The History Of Beer
Summary
TLDRThis video explores the rich history of beer, tracing its origins back 10,000 years to prehistoric feasts and rituals. It suggests beer may have played a pivotal role in the development of civilization, with its production leading to agriculture and societal structures. The script delves into beer's cultural significance across ancient civilizations, its role in religious practices, and its evolution through the industrial revolution to modern brewing techniques. Highlighting the beverage's enduring legacy, the video connects the ancient past with present-day celebrations and the revival of craft brewing.
Takeaways
- 🍻 Beer has a history of over 10,000 years, with evidence of its consumption dating back to prehistoric times.
- 🌾 The process of making beer involves fermenting grains with water, a process that could have influenced the shift from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural ones.
- 📜 Ancient civilizations like the Sumerians and Egyptians had a rich beer culture, with different types of beer for various social classes and occasions, including the afterlife.
- 🛠 The Industrial Revolution transformed brewing, leading to mass production and changes in beer types, with porters and stouts giving way to lighter, bitter beers.
- 🍺 The Reinheitsgebot, a German purity law from 1516, still influences beer production in Germany, limiting ingredients to barley, hops, and water.
- 🎉 Festivities and celebrations, such as Oktoberfest, are deeply intertwined with beer culture, showcasing its social significance.
- 🌍 Beer's influence is global, with various regions developing unique brewing techniques and beer types, like China's Tsingtao and the Andean's Chicha.
- 🚫 The Prohibition era in the United States nearly decimated the beer industry, leading to a period of corporate dominance post-World War II.
- 🏭 The rise of multinational corporations in brewing led to mass-marketed beers, but in recent years, a resurgence of small breweries has brought diversity back to the beer market.
- 📈 Today, beer is the most consumed beverage after water and tea, with an average annual production of 190 billion liters since 2010.
- 🌐 The script also promotes CuriosityStream and Nebula, highlighting a partnership that offers educational content and a platform for creators to share ad-free, uncensored videos.
Q & A
What is the history of beer and its significance in ancient civilizations?
-Beer has a history of over 10,000 years and has been consumed by various ancient civilizations such as the Levant and Turkey for feasts and rituals. It was considered a symbol of civilized people and was associated with gods and religious experiences. Beer might have even played a role in the development of civilization by encouraging hunter-gatherers to settle down and farm grains.
How did beer influence the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural ones?
-The script suggests that the desire to have a steady supply of grains for brewing beer could have motivated hunter-gatherer groups to settle in one place and start farming. This led to the development of communities, infrastructure, and eventually, the formation of governments and militaries.
What role did beer play in the Epic of Gilgamesh and what does it symbolize?
-In the Epic of Gilgamesh, beer and bread symbolize the transition of the wildman Enkidu into a civilized Sumerian citizen. The act of eating bread and drinking beer is depicted as a rite of passage, possibly reflecting the historical shift of people from a nomadic to a settled lifestyle.
How was beer brewed and consumed in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia?
-Ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians brewed various types of beer for different social classes and purposes, including for the afterlife. They consumed beer through straws that pierced through a yeast cake, which also served as a filter for the drink.
What is the significance of the Goddess Hathor in Egyptian mythology and how is she related to beer?
-Hathor is an Egyptian goddess associated with beer. She is known for a myth where she was tricked into drinking red dyed beer, thinking it was blood, which led to her calming down and stopping a rampage against humanity. This story connects beer with the salvation of humanity and Hathor's subsequent association with beer led to the TEKH festival, celebrating drunkenness.
How did the Industrial Revolution impact the brewing industry and the types of beer produced?
-The Industrial Revolution led to the mechanization and mass production of beer. It also influenced the types of beer produced, with the emergence of lighter and bitter Pale Ales becoming popular due to changes in taste and the influence of imperialism.
What was the Reinheitsgebot and how does it continue to influence beer production today?
