How Beer Changed the Course of History - Colm Finlay - Bram Stoker Paper
Reading - 6th February 2013
In recent times we have been witness to the growing public and political
opposition not only to the blights of binge drinking and alcoholism, but also to
alcohol and its consumption in previously more acceptable manifestations. In a
society that is becoming increasingly 'alcophobic' I have taken the onus upon
myself to make the case for alcohol, the public house and in particular, beer. In
this paper I will outline how the natural and artificial process of turning sugars
into drinks, like beer, contributed to the rise of life, civilisation and modern
culture in turn.
The earliest alcoholic drink that we are aware of is a primitive beer that was
produced and consumed by the Sumerians in Ancient Mesopotamia over 9500
years ago. We can see how important beer was to these people by looking at
their religion. The main Sumerian prayer was to the Goddess, Ninkasi and also
served as an instruction manual on how to brew beer, for the best way to make
an illiterate people remember how to do so was to include it in the primary
devotion. The following is an excerpt from the prayer:
"You are the one who waters the malt
set on the ground,
The noble dogs keep away even the potentates,
Ninkasi, you are the one who waters the malt
set on the ground,
The noble dogs keep away even the potentates.
You are the one who soaks the malt in a jar
The waves rise, the waves fall.
Ninkasi, you are the one who soaks
the malt in a jar
The waves rise, the waves fall."
Almost as soon as societies started to grow cereals whose sugars could easily
ferment into alcohol, they started to make beer or other alcoholic beverages.
Archaeologists have shown the advent of beer coincides very closely with the
advent of civilisation and many anthropologists now believe that the two are
inextricably linked and that advancements in metallurgy, agriculture and
technology were necessary spin-offs in the search to make larger scale brewery
possible. Once grains and cereals were domesticated, the advent of both beer and
bread seemed inevitable. The traditional view has been that bread was made
first and possibly lead to the creation of beer when people realised they could
make a pleasing drink by introducing water to the bread and leaving it to wait.
Although many scholars, such as Carla Helfferich, now argue that beer pre-dates
bread and early bread only existed to keep the ingredients for beer fresh for long
periods of time. Ultimately, the available evidence is too scant to draw a reliable
conclusion, but certainly both bread and beer were of great importance to early
civilisations as they are today.
While the Mesopotamians are believed to have been the first civilisation
to brew beer; beer was held in equally high regard by later civilisations. The
Egyptians deified beer as did the Norse, Czechs, Finns and countless other
societies. The Code of Hammurabi which dates back to circa 1772 BCE Babylon
and is one of the oldest deciphered writings in the world lays down 282 laws
including several on the production and distribution of beer. Owners of beer
parlors who overcharged customers were to be drowned and if a High Priestess
was found in one she was to be executed by fire.
The trade and transport of beer brought prosperity to many ancient
societies and increased interaction between different peoples, thus bolstering
the exchange of ideas, literature and technology. To this day, the production,
transport, advertising and vending of beer remains one of the globe's major
industries. Today, over 133 billion liters of beer are consumed annually making
it the third most widely consumed beverage in the world after only water and
tea. Maybe somebody else can do a paper on tea sometime.
It must be said that most societies, while holding alcohol in high regard,
encouraged its consumption in moderation for it is true that that which has a
great power to create also possesses a great power to destroy. A notable
exception would be the Cult of Dionysus in Ancient Greece who preached
drunkenness and of whom Alexander the Great was an adherent. In defense of
Alexander, the Roman historian Plutarch wrote that "Alexander was also more
moderate in his drinking than was generally supposed". Alexander, like many
overachievers was a highly troubled individual and in line with characters like
George Best he distracted himself from his own thoughts through his work.
Alexander was happiest while on the battlefield or launching campaigns, but
when forced to lay idly for periods of time his thoughts wandered and he turned
to binge drinking. His drinking caused him to attack and kill his own friend
during a heated moment of dispute as well as to burn down his own palace in
Persepolis, the largest palace ever built at the time, to which he felt immediate
remorse. Later in life, his abuse of alcohol arguably led to his own death when he
died of fever while in Babylon.
