Beer is the world's most widely consumed^[1] and probably the oldest^[2][3][4] of alcoholic beverages An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol . Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. Its molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state, water vapor or steam and tea Tea is the agricultural product of the leaves, leaf buds, and internodes of the Camellia sinensis plant, prepared and cured by various methods. "Tea" also refers to the aromatic beverage prepared from the cured leaves by combination with hot or boiling water, and is the common name for the Camellia sinensis plant itself.^[5] It is produced by the brewing Brewing is the production of beer through steeping a starch source in water and then fermenting with yeast. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BC, and archeological evidence suggests that this technique was used in ancient Egypt. Descriptions of various beer recipes can be found in Sumerian writings, some of the oldest known and fermentation Brewing is the production of beer through steeping a starch source in water and then fermenting with yeast. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BC, and archeological evidence suggests that this technique was used in ancient Egypt. Descriptions of various beer recipes can be found in Sumerian writings, some of the oldest known of starches Starch or amylum is a carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by all green plants as an energy store. It is the most important carbohydrate in the human diet and is contained in such staple foods as potatoes, wheat, maize , rice, and cassava, mainly derived from cereal grains Cereals, grains, or cereal grains are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their fruit seeds (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis): the endocarp, germ, and bran. Cereal grains are grown in greater quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop; they are therefore staple crops. Grain is both a—most commonly malted Malting is a process applied to cereal grains, in which the grains are made to germinate by soaking in water and are then quickly halted from germinating further by drying/heating with hot air. Thus, malting is a combination of two processes: the sprouting process and the kiln-drying process. These latter terms are often preferred when referring barley Barley is a cereal grain derived from the annual grass Hordeum vulgare, although wheat, maize (corn), and rice are widely used. Most beer is flavoured with hops Hops are the female flower clusters , of a hop species, Humulus lupulus. They are used primarily as a flavoring and stability agent in beer, to which they impart a bitter, tangy flavor, though hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine. Hops were cultivated continuously around the 8th or 9th century AD in, which add bitterness and act as a natural preservative A preservative is a naturally occurring or synthetic substance that is added to products such as foods, pharmaceuticals, paints, biological samples, wood, etc. to prevent decomposition by microbial growth or by undesirable chemical changes, though other flavourings such as herbs or fruit may occasionally be included. Some of humanity's earliest known writings refer to the production and distribution of beer: the Code of Hammurabi The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved ancient law code, created ca. 1790 BC (middle chronology) in ancient Babylon. It was enacted by the sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi. One nearly complete example of the Code survives today, inscribed on a seven foot, four inch tall diorite stele in the Akkadian language in the cuneiform script included laws regulating beer and beer parlours,^[6] and "The Hymn to Ninkasi Ninkasi is the ancient Sumerian matron goddess of the intoxicating beverage, beer", a prayer to the Mesopotamian goddess of beer, served as both a prayer and as a method of remembering the recipe for beer in a culture with few literate people.^[7][8] Today, the brewing industry is a global business, consisting of several dominant multinational companies A multinational corporation or transnational corporation (TNC), also called multinational enterprise (MNE), is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred as an international corporation. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has defined[citation needed] an MNC and many thousands of smaller producers ranging from brewpubs A microbrewery is a brewery which produces a limited amount of beer. In the U.S, the "Brewers Association" use a fixed maximum limit of 15,000 US beer barrels a year to define microbrewery. An American "craft brewery" is a small, independent and traditional brewery to regional breweries Regional brewery is a term used in the United Kingdom to describe a long-established brewery that supplied beer to tied pubs in a fixed geographical location such as South Wales, the Midlands or the Isle of Man. These breweries were generally founded before 1900, though one, Holdens Brewery, was founded in 1920. Some date back to the early age of.

