| Beer – What Came First: Bread or Brew?
By Edythe Preet
Bread is called The Staff of Life. Many scholars believe our distant
ancestors gave up hunting and gathering for an agricultural lifestyle once
they learned how to bake it. There is evidence that barley was first methodically
planted and harvested 10,000 years ago, but a key question remains unanswered.
What prompted the sowing of the first seed?
In the 1950s, University of Chicago archaeologist Robert Braidwood suggested
it was the discovery of bread-making methods that led to the domestication
of cereal grains. Responding to the theory, University of Wisconsin botanist
Jonathan Sauer claimed it was a thirst for beer that turned early humans
from foragers into farmers.
Sauer contended the work involved in collecting wild barley seeds was
too much trouble if the only reward was a bit of bread. He proposed that
somewhere along the line someone carelessly left a bowl of precious barley
out in the rain. The combined action of air-borne yeast and moisture would
have caused the seeds to ferment, producing beer.
We’ll never know who first sipped the barley brew, but odds are that
whoever it was called for another round. Texts preserved on clay tablets
dating back to 4000 B.C. indicate beer was the preferred drink of Sumerian
men and women regardless of class or station. Two thousand years later,
Babylonian bars offered customers a selection of more than a dozen beers.
Beer was so much a part of antiquity’s daily life that the world’s earliest
code of laws, compiled by King Hammurabi in 1800 B.C., stipulated stiff
penalties for offences at beer taverns. Brewers who diluted their products
or overcharged patrons were drowned in their own vats.
By no means did the ancient Middle East have an exclusive on beer. Barley
is a friendly crop that will grow just about anywhere. Vikings imbibed great
quantities of the heady stuff. As fortification against the cold, they ate
as many as six meals a day, and beer-bread soup was a favourite menu item.
Spirits of slain warriors were whisked to Valhalla to spend eternity feasting
and carousing where buxom Valkyries made sure the fellows’ drinking horns
never ran dry.
While Viking raiders were known more for their sins than their beer,
two Irish saints were as famed for their brew as their good deeds. St. Bridget
is said to have brewed the best ale in her time, and St. Patrick carried
his own brewer on his Irish missionary route.
Doing so was hardly necessary, as the Celts had been mixing up a beer
called coirm for millennia. In the early Irish epic Tain Bo Cualinge, King
Conchubar often spent “a third of his day feasting, a third watching the
young warriors wrestle, and a third drinking coirm until he falls asleep.”
The size of Celtic storage casks was on an epic scale too. Legend holds
they were bigger than most houses.
Patrick and Bridget were not the only clerics who were fond of beer.
In the cloistered shelter of medieval monasteries, monks raised the art
of brewing to heavenly heights. With a gallon daily allowance, much of their
earthly reward was reaped long before they reached the pearly gates. Even
the penitential Culdee monks who subsisted on an extremely austere and spartan
diet were allowed a daily ration. For the sin of gluttony, however, over-indulgers
were made to do penance. If a monk drank so heavily he could not recite
the psalms, he was deprived of supper.
There were rules for lay folk as well. The Brehon Laws allowed anyone
who so chose to concoct his own brew, but stipulated stiff regulations regarding
the manner of running pubs. For quarrelling in an alehouse a person was
forbidden to graze his cattle for three days, and if a mentally disabled
person brought to an alehouse by a rational man for amusement should injure
anyone, the jokester was liable for compensation of all ensuing damages
and/or injuries.
Early brews were made from just about any grain – oats, wheat, or barley
– plus spring water and frequently honey. It was not until the late 18th
century that breweries began producing beer made from a mixture of malt,
grain, water, sugar, yeast and hops on a commercial scale. Today, a visit
to any pub will evidence that although ale, beer, lager and porter are on
tap, a “properly pulled pint” of stout is the quaff of choice. And it was
a descendant of the coirm-loving Celts who devised the recipe for the quintessentially
Irish thick, rich, dark brew that when poured correctly is capped with an
inch of creamy white foam.
