The Greatest Story Ever Retold

   
   
Beer:   
I'm not much for drinking it myself but I make an acceptation tonight as I enjoy a dark-hearted six pack while explaining some of the more enjoyable notes of what’s been lurking behind the stout for thousands of years, and the science. Fascinating is the history of beer, and the discoveries and inventions that gave goodness to mankind. I hope you enjoy this fun write.    
   
Like most great inventions that have changed the course of human history, beer was stumbled upon by accident in the ancient area of Mesopotamia where the wild barely grew. Gathering grains was a must for survival. They collected and stored it in barrels and had left it set out while they went on a hunt for protein.    
   
As it rained while they were away the barley in the collection vessel billowed and grew; nothing to drink there yet, only swollen grain that was thought to be ruined. They just left it set. And so it rains once again over the open barley, but this time it was enough to fill the collection devise covering the barley completely, adding the water to sit and steep with the grain creating wild yeast that converted the barley's natural sugar into co2, thus creating an intoxicant liquid – producing the first beer. I’m sure it only took one drink of the strange concoction for them to realize that it was very different, and something very good. After three million years of meandering evolution this one accidental ferment and its intoxicating affects set in motion the rest of human history as we know it, even using the newly discovered yeast to create baked breads creating new recipes out of love and new found necessities gave the women something to do while their men were away. Beer is truly amazing in ways you could never realize without reading all that is written about it. After all, beer invented that too.    
   
The first writing ever recorded was Cuneiform script and beer was the reason for it. In Cuneiform script there are more words for beer than the Eskimo have for the word snow; a bit misleading for sake of the Eskimos. In fact, it is a widespread misconception. Truth is in contrast. It's the indigenous circumpolar group, European Sami people that actually have a rich vocabulary for snow and ice. I guess it's all in the definition and meaning of what an Eskimo is. (Now, back to my beer.)    
   
Through trial and error, beer and its effect; now famous, gave all reason needed to divide the land into shares to grow more barley and improve the quality of it, and with the division of land came a new need for record keeping, therefore inventing movable forms of writing; and yes, even Mathematics.  It wasn't out of any need except for what’s mine is mine, giving power to the revolutionary concept of greatness in quality and the need for quantity. One more beer is always best, at the time being, I guess…    
   
Another amazing anecdote is how beer built the Great Pyramid of Giza. It is estimated that it took twenty to thirty thousand workers to build the Pyramids at Giza, and more than eighty years, and interestingly enough, much of the work probably happened while the Nile was flooded.    
   
The Egyptians created tombs that were fit for Kings in the name of all that what was holy to them, BEER, the nectar of the gods and the injector of fear in running out because all the workers were paid in beer.  A gallon of beer then was used as what would be the equivalent today of a debit card, and it was tracked in that manner as well through the mathematics that it created out of necessity so many years before. Its value and inventions that it created became a staple for all ages to come.    
   
Back then, there was no such thing as a legal age limit, or even time limit for that matter in Egyptian culture. Everyone ingested it for necessary nutrition from the babes on up to ripe old men.  And everyone collected as much as they could to drink in the afterworld. Laborers were paid a gallon of beer a day for their efforts, and so they either drank it, used it to barter, or they stored it away for the sake of heaven. This was the Egyptian version of the 401K plan.    
   
The Great Pyramids and the afterlife it represents to us remains a mystery still to this day perhaps. But isn't that understandable in knowing the effects of alcohol in only the spoken notions of what happened last night? And who knows anyway? But nonetheless there is now a live Jersey grazing freely on the front lawn and fresh churned butter in the fridge.    
   
Nobody ever really knows how these things happen, especially knowing that they don't even own a butter churn, but we do know that it did involve beer, and by the look of it, and because of the evidence of all the empty containers thrown about, there was a hell of a lot of it. And to credit the Egyptians, it took two hundred thirty one million, four hundred fourteen thousand, and seven hundred fourteen gallons of beer to build the Great Pyramid of Giza. The figures involved are much like the pyramids themselves, and it’s just as well, the ancient figures that built them are all staggering to a legend.    
   