-The Reinheitsgebot, enacted in 1516, was a German purity law that dictated that only barley, hops, and water could be used in the production of beer. This law still influences how beer is produced in Germany today, maintaining a focus on traditional ingredients and methods.
How did the Prohibition in the United States affect the brewing industry and its subsequent recovery?
-Prohibition from 1920 to 1933 outlawed alcoholic beverages in the US, leading to the closure of many small breweries. After Prohibition ended, the industry was dominated by large corporations. However, in recent years, small breweries have made a comeback, producing unique beers and offering a diverse range of flavors.
What is the significance of the Märzenbier and how is it connected to Oktoberfest?
-Märzenbier, or March Beer, is a type of beer that was traditionally brewed in March and fermented in cool caves until September. It became associated with Oktoberfest, a celebration that started in honor of a royal wedding and now attracts millions of visitors who consume large quantities of Märzenbier.
How did beer play a role in the Andean civilization and the production of Chicha?
-In the Andean civilization, Chicha, a maize beer, was used in various celebrations and religious ceremonies. The Inca Empire used beer as a form of taxation and reward for citizens' service to the state, leading to a significant investment in maize production and distribution infrastructure.
What is the connection between the video platform Nebula and CuriosityStream as mentioned in the script?
-Nebula is a video platform created by educational content creators, including Cogito, and it has partnered with CuriosityStream, a service offering world-class documentaries. The partnership offers a deal where subscribers to CuriosityStream also get access to Nebula, providing an ad-free and uncensored platform for educational content.
Outlines
🍻 The Ancient Origins of Beer and Its Role in Civilization
This paragraph delves into the rich history of beer, tracing its origins back to 13,000 years ago with the people of the Levant and Turkey. It discusses how beer was made from fermenting wild grains before the advent of farming. The script suggests that beer, rather than bread, might have been the catalyst for humans to transition from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a settled farming one. The paragraph highlights the significance of beer in ancient Sumerian and Egyptian cultures, where it was a symbol of civilization and played a role in religious rituals and daily life. It also mentions the Epic of Gilgamesh and the tomb of King Scorpion I, emphasizing the cultural and historical importance of beer.
🌾 Beer and Mythology: The Divine Elixir of the Ancients
The second paragraph explores the mystical and religious connections of beer in ancient civilizations. It explains that the transformation of grains into beer seemed magical to early farmers and was associated with various deities. The script describes Egyptian myths involving the god Osiris and the goddess Hathor, who played central roles in beer-related myths and festivals. The paragraph also discusses the Sumerian goddess of beer, Ninkasi, and the practice of communal drinking from a shared jug. It touches on the nutritional value of ancient beer and its significance in the diets of ancient people, as well as its role in the economies and social structures of Mesopotamia and Egypt.
🌍 The Global Impact of Beer: From Ancient Brews to Modern Celebrations
This paragraph broadens the perspective to the global influence of beer throughout history. It mentions the discovery of brewing in China, the role of beer in diplomacy and social bonding in Scandinavia, and the unique use of beer in Sudanese Nubian antibiotic production. The script also covers the impact of beer on the fall of the Shang dynasty in China, the importance of beer in the daily rations of American soldiers during the Revolutionary War, and the growth of St. Patrick's Day celebrations in the United States. The paragraph highlights the industrialization of beer production and the influence of companies like Guinness on the global beer market.
📜 The Evolution of Beer: From Gruit to Hops and the Reinheitsgebot
The fourth paragraph focuses on the evolution of beer brewing techniques and ingredients. It explains the use of gruit, a mix of herbs and spices, and how it was replaced by hops in regions like Bavaria and Bohemia due to their preservative qualities and lack of taxation. The script discusses the significance of the Reinheitsgebot, the German purity law of 1516, which dictated that beer could only be made with barley, hops, and water. It also touches on the seasonal brewing laws in Bavaria and the creation of Märzenbier, setting the stage for the famous Oktoberfest celebrations.