On New Year’s Eve 1759, Arthur Guinness took possession of the 80-year-
old brewery at St. James Gate, a defence point remaining from the medieval
walled city of Dublin. In exchange for the annual sum of 45 pounds sterling,
Guinness received a 9,000-year lease on the property and all the water he’d
ever need FREE from the River Liffey.
Arthur’s new black beer took off like a rocket, and the city fathers
quickly realized what a dreadful mistake they’d made. When a sheriff attempted
to destroy the pipeline, Arthur appeared brandishing a pickaxe and hurling
a volley of colourful Irish curses. After a twenty-year court battle, a
compromise was finally reached. Today, Guinness production tops 750 million
pints a year!
Though known around the world, Guinness is only one of many fine Irish
brews. My own personal preference is Smithwick’s Ale, produced by Ireland’s
oldest operating brewery. Predating Arthur Guinness’ contract coup by nearly
five decades, in 1710 John Smithwick opened a brewery on a site once occupied
by Kilkenny’s 14th-century St. Francis Abbey which also produced a light
ale. For more than one hundred years, the brewery remained a small operation,
until Edmund Smithwick took over in 1827. By mid-century he had built the
family business into a flourishing export operation, and today Smithwick’s
is the largest-selling ale in Ireland.
Many a cook knows that beer enlivens the palate and adds an extra measure
of pleasure to food. Soups are heartier. Slow-cooked beans become velvety.
Delicate beer batter adds zip to fried fish. Spicy fruitcakes age with a
mellow tang. Few will deny that the most refreshing drink, bar none, is
a frosty mug of ice-cold beer. Add a loaf of wholegrain bread and a wedge
of fine Irish cheese to the bill of fare, and you’ll be enjoying a repast
that’s as old as Erin herself. Slainté!
Recipes...
Cheese-Beer Soup w/ Veggies
NOTE: This soup is great for an autumn Tailgate Party!
To keep hot, use a well-insulated thermos. Preheat
thermos by filling it with boiling water for 5 minutes.
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup minced carrots
1 cup minced celery
1 cup minced onions
1 large clove minced garlic
6 cups chicken broth
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
12 oz beer (1 bottle – room temperature)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
dash Tabasco
Melt butter in a large stockpot. Add carrots, celery, onions and garlic.
Sauté until vegetables are wilted. Add chicken broth, bring to a boil, then
reduce heat and simmer 45 minutes. Toss cheese with flour and dry mustard,
then add to broth. Continue to simmer, stirring constantly, until soup thickens
slightly. Add the beer and continue to stir until soup thickens a bit more.
Add Worcestershire and Tabasco to taste. Makes 6 servings. (Personal recipe)
Beer Bread
3 cups self-rising flour
12oz beer (1 bottle - room temperature)
1/4 cup sugar
Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, combine ingredients and stir until
well mixed. Turn dough into a buttered 1-pound loaf pan. Set on middle shelf
of oven and bake 30-40 minutes, until loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Remove
from oven, butter top lightly and return to oven to brown for an additional
5 minutes (or until golden). Makes one 1-pound loaf. (Personal recipe)
Cheddar-Guinness Soup
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
3 cups milk
3/4 cup Guinness
1 tablespoon minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon crushed
red pepper flakes
2 cups extra-sharp cheddar cheese
Heat butter in a small saucepan, add flour and cook on low heat until
mixture (roux) begins to bubble – do not let brown. Remove from heat and
set aside.In a large saucepan or stockpot, combine milk, garlic, salt, pepper,
and pepper flakes. Heat to almost boiling, but do not let boil. Add half
of the butter/flour mixture; simmer, stirring constantly with a wire whisk,
until the soup thickens. Add more roux if a thicker soup is desired. Add
Guinness and cheddar; continue stirring over low heat (do not boil) until
the cheese has completely melted and the soup is velvety. Makes 6 servings.
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