There were a wide variety of ailments that it treated as well. One being a simple gum disease, and a more unmentionable one it treated by the use of any leftover grain. Okay this part might get a little foggy, but for a short time the fumes were burned off producing smoke for anal fumigation to treat diseases of the bowls. This fact left me wondering how it was administered in that day and age, and who thought of it? The ancient Sphinx was tightly bound in mum words and this practice of fumigation quickly went out of style.    
   
There are certain things you just don't talk about after so many beers into the bad idea, sometimes, it’s just best to let the dream die not knowing where it's going to wake up again. And that it did, by the 1700’s it was back in ass flaming fashion using the method to resuscitate drowning victims. ????   (I just choked on my beer and drown in laughter) Move over Baywatch, because that would make an awesome shitcom… I mean sitcom. It just goes to show how long the pharmaceutical industry has been blowing smoke up our asses. It’s been going on for centuries.    
   
The biggest shock and new discovery for the credit of beer was found in the bones of a mummified corpse that was three thousand years old. Dr George Lagos, a professor of anthropology who studies mummified bones to find out how the ancient Egyptians lived, shockingly found a liberal amount of tetracycline in the bones of an Egyptian corps. This had to mean that it would have been in the daily diet.    
   
Tetracycline is a very specific antibiotic, a wonder drug of modern medicine that was not discovered until 1948. Antibiotics were the discovery of the 20th century in 1928 by Alexander Fleming earning him the Nobel Prize, so this discovery implying that ancient man already had access to the benefits was unbelievable.    
   
The study that Dr Lagos conducted was first thought to be botched, and so Dr Lagos took on the task to try and discover exactly what food the Egyptians were consuming to leave such an amazing clue of a modern cure. His laboratory recaptured and tested all the recipes the ancients consumed but always came up empty until a recipe for beer, more than three thousand years old, came into brew. He made it exactly as the ancients did and it tested positive for the tetracycline. Three thousand years before the modern world had honed in on the benefits of antibiotics, and it was the Egyptians that already knew. Who knew?    
   
Beer also unwittingly saved millions of lives in the Middle Ages in what is known now as mid evil Europe. Lifespan and expectancy of this era was in short, short. It was a time in history that gave you a 50/50 chance of survival by the innocent age of six. Warfare, plague, and pollution all added to the tribune of this dark and dreary age with reasons being that none was privy to the sanitary standards of today.    
   
Contaminated rivers and ravines were the source of drinking for everyone. But there was mass pollution of personal raw sewage that ran everywhere. The tanneries would let chemical waste run freely into the water supply; butcher shops would dump their offal waste from old carcasses that were deemed unusable. An entire population was unaware of the poisons ingested from the natural water supplies, and there was no connection to be made at the time.    
   
Imagine, physicians routinely going from patient to patient without any hand washing standards whatsoever. The only connection at this time made with living a longer life, was knowledge that it was not safe to drink the water but to keep drinking beer.    
   
This is now known because of the sterilization process that was needed then to produce a good brew. They were being saved by only the brewing process. Any liquid used at the time was safe only in the form of beer. These are not guesses; generations later, scientist took pond water laden with natural microorganisms and fecal matter of ducks and they reproduced the recipes using the contaminated water; they came up with a solution completely safe to drink in the form of beer. When your life depends on beer, it makes for a most valued commodity worth its weight in the golden liquid of longevity. By this time in the 16th Century every person accounted for the personal consumption of 300 liters of beer per year. That converts to about 127 gallons to consume for each and every man, woman, and child.    
   
It's no surprise that the groups cashing in the most on this demand were the Monks, known then as the master brewers. This holy alliance of bibles and the promise of a beer everlasting kept the churches packed for centuries. It was the staple of society and everyone wanted a share in the monopoly. It took on an entrepreneur type venture-ship for all that was anybody to get involved in making and perfecting the gold. This creating the deep rich culture of the modern Europe we know of today that will be celebrated in Renascence forever. And the arguments are pretty convincing that it also painted foundations in American western civilization.    
   
