The World In 6 Glasses Book Report

Beer, the first beverage appeared as a result of changed lifestyle for the early humans. Before, humans were nomads, who would follow their food (pg. 9). But starting about 12,000 years ago humans had picked up on a new lifestyle (pg. 9). These small bands of about 30 people were now settling down in more permanent areas and had abandoned their old ways of constantly traveling (pg. 9). This drastic turning point in human history seemed to primarily come from one reason, the discovery of beer (pg.11). As beer was basically formed from the gathering of barley and wheat, humans had to form some type of permanent residency, and abandon their old nomadic lifestyle (pg.11).

Beer was discovered because of the gathering of wild grains after the end of the Ice age in the Fertile Crescent, an area that was ideal for agriculture.

A) Unlike alcohol’s intoxicating effect, which made people sleepy and dulled their minds, coffee woke people up and made scientists, clerks, merchants and other businessmen more alert throughout the long workday. Coffeehouses also became places for people to exchange and listen to new ideas and theories in areas such as natural history, chemistry,

The first beverage that Standage discusses in his book is Beer. Beer was probably first discovered when someone left oats soaking in water out for a few days, then came

1. From which advanced civilization/culture did Europeans get the “science” of how to make spirits?

By Frank Beddor’s The Looking Glass Wars, he retells the story of Alice in Wonderland by putting it in the perspective of Alyss as the princess of Wonderland, when she is forced to flee Wonderland when her Aunt Redd (Queen Genevieve’s sister) comes to retake her throne. Alyss ends up in Victorian London and is separated from her keeper Hatter Madigan. Beddor changes the story to provide good significance and inspiring themes to give good imagery throughout the story. For example, in the story Queen Genevieve, Hatter, and Alyss forget their own survival to sacrifice themselves for the good of others.

As beer started becoming a necessity, it showed the strong need for agriculture in society. People came together, to make an industry of beer, and creating civilizations.

Beer started out as gruel, and as the gruel fermented it turned into beer. Now it was not the first form of alcohol, but it was an important kind of alcohol. Beer was made from cereal crops, which were very abundant, and because it was so abundant it could be made whenever it was needed. They then found an even easier way to make beer by using beer-bread. Beer bread is basically everything needed to make beer in a loaf, making it convenient to store the raw beer materials. Beer started as just a social drink but then blossomed into a “hallmark of civilization”, as seen by the Mesopotamians. Grain was the basis of the national diet, it was

1. The author’s main thesis in setting up this book is that many drinks have built and brought together human history in to what we know about it.

Beer: Beer was not invented, it was discovered. Exactly when the first beer was brewed is unknown but there was almost certainly no beer before 10,000 BCE. The rise of beer was closely associated with the domestication of the cereal grains rom which it is made and the adoption of farming. Beer originated in the Fertile Crescent in Egypt and Mesopotamia. To beer drinkers in the Neolithic period, beer’s ability to intoxicate and induce a state of altered consciousness seemed magical. This caused them to believe beer was a gift from the Gods. Since it was a gift from the gods, it was presented as a religious offering in religious ceremonies, agricultural fertility rites, and in

Beer originated in Egypt and Mesopotamia during the Neolithic period. Beer was not so much an ‘invention’ as it was a ‘discovery.’ It was a very social drink, meaning both the rich and the poor consumed it and due to the fact it was used in many religious ceremonies. Beer was also a reason that people during the Neolithic period adopted agriculture. Some purposes for the use of beer include wages for workers. Instead of paying workers with physical money, they instead paid them with beer. Beer also proved to have many medicinal benefits.

Is it strange that cereal grains go from bland to exciting and favorable to use in everyday life by one invention: beer. The cereal grains was turned not boring by adding only two things: water and time. The Egyptians' love for beer faltered since they made at least seventeen types of beer. Neither did the Mesopotamians' excitement, since they made over twenty types of beer. Also in Mesopotamia, they had government storehouses that hold beer-bread named bappir to keep for making beer or to use during food shortages. When people were passionate about something they dwell on it and that is what the Mesopotamians and Egyptians showed. The hype for beer did not end there since it became a symbol of friendship. The most important thing, that beer might have done to the Egyptians, Sumerians, Incas and China was to be used in religious offerings like funerals since it was a gift from gods. In my opinion, beer most been good, since they considered highly to be given to their gods. Then, beer turned socially acceptable after all the Sumerians started making stories about people turning human when eating bread and drinking beer. That is when beer is started to be use in everyday life instead of once a while because beer became a part of their culture. The Mesopotamians invented writing for the purpose of collection and distribution of bread and beer. Which led to inequality because depending on their job, they get a specific amount of beer and bread as payment since it was currency. Beer was important on many levels. It was used for food, religious offerings, stories, and

Eventually beer also had other qualities that allowed farming to progress and that is that beer was not harmful to humans as water was (21). Because of this people found out different ways in which they could produce this drink by having different forms of agriculture advancing its form from regular seeds being planted to massive productions, just as did the Greeks and Romans did by using their slave population to farm all of their grapes for the wine in order to drive a successful wine market (71). Farming allowed for populations to grow from small villages to cities to then allow the adoption of beer and wine to become an essential product that drove agriculture to the civilization and growth of people. Along the same lines we can also see how this development of beer due to farming allowed people to become more than just any regular barbaric man, and show that they were people with class.

Beer has a long history. In 2000 B.C.E., Sumerians had prepared eight different beer types, ranging from “strong,” “red brown,” and “good dark” (Mauk, 2013). Breweries have created their own recipes, brewed their own beers—some with alcohol, some without. Over the past few years, craft beer gained steady market share away from the national and international breweries (Murray & O 'Neill, 2012). Separating one beer from the next is the product itself, and what the product has to offer. Competition is ferocious due to more informed, sophisticated consumers, as well as globalization and the spread of technology (Murray & O 'Neill, 2012).

In the Middle Ages, monasteries and the manorial houses of the feudal lords brewed and dispensed beer. An artifact dating back to 1397, a preserved woodcut, showed a monk at work in the brew house. By the 14th Century, trade of beer was predominant in such countries as Hamburg, Austria, the British Isles, and Scandinavia. Beer was a popular means of income in this time and perked the interest for apprenticeships, standards of practice and quality and fixed prices. In 1502, Christopher Columbus "discovered" the various types of brew made by both North and South American natives, which brewing had been going on hundreds of years before then. It is shown, in records such as A Relation, or Journal, of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Settled Plymouth, in New England. It is an argument as to where the first brewery was set up in this country, none the less, in Colonial period "breweries were neighborhood industries" (Persons 6). Some popular names come to mind, specifically leaders of the Revolution, as "brewers or advocates of brewing" (Persons