewing have started after there was some excess food to spare?”
“A reasonable question,” Buck admitted as he drew another 24 ounces in to his stein from the refrigerated keg mounted on the bar, “but it violates the time line. Trust me, boy, I’ve had lots of time to think about this.”
According to Buck, it seems there is a lot of evidence that man knew how to tie one on for some time before organized agriculture really took hold. Given the evidence of man’s affinity for mood-alteration (Remember the 60’s? If you can, you weren’t really participating…) it only stands to reason that the tribal elders decided to increase the grain supply so they could brew more hooch. Sure, they told the women (who probably did 90 percent of the work) that it was all for more food, but then what real man actually lets a woman know what he’s thinking?
At that point I noted Buck was unmarried, but chose to remain silent. He was our host, after all…
“So,” I prompted, “if agriculture was the direct result of the desire to brew more beer…”
“Then everything that sprang from civilization finds its roots in beer. We’re talking religion, art, law, and science… all of it owes its existence to beer. It’s the Golden Elixir of Civilization.”
wasn't it ben franklin who said something like "god gave us beer because he loves us"?
I actually once got to really lay into some white power type people over beer. They wouldn't smoke pot because it "wasn't very white" to do so, but they had no problem drinking beer. And i laughed. They were under the impression that norsemen had invented beer. They were so disappointed when i told them it was those muddy-looking non-whites in the far east who had it first. And it certainly wasn't in the style of their choice, "Swillweiser".
Their answer, of course, was that it was all lies, meant to discredit the whites and their inventions... and then... oh boy and THEN we started the argument over jews and whether their accomplishments in science were worth anything. None of these guys had polio... and i reminded them to thank a jew, who was white...
It's not the first time I've heard that theory. Makes sense to me.
Cheers!
Hey, I had no idea the brewings went so far back but when you rote about it, it made sense! Neat story.
Dah..when you wrote about it, it made sense to me. It was very interesting John.
Heh. I wrote a college paper making that argument, that brewing was the "cause" of civilization, back in the 80s. There's a fair amount of circumstantial evidence for it. The earliest example of what might be termed "technical writing", and one of the earliest works of any kind - is about brewing.
I've heard the argument, but usually in the form of "alcohol stores better than grain, and then you need to protest the beer, so you form an organization..." and so on. But yeah, I do agree that beer is one of the major factors in the formation of a civilization... and I don't like the taste of it, myself, so discount the promotional motives. :)
You realize I hope that this is the true reason we invaded Iraq. The birthplace of beer deserves a better form of government.
Actually, there have been Sumarian cuniform tablets that, when translated, were recipies for beer. They have also found beer residue in urns located in Egyptian tombs.
Beer has been around for thousands of years. Even more reason for me to drink it.