History of National Drink Beer Day
Certainly one of the oldest man-made beverages in history, beer has been produced since the Neolithic Era with some breweries dating back as far as 1040. In fact, going back even further, some historians think that beer had its origins as early as the 5000 BC, in places such as Iran, Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Many people don’t realize that the recipe for beer is thought to be the oldest recorded recipe in the history of the world! Without an internet search or even cookbooks, these recipes for the brewing process were written on papyrus scrolls, including ingredients such as pomegranates, dates and various herbs.
Of course, that beer was probably quite different from what breweries put out today. Even so, there is little wonder why drinking beer has come to be such a popular and entertaining activity.
As beer made its way traveling across the Middle East through the Mediterranean and into Europe, the forms of beer developed that made use of the prolific supply of grains, such as barley.
In the Middle Ages, the modern beers that people think of today were finally brewed, using the malting process. Hops were then added to the process somewhere around the 1300s AD, and the ancestors of today’s beer became more recognizable.
National Drink Beer Day is celebrated a few days after the birthday of Arthur Guinness, the founder of the famed Guinness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland (Although his actual birth date is not recorded).
This seems like the perfect day to raise a glass and drink a beer in honor of this man who was so important to the history of beer. More than 200 years later, people are still enjoying his dark, creamy stout!