There is a pervasive myth which must be refuted that alcohol was and is
the scourge of civilisations who hadn't had exposure to it until European
colonisation and therefore the people had no tolerance to it. In fact, there has
been no civilisation, on record, that hasn't independently produced some
alcoholic drink. Native Americans drank Tiswin, the Mayans drank a honey wine,
the Incas drank beer and the aboriginal Australians drank many alcoholic drinks
derived from indigenous fruits. It is true that native communities in America and
Australia have disproportionately felt the adverse effects of alcohol for a long
time, but this is due to the socio-economic circumstances they are subject to. It is
true of native communities, as of all communities, that alcoholism runs in
families, and the patterns suggest that those who turn to alcoholism do so due to
low self-esteem, poverty and stress caused by centuries of social and political
oppression. For centuries, in Australia, aboriginal workers were paid in tobacco
and alcohol which may have contributed to the abuse of the substances.
More fundamental still to human existence, is a process called 'catabolic
degradation'. This transmogrification occurs where the digestive track breaks
down the natural sugars in its contents and converts it into ethanol. In other
words, your body naturally breaks down the starch in your intestines and turns
it into beer. Furthermore, it is thought that this process is essential to the
development of amino acids, the fundamental building blocks of all life.
In Ireland in 2010 farmers responded to the national surplus in potatoes
by feeding cattle on the excess harvest. Cows being ruminants partially digest
their food with bacterial action, regurgitate it, chew the cud and send it back
down to the other three stomachs in the digestive track. Because of this the
potatoes were converted into poitín, inside the cows' stomachs, leading to the
inebriation of cows all across Ireland. This can happen in any ruminants such as
goats, sheep, giraffes, llamas, camels and koalas after ingesting grain or fruit and
the same process reportedly takes place with the famous reindeer in Phoenix
Park every autumn when they internally transform the apples they ingest into
cider leading to the drunkenness of the deer. It also been suggested that this
accounts for the heightened aggression and libidos of the male deer in the park
every autumn.
On the point of male aggression: there is another widespread myth that
alcohol consumption leads to aggression and violence. In fact, all the research
suggests that the effects alcohol has on an individual is down, primarily, to what
they subconsciously believe the effects will be. This is why in many
Mediterranean cultures, people feel relaxed and mellow after drinking while
members of Irish or British society are prone to argument and fighting.
Members of the so-called 'dry countries' like Ireland and Britain are also
more likely to binge drink at the weekends and abstain during the week while
residents of the wet-countries such as Belgium and Italy often drink a small
amount every evening over dinner and rarely, or never, drink to excess. This
drinking regularly in moderation is a healthier habit and is less likely to cause
people to end up in the emergency room following accidents or aggression.
Looking at Irish history: beer has been an important industry and force for social
change for centuries. British colonists didn't include open fora or squares in Irish
towns due to the fear of people gathering and exchanging revolutionary ideas. So
it was that the public house became the center of both socialisation and
revolutionary intrigue. Furthermore, companies such as Guinness, Smithwick's
and others have been huge sources of employment in Ireland since their
establishment in the last three centuries. They have also done a great deal to
change, for the better, the treatment of workers; giving employees and their
families continuity and security of employment, pensions and decent
accommodation at a time when none of these things were the norm. To this day,
Ireland is the globe's third greatest exporter of beer after only Mexico and the
Netherlands. It is also of interest that the Smithwick's brewery in Kildare was
built atop a pre-existing monastery where the monks had been brewing red ale
since the early 13th century. Parenthetically: this point is an interesting one as
Christian monasteries were the primary brewers and sellers of beer for several
centuries in Medieval Europe. Monks drank beer while on periods of fasting and
the sale of the commodity was one of the major sources of income for many
monasteries. In those days the process of fermentation wasn't scientifically
understood so people put the occasional occurrence of a bad batch down to
demonic intervention while priests were paid large sums to bless batches of
beer, sometimes from afar. Eventually, local rulers had to step in and put a cap
on the fees priests could charge for such services. To this day many Belgian
monastery beers survive including the world-famous lager, Trappistes.
The public house was an important element of English culture too with
writer Samuel Pepys describing the pub as the heart of the country. Since Roman
times, it was the inn or tavern that provided the food and overnight
accommodation that made long distance travel and trade between different
countries possible.