🎉 Modern Beer Culture: From Prohibition to the Resurgence of Craft Breweries
This paragraph examines the impact of the 20th century on beer culture, starting with the Prohibition era in the United States and the subsequent rise of large corporations in the beer industry. It discusses the role of marketing and the homogenization of beer flavors due to mass production. The script then highlights the resurgence of small breweries and the diversification of beer flavors in recent years. It also touches on the international aspects of beer, including the establishment of Tsingtao Brewery in China and the global reach of companies like Anheuser-Busch.
🏆 The Triumph of Beer: A Global Phenomenon Spanning Millennia
The final paragraph wraps up the script by emphasizing the enduring significance of beer in human culture. It notes the current status of beer as the most consumed beverage after water and tea, and reflects on the social and ceremonial roles that beer continues to play around the world. The script also promotes the Nebula platform and CuriosityStream, offering viewers access to exclusive educational content and a discount on subscriptions, thus connecting the historical narrative of beer to modern media consumption.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Beer
💡Civilization
💡Fermentation
💡Yeast
💡Hunter-Gatherers
💡Brewing
💡Oktoberfest
💡Reinheitsgebot
💡Industrial Revolution
💡Craft Beer
💡Prohibition
Highlights
Beer has a rich history dating back 10,000 years, predating human settlement and farming.
Early humans may have transitioned from hunter-gatherers to farmers due to the desire to cultivate grains for beer production.
Beer played a significant role in ancient civilizations, influencing social structures and religious practices.
The Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Sumerian civilization symbolizes the transition to a civilized life through beer and bread.
Ancient Egyptians believed beer was a divine gift and associated it with their gods, including Osiris and Hathor.
The story of Hathor and the red dyed beer illustrates how beer may have 'saved' humanity in Egyptian mythology.
In Sumeria, the Goddess Ninkasi was revered as the deity of beer, highlighting the role of women in ancient brewing.
Ancient beer was nutritious, providing vitamins, minerals, and fiber that complemented the diets of early farmers.
The Code of Hammurabi included regulations on the price of beer, indicating its economic importance in ancient Mesopotamia.
The production of beer in ancient Egypt was massive, with one brewery producing 40,000 pints at a time for workers' wages.
Sudanese Nubians used beer fermentation to produce the antibiotic tetracycline, predating modern antibiotics by thousands of years.
Guinness, founded by Arthur Guinness, revolutionized brewing during the industrial revolution and became an international brand.
The Prohibition era in the United States (1920-1933) had a profound impact on the beer industry, leading to the rise of large corporations post-World War II.
The modern craft beer movement has seen a resurgence of small breweries, offering a diverse range of flavors and brewing techniques.
Beer is now the most consumed beverage on Earth after water and tea, with an average annual production of 190 billion liters since 2010.
Nebula, a video platform created by educational content creators, offers ad-free and uncensored content, including exclusive videos and extended cuts.
CuriosityStream, partnering with Nebula, provides access to world-class documentaries and educational content, with a special offer for Cogito viewers.
Transcripts
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Cheers! *Glasses clink*
There's nothing quite like a refreshing pint of beer, but did you know there is
10,000 years of history in this glass? Beer has been poured since prehistory. Slurped
by Hunter- Gatherers & Pyramid Builders, Pharaohs, Vikings, the Inca and the Irish.
Chugged from jugs, horns, skulls, steins, and even through golden straws used to
pierce through a warm crusty yeast cake. Yeap crusty yeast cake, we’ll get to that.
So what is the history of beer,
how did it save humanity, and can a hangover be a religious experience? Well, Let’s Find Out.
Our story begins a long-long time ago. At least as far as 13,000 years ago,
people in the Levant and Turkey were making beer for feasts and rituals
by fermenting wild grains. This is before humans settled down and started farming!
