A selection of facts you definitely didn’t know. Beer is one of the three most popular drinks in the world, second only to tea and water. And among alcoholic beverages it has no equals, foamy beverage surpasses even wine. In this material we will tell you 10 interesting facts about the popular alcoholic beverage.
Beer was first produced in Ancient Egypt in the Neolithic era about 9500 BC. But they did not know how to filter it, so they drank through a straw. The greeting “Bread and beer!” was also popular among the Egyptians. Even the cultivation of grain crops began for the sake of beer, not bread. But in ancient China this drink was made from sprouted rice, with fruit thrown in as an additive.
Beer was popular in Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and Ancient Armenia. It was mainly made in places where weather conditions did not allow grape cultivation. The popularity of beer did not diminish in the modern world.
Top 10 facts about beer
In Egypt it was beer instead of water.
During the Stone Age there was a global problem in Egypt – the severe pollution of the Nile. The water from the river was not drinkable, so the inhabitants used beer instead of water. Even the workers who built the pyramids quenched their thirst with it. Three glasses a day were given to one person. It was also believed that beer increased stamina and performance.
The first brewers were women
From the origin of the foamy drink until the end of the eighth century, brewing was a female occupation. Moreover, only beautiful women were allowed to work. This was true for all countries where beer was brewed. Even the patronesses of the drink were goddesses: in southern Mesopotamia (now Iraq) there was the goddess Ninqasi and in Egypt – Menket.
The most unusual beer
Guinness is the benchmark for dark beer and has an original taste. Its main uniqueness is that the bubbles do not rise, but remain at the bottom of the glass. The reason is the gas, in this kind of beer it is not made of carbon dioxide, like in other beers, but of nitrogen. By the way, nitrogen is less soluble in water. But it is used to make light bubbles visible in dark beer. There are certain rules of how to pour glasses of this variety, for this you need to have a special skill.
The Czech Republic is the leader in beer drinking
In the Czech Republic drink beer more than any other country. According to statistics, a male representative of the country consumes more than 150 liters of beer per year. In second place is Ireland with 131 liters and the third is Germany with 115 liters per person.
The first beer advertisement was before Christ
The first advertisement for the heady drink dates back to 4000 B.C. The advertisement was in the form of a medium-sized clay tablet with a picture of a girl with a big bust holding beer glasses in her hands. At the bottom of the plaque was scratched out the inscription, “Drink beer with a lion’s heart!”
There are 400 different kinds of beer
There are more than 400 varieties of beer in the world, most of them brewed in Belgium, where they are all officially registered. Beer also includes traditional ales and lagers. But the flavors can be completely different: from pizza to doughnuts. The heady beverage can be diluted with milk, banana, watermelon and even coffee beans. Unusual kinds of beer can be tasted in Belgium, where special “beer tours” are held.
You can’t drink beer from the bottle
It turns out that drinking beer from the bottle is not at all a bad taste, but simply will not pass the entire taste of the foamy drink. It should be consumed only from the glass, which also has a number of requirements. Each kind of beer requires a separate vessel. Bartenders made statistics, men drink a cylindrical mug of beer in 11 minutes, and in the expanding upward glass – in seven minutes.
Drinking beer on a regular basis takes a serious toll on one’s health.
Hops belong to the same plant group as marijuana
Hops are a genus of climbing herbaceous plants in the cannabis family. But unlike marijuana, they have no narcotic effect. Until 1927 the genus hops belonged to the mulberry family, but botanists, after a number of studies, concluded that this was a mistake and that hops should be reclassified to the cannabis family.
To become a city, you have to brew beer
Surprisingly, in the Middle Ages, if a Czech village wanted to raise its status to a city, it had three conditions. The first was to set up a customs office. The second was to have a court. And three, build a brewery.
Beer makes ants drunk
Naturalist John Lubbock decided to conduct an experiment in which he gave ants beer to drink. As a result, he noticed that these insects, like people, get drunk on alcoholic beverage. He also made an interesting observation that those individuals who did not drink beer helped those who drank, namely dragged them back into the burrow.