Furthermore, apart from being bastions of socialisation and
entertainment, it is also thanks to the pub that many forms of traditional music
from across the world, such as African mumba and Ancient Greek music and
dancing, have survived where for long periods of time there was nowhere else
for the music to be fostered and brought to a public audience.
I will now look briefly at some of the eclectic uses of alcohol throughout history
and outline why among others; warmongers, gardeners, cooks, models, doctors,
dentists, residents of countries without proper sanitation, artists and socialites
all owe it a great debt.
Eastern Armies used beer to inebriate their war elephants giving them
the courage or foolhardiness to charge enemy ranks, while:
Gardeners use beer to lure slugs into traps. They leave beer in containers
on the ground which entices the slugs so that they can be easily captured,
eradicated and prevented from devouring shrubs, lawns and crops.
Cooks too have a great many uses for beer and other alcoholic drinks.
Without beer there could be no Irish Stew and no beer batter bread. Without
wine, much of French and Italian cuisine would be greatly impoverished and
even Christmas puddings and trifles rely on brandy and sherry, respectively.
Cleopatra who is said to have had great success in warding of many of the
signs of ageing, took baths in beer, immersing herself in the liquid and taking
advantage of its exfoliating properties.
Pure alcohol, in itself, has long been used in medicine. Alcohol has been
used to treat wounds for hundreds of years and even today, many anti-septic
wipes, mouth washes and disinfectants contain it.
The health benefits of drinking alcohol are also profound. Many public
health agencies repeatedly commit a great injustice in distorting or downright
neglecting the vast bulk of research in the area. The bulk of research in the area,
according to an analysis of 500 papers by Stanton Peele, goes to show that
moderate drinkers live longer than abstainers as well as earning more, being
further socially integrated and enjoying a better standard of mental health
including lower levels of stress and depression. Peele's analysis also shows that
alcoholism, or indeed the addiction to any drug, is not a consequence of drinking
or taking drugs, but rather of how the activity fits into people's lives. He also
shows that alcoholics are able to come out of alcoholism without treatment and
are able to keep on drinking after recovery.
It must also be said that beer was the staple of many peoples throughout
history. In Medieval Europe, for instance, beer was drunk as the water was to
filthy for human consumption. To this day, beer remains the safe option for many
people in the world. Many Mexicans drink large quantities of very weak beer
over the course of the average day in order to avoid drinking the sub-standard
water existing in most of the country. Of course in Russia a different meaning is
attached to the word 'weak' where until last year beer under 10% volume was
not counted as alcoholic.
The arts also owe a great debt to beer. Ludwig van Beethoven drank beer
before composing his symphonies. Édouard Manet was drunk painting his
masterpieces and countless musicians have calmed their nerves by drinking,
even negligible amounts, before performing. In Irish heritage, many of the great
writers were known for their exploits with beer: most notably the perpetually
intoxicated Brendan Behan who undoubtedly drank to the point of detriment to
himself and his family. There is a great story when on Bloomsday; Myles na
gCopaleen, Patrick Kavanagh and Samuel Beckett got drunk at the Symposium
for Joyce and stumbled down to Sandymount Strand where the infamous Cyclops
Episode of Ulysses transpired. Myles na gCopaleen and Patrick Kavanagh were
urinating up against a wall when Beckett beckoned Kavanagh who turned
around and urinated over Myles na gCopaleen. Whatever effect this alcohol
consumption had on the writers' respective work is debatable, but there is no
doubt that they produced masterpieces partly because of or in spite of their
drinking.
Of course there is the obvious social advantage of drinking beer. There
are few joys in life to equal the nipping out to the pub for a few pints or going to
the Bull and Castle for some steins: As Homer Simpson so elegantly puts it, "I'm
going to Moe's."
As we have seen, beer is the stuff of humanity and of life. It accounts for
our highs as well as our lows. It can lead to our demise, but more importantly it
is also responsible for our rise. And lastly, imagine a world where you had never
been drunk or come across someone else who was. Our art, literature, music and
personal lives would be the poorer for the lack thereof.
Finally, in conclusion, I'll leave you with a remark from the comedian
Henny Youngman, "When I read about the dangers of drinking, I gave up
reading".