Beer is essentially liquid bread. To make either: you mix grain like barley, wheat,
or rice with water and leave it to ferment. Grains ferment because of yeast, tiny single-celled fungi
that are everywhere. These little buddies turn sugars in the grains into alcohol. If you leave
out some mushed up grains, wild yeasts will find them and start fermenting. Wild yeasts
have a very particular set of skills, they will find you and they will ferment you. Make a dough
from the fermented mush and bake it and you’ll get bread, a more soupy version becomes beer.
Academics used to think humans settled down and started farming to secure a steady supply of
grain to make bread. But...and it’s a big butt, hunter-gatherers had a better diet,
shorter workdays, and healthier lives than early farmers. Why would humans swap their chill
hunter-gatherer lives to become hard-working mostly bread eating farmers? If bread was a
convincing reason to start doing Civilisation then ducks would have beaten us to it.
Maybe...and it’s a big maybe, 10,000 years ago hunter-gatherer groups routinely came
together to party and drink beer they made from wild grain. Then they realised they could
secure a steady supply of grain to make beer if they stayed in one place and farmed grains.
Beer and festivals might have convinced hunter-gatherers to settle down in cramped
towns and work long gruelling days on farms under the rule of Kings, Pharaohs, and Priests.
These first farmers in Mesopotamia now had to seed, plough, and maintain the land.
Communities came together to build infrastructure like irrigation canals for their crops. Once
the grain grew, they had to learn how to store, process, and distribute it. Which led to writing
and governments and militaries to protect those grains...and maybe steal other peoples grains
and force the remaining hunter-gatherers to become farmers too. And boom now you've got
Civilisation. Learning how to manage a grain surplus is essentially what
Civilisation is. So maybe our craving for beer created civilization as we know it.
Beer and Bread quickly became the symbols of civilised people.
The ancient Sumerians wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh around the 3rd millennium BCE. In it we learn the
story of Enkidu, a wildman, who lives outside of civilisation. The city-living king Gilgamesh
decides to civilise Enkidu and so sends Shamhat, a temple prostitute to tame him. After spending some
days together Shamhat tells Enkidu to "eat the bread, Enkidu, it is the way one lives / Drink
the beer, as is the custom of the land". He ate the food and "he drank the beer—seven
jugs!...and turned into a human". It was beer and bread that turned Enkidu from a wildman into
a proud Sumerian citizen, possibly a metaphor for what happened to the Sumerians themselves.
The Mesoptamians and Egyptians brewed dark beer, light beer, beer for the rich and poor
and for the living and the dead, and many others we still can't translate. In Egypt,
tombs were filled with a special kind of "beer that would not turn sour"— so the
dead could enjoy it even in the afterlife. We see this in the tomb of King Scorpion I
who lived in the 3200s BCE. This Scorpion King was buried with over 2,000 vessels
of beer. Ordinary dead Egyptians only had a few small jars of beer to enjoy after death.
We didn’t discover what yeast was until the 1800s and so for the first farmers the transformation
of grains into beer must have seemed magical and connected to the Gods. Beer shows up across
Egyptian mythology. The God Osiris brought brewing to humans. Another myth tells us that, one day,
Ra was furious because he thought humanity was plotting against him. He sends his daughter, the
Goddess Hathor to punish people by killing them and drinking their blood. And she does an amazing
job at murdering everyone! Just look at her go! Ra realised that there would soon be no people left
to worship him. So he tricked his daughter into drinking red dyed beer. Thinking it was blood,
Hathor chugged the beer and passed out. She woke up with a peaceful heart and stopped her rampage.
So technically humanity was saved by beer!
Hathor became tightly associated with beer.
The Egyptians dedicated a holiday to her: the TEKH festival, the festival of drunkenness.
During the celebrations people would drink as much as possible while dancing and singing until they
fell asleep. Then in the morning, priests would sneak into the party hall with a massive statue
of Hathor and then wake up the partiers with loud drums. This sudden "sobering up" in the Goddess’
presence was supposed to produce a spiritual connection and probably one hell of a hangover.