The basics of brewing beer are shared across national and cultural boundaries. Beers are commonly categorized into two main types—the globally popular pale lagers Pale lager is a very pale to golden-colored lager beer with a well attenuated body and noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid 19th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and applied it to existing lagering brewing methods. This approach was picked, and the regionally distinct ales Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a warm fermentation with a strain of brewers' yeast. The yeast will ferment the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste. Most ales contain hops, which impart a bitter herbal flavour that helps to balance the sweetness of the malt and preserve the beer,^[9] which are further categorized into other varieties Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a warm fermentation with a strain of brewers' yeast. The yeast will ferment the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste. Most ales contain hops, which impart a bitter herbal flavour that helps to balance the sweetness of the malt and preserve the beer such as pale ale Pale ale, a variety of beer which uses a top fermenting yeast and predominantly pale malt, is one of the world's major beer styles, stout Stout and porter are dark beers made using roasted malt or barley, hops, water, and yeast. Stouts were traditionally the generic term for the strongest or stoutest beers, typically 7% or 8%, produced by a brewery and brown ale Brown ale is a style of beer with a dark amber or brown color. The term was first used by London brewers in the late 1600s to describe their products, such as mild ale, though the term had a rather different meaning than it does today. Eighteenth-century brown ales were lightly-hopped and brewed from 100% brown malt. The strength of beer is usually around 4% to 6% alcohol by volume (abv Alcohol by volume is a standard measure of how much alcohol (ethanol) is contained in an alcoholic beverage (expressed as a percentage of total volume). The ABV standard is used worldwide) though may range from less than 1% abv, to over 20% abv in rare cases.

Beer forms part of the culture of beer-drinking nations and is associated with social traditions such as beer festivals A Beer Festival is an organised event during which a variety of beers are available for tasting and purchase. Beer festivals are held in a number of countries. A Beer Exhibition is usually synonymous with a Beer Festival but, whilst a beer festival may involve a limited range of beer styles or manufacturers, with an emphasis on entertainment, use, as well as a rich pub culture A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises in countries and regions of British influence. Although the terms are increasingly used to refer to the same thing, there is a definitive difference between pubs, bars, inns, taverns and lounges where alcohol is involving activities like pub crawling A pub crawl is the act of one or more people drinking in multiple pubs or bars in a single night, normally walking to each one between drinking and pub games Pub games are games which are or were played in pubs, bars, inns, and taverns, particularly traditional games played in English pubs. Most are indoor games, though some are played outdoors such as bar billiards Bar Billiards is a form of billiards which is often thought to be based on the traditional game of bagatelle. It is actually based on the French/Belgian Billard Russe game that preceded it.

History

Beer is one of the world's oldest prepared beverages, possibly dating back to the early Neolithic The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A represents the early Neolithic in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent. It succeeds the Natufian culture of the Epipaleolithic (Mesolithic) or 9000 BC, and is recorded in the written history of ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and it developed over the next three millennia. Its history and Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris-Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, as well as some parts of northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and southwestern Iran.^[10] The earliest known chemical evidence of beer dates to circa 3500–3100 BC from the site of Godin Tepe Godin Tepe is a prehistoric settlement in western Iran, situated in the valley of Kangavar. Discovered in 1961, the site was excavated from 1965 and during the 1970s by an American expedition headed by T. Cuyler Young Jr. and sponsored by the Royal Ontario Museum . The importance of the site was due to its control over the early lapis-lazuli trade in the Zagros Mountains The Zagros Mountains are the largest mountain range in Iran and Iraq. With a total length of 1,500 km (932 mi), from northwestern Iran, and roughly correlating with Iran's western border, the Zagros range spans the whole length of the western and southwestern Iranian plateau and ends at the Straits of Hormuz. The highest points in the Zagros of western Iran Iran (Persian: ایران [ʔiˈɾɒn] ), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Central Eurasia and Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was also known to the western world as Persia. Both Persia and Iran are used.^[11] Some of the earliest Sumerian writings found in the region contain references to a type of beer; one such example, a prayer to the goddess Ninkasi Ninkasi is the ancient Sumerian matron goddess of the intoxicating beverage, beer, known as "The Hymn to Ninkasi", served as both a prayer as well as a method of remembering the recipe for beer in a culture with few literate people.^[7][8] The Ebla tablets, discovered in 1974 in Ebla Ebla was an ancient city about 55 km (34 mi) southwest of Aleppo. It was an important city-state in two periods, first in the late third millennium BC, then again between 1800 and 1650 BC, Syria Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية‎), is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest and date back to 2,500 BC, reveal that the city produced a range of beers, including one that appears to be named "Ebla" after the city.^[12] A beer made from rice, which, unlike sake, didn't use the amylolytic process Amylolysis, or the amylolytic process, is the conversion of starch into sugar by the action of acids or enzymes like amylase, and was probably prepared for fermentation by mastication Mastication or chewing is the process by which food is crushed and ground by teeth. It is the first step of digestion and it increases the surface area of foods to allow more efficient break down by enzymes. During the mastication process, the food is positioned between the teeth for grinding by the cheek and tongue. As chewing continues, the food or malting Malting is a process applied to cereal grains, in which the grains are made to germinate by soaking in water and are then quickly halted from germinating further by drying/heating with hot air. Thus, malting is a combination of two processes: the sprouting process and the kiln-drying process. These latter terms are often preferred when referring,^[13] was made in China around 7,000 BC.^[14]

