The history of beer
Beer may be older than bread. Walk through 16 moments that shaped the world's favourite fermented drink, and the civilisations it helped build.
🏺 Ancient
- c. 11,000 BCE
Neolithic Origins and the "Beer Before Bread" Hypothesis
Did our ancestors start farming grain because they wanted a drink? Stone mortars in a Natufian cave and vast vessels at Göbekli Tepe keep the question alive.
- c. 2500 BCE
Bread, Beer and Pyramids: Brewing in Ancient Egypt
In the land of the pharaohs, beer was a daily staple, a wage paid to pyramid builders, and a gift fit for the gods.
- c. 1800 BCE
The Hymn to Ninkasi
A Sumerian poem to the goddess of beer doubles as one of the oldest surviving recipes.
- c. 1754 BCE
Beer and the Law: The Code of Hammurabi
Babylon's most famous legal monument includes rules for tavern-keepers, fair measures and who could, or could not, open an alehouse.
- c. 500 BCE – 400 CE
Celts, Germans and the Romans' Disdain for Beer
Wine-loving Romans sneered at the barley drinks of the north, yet Celtic and Germanic brewers left a legacy that outlasted the empire.
⛪ Medieval
- c. 800–1500 CE
Monks and Malt: Monastic Brewing in Medieval Europe
From the idealised plan of St. Gall to Bavarian abbeys, monasteries became centres of brewing skill, hospitality and record-keeping.
- c. 1150 CE
Hildegard of Bingen and the Arrival of Hops
A visionary German abbess noted the preserving power of hops, a plant that would slowly push aside centuries of herb-flavoured ale.
- c. 1200–1600 CE
Alewives and Brewsters: Women Who Brewed
For centuries, brewing was largely women's work. Then commerce, capital and hops helped push women out of the trade.
📜 Early Modern
🏭 Industrial
- c. 1720s–1814
Porter, London's Great Breweries and the Beer Flood of 1814
A dark, aged beer beloved by London's workers helped create the world's first industrial breweries, and one day in 1814 a giant vat burst.
- c. 1780s–1840s
India Pale Ale and the British Empire
IPA was not invented from scratch to survive the voyage to India, but its rise is tied closely to empire, trade and Burton's remarkable water.
- 5 October 1842
The Birth of Pilsner in Plzeň, 1842
Fed up with bad beer, the citizens of a Bohemian town built a new brewery, hired a Bavarian brewer and created the golden lager the world now copies.
- 1860s–1880s
Pasteur, Hansen and the Science of Yeast
Nineteenth-century scientists finally revealed what brewers had relied on for millennia, and the pure lager yeast isolated in 1883 changed brewing worldwide.
🚀 Modern
- 1920–1933
Prohibition in the United States, 1920–1933
For thirteen years, America outlawed the sale of beer, wine and spirits. Breweries shut, speakeasies flourished, and the industry that emerged looked very different.
- 1965–1990s
The Craft Beer Revolution
A washing-machine heir saved a failing brewery, homebrewing became legal, and a small brewery in Chico helped ignite a worldwide movement.
- 2010s–present
The Global Beer Industry Today: Giants, Haze and Zero Proof
A few multinational giants dominate global volume, while hazy IPAs and high-quality non-alcoholic beers show how fast drinkers' tastes can shift.