In Sumeria Ninkasi was the Goddess of Beer and women were the primary beer brewers. Sumerian
beer was a thick frothy drink, drunk by several people out of the same jug.
Both the Mesopotamian cuneiform character and the Egyptian hieroglyph for beer
are little beer jugs which is kind of adorable.
They drank these beers immediately after brewing when it was fresh.
Each person had their own straw made from a reed or gold if you were rich.
They used the straws to poke through the thick crusty yeast cake that formed on the top of the
warm fermenting beer. The straws also helped filter out any bits that were floating in the
beer. Here you can see an Egyptian drinking beer using the world's first crazy straw. Also here
is a 3200 year old Egyptian painting of a Hippo making beer because everyone needs to see this.
Warm chunky beer might not sound nice to us but they were very nutritious. Ancient beer
was a good source of vitamins B6 and B12, minerals, antioxidants, and even fibre.
This made up for the lack of meat and vitamins in farming peoples' diets.
In Egypt Pharaohs and nobles drank elaborate spiced and sweetened beers,
and workers would get a simpler version. In Sumeria,
women working in temples were paid 2 litres of beer daily...children got 1 litre.
The Code of Hammurabi, of eye for an eye fame, had laws regulating the price of
beer. And the workers who built the pyramids of Giza were paid in beer! Not just beer obviously
but it was a part of their wages. To pay all those workers Egypt needed to produce
a lot of beer. One large brewery we've discovered produced 40,000 pints of beer at a time.
Just South of the Egyptians, Sudanese Nubians used fermenting beer to create antibiotics.
During the fermentation process they produced the antibiotic tetracycline and used it to
treat bacterial infections 2000 years before Alexander Flemming discovered penicillin.
Over in China the earliest finds of beer making are from 7,000 BCE,
and it was probably fermented from rice, berries and honey.
During the Shang dynasty, the palace had official brewers and taverns popped up in large cities.
Di Xin, the last emperor of the Shang dynasty might have liked beer
a bit too much. One of his parties had a lake of beer and meat forest,
and he "made men and women chase each other about quite naked, and had drinking bouts
the whole night long.". The people eventually turned on him and the royal palace with Di Xin
inside it was burned. The Shang dynasty quickly collapsed and many blamed it on the drinking.
Up in Scandinavia beer and mead, a drink made with fermented honey, played an important part
in diplomacy, marriages, and funerals. Communal drinking from a single cup was also a thing. They
even had triple cups to make things easier. This helped people build strong bonds with each other.
Some Norse warriors, known as berserkers which means bear-shirt, were said to enter
a sort of trance to increase strength during battle. Scholars think they did this by mixing
psychoactive plants into their beer or mead. Which pumped them up for battle
but also caused hallucinations, delirium, seizures, coma, and sometimes...death.
Some researchers believe that the Berserker hallucinogenic
might have been henbane. This plant was found all across European archaeological sites,
like Skara Brae, a Neolithic site and ancient brewery from around 3,000 BCE.
The Celts also seemed to have used henbane in their beer. Unfortunately,
most of what we know about the Celtic beer comes from Roman sources, who hated beer.
But the wine-loving Romans have more to do with beer than you might think.
The words Beer came to us from the word "bier", from old Germanic languages
which might come from an older Germanic word “beura”. But others scholars believe
"bier" got to German via the Latin word biber, which means a drink or a beverage.
Today most counties use a word that sounds like beer. But Spanish speakers decided
to be awkward and use cerveza which came from the language of beer-hating Romans,
Latin and probably comes from the Roman goddess of growth Ceres, which is where the word cereal
comes from. Or from a Celtic word for beer that morphed into cervisia then cerveza.
In Early English Ale was the common word for beer and is still the word for beer in Scandinavia
as Øl and the Baltics as Alus, beer only took over as a word in English later.
With the fall of the Roman empire in the 5th century CE, the invasion of the germanic tribes,
and the rise of the Catholic Church, beer gained a new role in everyday European life.