As almost any substance containing carbohydrates A carbohydrate is an organic compound with the general formula Cmn, that is, consists only of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, with the last two in the 2:1 atom ratio. Carbohydrates can be viewed as hydrates of carbon, hence their name. Structurally however, it is more accurate to view them as polyhydroxy aldehydes and ketones, mainly sugars or starch, can naturally undergo fermentation, it is likely that beer-like beverages were independently invented among various cultures throughout the world. The invention of bread and beer has been argued to be responsible for humanity's ability to develop technology and build civilization.^[15][16][17]

Beer was spread through Europe by Germanic The Germanic peoples are a historical ethno-linguistic group, originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages, which diversified out of Common Germanic in the course of the Pre-Roman Iron Age. The descendants of these peoples became, and in many areas contributed to, the ethnic groups of North and Celtic The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages tribes as far back as 3000 BC,^[18] and it was mainly brewed on a domestic scale.^[19] The product that the early Europeans drank might not be recognised as beer by most people today. Alongside the basic starch source, the early European beers might contain fruits, honey, numerous types of plants, spices and other substances such as narcotic The term narcotic originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with sleep-inducing properties. It has since become associated with opioids, commonly morphine and heroin. The term is, today, imprecisely defined and typically has negative connotations. In a legal context, a narcotic drug is simply one that is totally prohibited, or one herbs.^[20] What they did not contain was hops Hops are the female flower clusters , of a hop species, Humulus lupulus. They are used primarily as a flavoring and stability agent in beer, to which they impart a bitter, tangy flavor, though hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine. Hops were cultivated continuously around the 8th or 9th century AD in, as that was a later addition first mentioned in Europe around 822 by a Carolingian Abbot^[21] and again in 1067 by Abbess Hildegard of Bingen Blessed Hildegard of Bingen , also known as Saint Hildegard, and Sybil of the Rhine, was a Christian mystic, German Benedictine abbess, author, counselor, linguist, naturalist, scientist, philosopher, physician, herbalist, poet, channeller, visionary, composer, and polymath. Elected a magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136, she founded the.^[22]

Beer produced before the Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transport and technology had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions starting in the United Kingdom, then subsequently spreading throughout Europe, North America, and eventually the world. The continued to be made and sold on a domestic scale, although by the 7th century AD, beer was also being produced and sold by European monasteries. During the Industrial Revolution, the production of beer moved from artisanal manufacture to industrial manufacture, and domestic manufacture ceased to be significant by the end of the 19th century.^[23] The development of hydrometers and thermometers changed brewing by allowing the brewer more control of the process and greater knowledge of the results.

Today, the brewing industry is a global business, consisting of several dominant multinational companies and many thousands of smaller producers ranging from brewpubs to regional breweries.^[24] As of 2006, more than 133 billion liters (35 billion gallons), the equivalent of a cube 510 metres on a side, of beer are sold per year, producing total global revenues of $294.5 billion (£147.7 billion).^[25]

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