 Today we're going to be talking about the early history of beer we're doing this video in tribute to in connection with our new YouTube video series St. Patrick's Day in Irish culture and traditions so why not do a video on beer history so that being said if you like history you like looking at vintage maps because we do videos on vintage maps definitely subscribe to our YouTube channel we like to have a lot of fun here we like to connect our videos to current events and holidays definitely check us out give us a subscribe so let's get to it let's talk about the early history of beer beer is one of the oldest beverages discovered and invented by humans the earliest discovery of the sudsy drink was uncovered archaeologists who chemically tested pottery shards all the way back to about 7,000 years ago around the Iranian area what we know as the Iranian area today this is confirmed by other archaeologists that found evidence on a 6,000 year old Sumerian tablet depicting people drinking a beverage through reed straws from a common bowl it seems that beer and fermentation rose hand in hand with the tribal domestication of processing cereals and agriculture it is believed that fermentation might have been stumbled upon this is kind of interesting stumbled upon accidentally by farmers who left grains for which water and wild yeast in the air interacted farmers probably noticed the co2 bubbles emitting and expelling from these grains and really kind of you know wondered what was going on so as you can imagine if you were a farmer back then and you had a grainery and then one day you just walked into your grainery and you saw a pile of barley just emitting and and piling up bubbles and you knew that you know maybe it rained last night and you kind of thought to yourself what what is going on here you know people kind of from what archaeologists are saying they stumbled upon it they just kind of saw something that was going on and then they were able to cultivate it over time into what we know now is beer beer became an integral part and aspect of growth in ancient civilizations throughout eurasia north north africa really including egypt the beers were often thick and more solid based like the consistency of something like watery oatmeal drinking straws because of this drinking straws were really used often with the this thick like gruel because the straws were able to really filter out the alcohol and the more liquid based and then separate the solids we have some artwork that we're going to show you and it's probably appearing right now so definitely check that out we've got some evidence of that ancient rome consumed beer as well but it lost its popularity because of wine really beer was enjoyed by the roman legionnaires referred to as cerevisia from a Celtic dialect the roman pronunciation obviously is evolutionary in that latin that latin beginning to what spanish countries now refer to as cerveza so that's where you know if you if you get a corona and you see cerveza that had obviously latin roots going all the way back to roman times i thought that was kind of interesting i wanted to include that evidence of roman legionnaires drinking beer has recently been unveiled from the vindolanda tablets these are thin wooden leaf tablets and the writings included a calvary officer requesting more beer to be sent to a garrison because they had already consumed all of the previous stock so it wasn't such high demand for the soldiers they were just flying through this beverage you know and beer today is considered a very working class type drink so it's kind of interesting how that parallel of soldiers and working class still continues oh thousands of years later in the ancient mesopotamia brewing became a well respected occupation that was often performed by women their their process included using baked bread that was cooked twice called bat pier and it was used only for brewing it was also realized that over time by by brewers that reusing these same tubs and containers for fermenting produced more consistent brewing results and that brewers actually brought these tubs with them when they moved or traveled to new locations these these tubs weren't just simply thrown away they had been over time they had kept producing more more you know consistent beer there wasn't bad batches of beer and I think that was because of the excess yeast and fermentation the the residues that were left on the barrels they just you know consistently produced good batches versus bad a beer for egyptians was also very important beer was considered an essential part of a pharaoh's diet which was used often in religious ceremonies beer even assisted in the construction of the great pyramids of giza if you can believe that each worker received anywhere from four to five liters of beer daily which the egyptians considered they actually considered nutritious they thought you know beer was good for you even though you know probably lots of their workers were drunk if you consume four to five liters of beer you're getting drunk a day yeah beer became one of the most common drinks also in the middle ages it was drank by all social classes in european regions where great cultivation was unattainable because you you know for wine it seems like if you look at a map of europe the northern territories of europe really had strong beer consumption the lower obviously towards italy in those regions where you know you had great cultivation wine was just more predominant beer was popular throughout these various northern european regions even despite being regarded by many as unhealthy for instance in 1256 the i hope i pronounced this the royal family uh all all do brandino of sienna there we go describe the consumption of beer as and this is quote but from which whichever it is made whether from oats barley or wheat it harms the head and the stomach it causes bad breath ruins the teeth it fills the stomach with bad fumes and as a result anyone who drinks it along with wine becomes drunk quickly but it does have the property of facilitating urination and makes one's flesh white and smooth so certainly there was some pushback to beer i mean this is in 1256 so but it still kept going you know the production can still kept going even despite this negative pushback the flavoring of beer seems to have emanated in the ninth century an example of this is seen in the use of hops in beer which was written about in 1822 by a calorini a calorindian abbot uh hopped beer was eventually perfected in the medieval towns of bahemia by the 13th century beer for the most part was brewed in family homes during medieval times then by about 1415 centuries brewing uh became more artisan and and was produced in brewery like facilities that included pubs monasteries that could deliver in mass quantities so there's a little history and background to the early beginnings of one of my favorite drinks really i mean i i'm like a beer carnosaur i anything from guiness to um to long trail to you know uh switchback i mean i i love this sudsy drink it's it's just it's very enjoyable i've loved it for a long time and i just like looking at the history of it so if you've learned something from this video uh definitely subscribe to our youtube channel we like doing videos on history history of beer vintage maps history of the revolutionary war i mean we go all over the place we also like tying history to current events and holidays we like to have a little bit of fun so if you like this video definitely subscribe to our youtube channel leave a comment on this video if you have any questions about the history of beer like this video uh definitely check us out uh and i will see you guys soon okay take care all right bye