One catholic bishop, noted while visiting the Rhine river region, that the people drank "like
mad [men] and that one has to thank the Lord to survive their drinking bouts".
The Church was hopeless about getting them to quit their "mad" drinking,
so it embraced it instead. They matched the pagan festivities to Christian holidays,
pairing traditions like the Germanic Yule with Christmas, or the bonfire
solstice rituals with Saint John's Day and monks became some of the best beer brewers.
Christian Monks also travelled a lot. It is thanks to the Flemish monk,
William of Rubruck that we know that the Mongols drank beer in style.
In 1253 William entered Karakorum, the capital city of the Mongol empire at that time.
He was dazzled by the Khan's fountain. It was a magnificent silver tree,
with silver serpents coiling around it. On its base there were 4 lions also made of silver,
each of them spewing mare milk. From the branches of the tree 4 pipes poured grape wine,
fermented mare milk, rice beer and honey mead into basins for drinkers to enjoy.
In Medieval Europe women were the primary brewers and in England they were called
Alewives. As cities grew Alewives began making a profit from selling beer. Seeing this,
men quickly decided to take over brewing. Unlike their wives, men could take out loans
and set up guilds to protect their business and regulate the market in their favour.
Between the 13th and 15th centuries alewives were depicted with gross physical features
and some were even charged with witchcraft and alewives were pushed out of the beer business
and men took over.
Up until the 13th century, beer was brewed with GRUIT, not that Groot!
A combination of herbs and spices that added flavour and helped preserve the beer longer.
So you didn't have to drink it as soon as it was fermented like back in Sumeria.
Taxing gruit became an effective way to regulate and tax beer production.
But Bavarians and Bohemians found an alternative to gruit: hops. Hops are these terrifying looking
plants. They added bitterness and extra flavours to beer, but more importantly hops were cheap,
untaxed and they’re antimicrobial effects preserved beer much longer than Gruit could.
The longer the beer lasts, the further it can travel. Some cities became
major beer exporters. By the 1400s, the city of Hamburg had 15-20
thousand people but was producing an average of 30 million litres of hopped beer per year.
Laws were soon passed to regulate beer production. The most famous one being the 1516 REINHEITSGEBOT,
or German purity law, saying the only ingredients allowed for making beer were barley, hops and
water. Today 500 years later the Reinheitsgebot still influences how beer in Germany is produced.
In 1553 Bavaria passed a law forbidding brewing during Summer,
saying the weather would spoil the beer. Brewing started in March, and they would leave it to
ferment in very cool caves until September, and so Märzenbier or March Beer was born.
In 1810, there was a huge public party in honour of the wedding of prince Ludwig of
Bavaria and princess Therese. They had parades, horse races, and lots of beer. The wedding
was in Munich in October, pairing perfectly with the opening of the Märzenbier barrels.
It was such a success that they decided to repeat the celebrations every October
and it became known as Oktoberfest. Today Oktoberfest runs from mid-September to
October and every year the Munich Oktoberfest attracts more than 6
million visitors, consuming more than 7 million litres of beer, a lot of it being Märzenbier.
On the other side of the ocean at least since the 4th century BCE
Andean societies were brewing their own maize beers that today we call
CHICHA. Andean women chewed the maize to start the fermentation process and then brewed the beer.
Chicha was used to celebrate harvests, the new year,
weddings, and funerals. They offered Chicha to the Sun,
and poured it over the ground during festivals because the gods always got the first sip.
The Inca civilisation uniquely functioned without currency or markets. The citizens paid taxes by
giving their labour to the state and they got all of their basic necessities from state-owned
warehouses. The empire hosted massive feasts with thousands of litres of Chica, to repay people
for their service to the state. The Inca feasting economy created an insatiable demand for beer. In
the Quechua language, the city of Cuzco, the Inca capital city, was called AKHA MAMA, meaning chicha
mother. The Inca Empire invested in expanding maize production by opening up new areas to farm,
creating colonies in fertile regions, and improving technology. Maize production skyrocketed
under the Inca and their system of roads was so well developed that they could easily distribute
and store grain across their mountainous country, one of the largest empires on Earth at the time.