There was no fresh water supply on ships bound for the Americas, only a long supply of beer naturally preserved with alcohol and hops. It struck fear in the hearts of the crew of the Mayflower because of the filled kegs stored for the voyage had ran dry too soon, this leading them to any early landing at Plymouth Rock instead of the intended Virginia that had been originally mapped out.    
   
The next problem was to find a source to replace the grain and hops for a new brew. It was a problem that had to be dealt with immediately for fear of dehydration.  The new settlers would not dare drink the fresh pristine water that the new America offered knowing the history of water in making the body sick.    
   
But the answer was soon observed while watching squirrels gathering their nuts. The pilgrims tried their standard brewing techniques with the nutty idea and it worked; squirreled acorn beer year round.   America, land of the free, home of the brave, and built from the brew. Beers roll-play in the advent of America is undeniable; it runs though our history, and it is in our DNA.  
   
Plymouth by now is a distant memory when the panning out of America began to open to new ideas and frontiers that took hold in the open taverns that was costumed for travelers to discuss their dreams of new freedom, free from taxation without representation.    
   
Taverns connected America in new ways of socialization. In December 1773 at the Green Dragon Tavern in Boston Massachusetts the first talks of treason could be heard by the sons of liberty, setting in motion the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution. Talk of the American Revolution was with hand over hand and beer over beer, I’m sure. How many beers have we drunk so far? Is anybody keeping track?    
   
Founding fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Samuel Adams all were brewers of the America legend as we know it today. It was Ben Franklin who was so religious in drink and inspirational in words. “Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy”  To Ben Franklin, beers credibility was more than a drink, it was divine invention; it was evidence of eternal order in the universe.    
   
At this point in history after the American Revolution it was still unbeknown that germ warfare was the culprit for sickness; medicine was still stuck in the dark ages. Is it any wonder? Remember what they tried to do with beer fumes? And then it was Louis Pasteur’s turn at the beer helm, and Germ Theory was born.    
   
It is one of the most important discoveries in History by far. Germ Theory has proved itself in extending the human lifespan more than any other theory ever made into laws of a standard medical practice that we know today. And once again, beer has proven creditably. Louis Pasture and his legacy for pasteurization have always been synonymous to milk. But in fact, in was a beer that was beneath his microscope when he first discovered the living organism of germ. The only question Pasture was asking in the undertaking under his microscope that day was... why was the beer spoiling? Inadvertently, the answers that he stirred up changed the world. He saw and recognized the live yeast cells that were normal for the beer, and then he discovered a smaller more sinister living organism; the culprit of bad beer, bacteria.    
   
And then his most important question that he asked, if the bacteria can make the beer spoil, could it do the same thing to people? For the first time in history, this linking bacteria and germs to sickness, changing standards for simple hand washing techniques that has forever since saved lives.    
   
Before Louis Pasteur's Germ Theory, humans was clueless of any bacteria on anything, this making way for new discoveries in the who's who of the germ world. When you find the cause of something, the cure is always next to follow with the correct knowledge and understanding applied, all this playing out because of one brilliant man that was damn sick and tired of his beer going bad; well played Doktor!    
   
By this time America was becoming more spoiled to the revolutions and inventions beer produced, and now, sick and tired of having to drink it warm, they search was on for the ice chest. Ice was cumbersome and fickle to keep around and very expensive. And so the story goes; what better excuse for yet another life changing invention attributed to this goose that laid the golden egg; welcome to the Frigidaire age and ice cold beer, and then onward to keep food fresh for longer periods of time, bringing the industrial revolution into full swing with one more round. The End....    
   
And the rest is history; some of it pleasantly surprising and other parts just plain shocking. How interesting the history of beer! Discovering and inventing the most important ways of life used today, writing and mathematics to keep track of shares, the Great Pyramids, saving thousands of lives just by being the beverage of the era, brave comrades coming to the new world to start a better life.  This is the good stuff that we’re all made; trial and in error with new discoveries again and again, discovering the more valiant beer, finding a better way. And it all started with the accidental find after the rain, and then one brave soul to try it for the first time knowing that life will never be the same.    
   
   
Notes: This write was prompt by a documentary, How Beer Saved the World. Take everything with a grain of salt; which is good with a beer by the way...