When the Spanish conquered the region they tried to ban Chicha production but Andean women managed
to keep it alive and thanks to them today you can sip this ancient drink across South America.
In 18th century colonial America during the Revolutionary War against Britain,
American soldiers' daily rations included about 1 liter of beer. And in 1780,
general George Washington granted his troops their one winter holiday. The 17th of March,
to celebrate St Patrick's feast, a considerable percentage of the army at the time was Irish.
With the mass migration of poor Irish people to America in the 19th century, Saint Patrick's day
celebrations grew and grew. Today more than half of the US population celebrates it. The city of
Chicago even dyes its river green. In Ireland we don't dye the rivers green but there are parades,
dances, drinking, and cultural events like Seachtain na Gaeilge or Irish Language Week.
Worldwide, more than 13 million pints of Guinness,
Ireland’s famous stout beer, are served on St. Patrick's Day.
Arthur Guinness was part of a group of pioneers that revolutionized brewing during the industrial
revolution. He decided to open his own brewery at St. James’ Gate Dublin in 1759.
Signing a famous 9,000 year lease for £45 per year. Quite annoying because I
used to live next door to this brewery and my rent was much higher than £45!!
Guinness was an international success and was shipped all over the world.
The first brewery abroad opened in 1963 in Nigeria, only two years after the country
became independent. Guinness is so popular there that some Nigerians think of Guinness as their
national beer and they are the world’s second largest consumer of Guinness.
In Ireland up until quite recently Guinness was associated with good health.
For many years doctors prescribed Guinness to postoperative patients,
blood donors, and pregnant women, believing it was rich in iron.
While industrial scale brewing made Arthur Guinnees other factory-owners rich,
many workers were crushed by the industrial malt mill,
drowned in beer vats or asphyxiated by the CO2 generated by fermentation.
London had a deadly incident in 1814, when a 6.7m tall (22 foot) wooden vat filled with porter beer
burst. The half a million liters beer "tsunami" flooded a neighbourhood and killed 8 people.
But the Industrial revolution didn't just affect the brewing process, it changed the palate too.
During the Industrial Revolution the deep, rich, heavy porters and stouts of the working class
were all the rage but then BOOM...IMPERIALISM. Tea and coffee took over Europe as they poured in from
overseas colonies and the emerging Middle Classes developed a taste for bitter drinks. Light and
bitter Pale beers rose in popularity. AND THEN IMPERIALISM STRIKES AGAIN! On the other side
of the planet, the British Indian army waited impatiently in the Indian heat for their beer.
Dark beers kept arriving stale and skunky. After six months of rocking at the bottom of a ship,
what did they expect? Then some companies tried sending some paler beer packed with hops, which,
as we have seen, is a powerful preservative. The beer was,
not very creatively🙄, named Indian Pale Ale, or IPA for short.
Let's go up to 19th century China and see what's going on..BOOM IMPERIALISM STRIKETH YET AGAIN!
In 1897, Imperial German naval troops went to the other side of the planet
to seize the Chinese fort at Tsingtao,. The Germans built a small village near the fort,
and by 1903 the city was attracting investors. Among them were the founders of Germania Brewery,
which later became Tsingtao Brewery. In the beginning, Tsingtao Beer was brewed in
accordance with the German Reinheitsgebot (Purity Law), but after the company was privatized in the
1990s Tsingtao added rice to the beer. Nowadays, Tsingtao is the second largest brewery in China,
with more than 17% of the domestic market, and 4.4% of the global beer production.
Germany also changed the beer history of another country.
In the 19th century, Germans went to America by the hundreds of thousands. By the end of
the century there were an estimated 2.8 million Germans living in the US.
Adolphus Busch was one of them. He partnered with Eberhard Anheuser, to establish what would
become the biggest beer company in the world: Anheuser-Busch. Busch made many improvements
in beer production including pasteurization and refrigeration. After a trip to Bohemia,
the modern Czech Republic, he developed Budweiser, the biggest beer brand in the world. Which kind of
annoyed the Czechs who had a beer already called Budweiser for about 800 years. The dispute between
Budweiser and...Budweiser is why the American Budweiser is called just BUD in Europe. Today
Anheuser-Busch sales exceed 52 billion dollars a year, nearly 30% of the world market.
By the end of the 19th century drunkenness was becoming a social problem in the United States
and the Americans reacted harshly. From 1920 until 1933, alcoholic beverages were outlawed
across the US. Companies that had made fortunes in the decades before were suddenly struggling
to survive, selling anything from malt extract and "tonics" to ice-creams.
When Prohibition ended and the market picked up again after the end of World War II,
almost all small breweries had died out.
Beer brewing was now in the hands of gigantic corporations. Beer corporations became masters
of the new science of marketing and soon TV sets were filled with beer advertisements and
refrigerators were stocked with cold beer that was cheap, bottled, mass-produced, and mass-marketed.
In the last 20 years small breweries have made a comeback. Brewing their own
unique beers. Beer drinkers can now enjoy beer of all flavours,
you can even drink a beer called GILGAMASH based on the earliest beers brewed in Sumeria.
Since 2010 an average 190 billion liters of beer have been produced every year. It is the most
consumed beverage on Earth after water and tea. And each time a pint is raised to welcome friends,
to wish good health, to toast a new marriage, or to remember lost loved ones,
it is an act that has been repeated by humans every day for the last 10,000 years. Today maybe
we don’t believe beer connects us with the gods, but there is still some magic in it.
Although if you want to use beer to feel connected
to the gods again you can head to Guatemala and share a cigarette or a beer with Maximon
a Maya Folk saint. Evan from the channel Rare Earth did just that in this video over on Nebula.
Nebula is a video platform that Cogito and a bunch of our friends created
and now we’ve partnered with CuriosityStream.
Nebula is a place where you can watch some of the best educational content ad free, uncensored,
and earlier than on Youtube. This video was up on Nebula before it was on Youtube. Videos there
don’t have to compete to succeed in an algorithm so creators can also experiment there with
exclusive Nebula content and lots of videos you’ve seen on Youtube have extended cuts up on Nebula.
This channel has exclusive content on Nebula and by supporting Nebula you’ll be providing
a budget for creators to put together Nebula Originals that would never make it on Youtube.
Take for example RealLifeLore’s exclusive Nebula Original on Modern Conflicts
or the exclusive behind the scenes documentary on how Philosophy Tube is made.
There are many more Nebula Original videos and podcasts, all funded by and created for
people like you. People that enjoy original, independent, and smart content.
And now we’ve teamed up with Curiositystream,
the best place to find world class documentaries online. We’ve created a deal where if you follow
the link in the description you'll get access not only to Curiositystream but Nebula too.
For free! And it's not a trial or anything like that. As long as you're a Curiositystream member
you'll get Nebula. I saw these cute monkeys getting drunk on fermented fruit in the History
Of Food series on Curioistystream, if you liked this video then that series is perfect for you.
And right now Curiositystream is offering Cogito viewers
26% their annual subscription. That's less than $15 a year for both CuriosityStream and Nebula.
So click the link below to get 26% off an annual Curiositystream subscription
along with free access to Nebula or you can just go to curiositystream.com/cogito.
I hope you enjoyed this video. Let me know what you thought about it in
the comments below? What people would you like us to cover next.
You can find all the sources used in the description. If you are interested in supporting
the channel, there are links for Patreon and my t-shirt store also in the description.
My Patrons also get access to these videos early along with the extended commentary from the team.
Thanks a lot for watching and Cheers!.
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