For a long time, students of the human diet assumed that our ancestors learned to bake bread about the time they started to cultivate cereal grains like wheat and barley. And that the desire for bread was what drove the adoption and spread of agriculture. In their natural state, such grains are nearly inedible, with hard coats that defy human dentition. Those early bakers smashed the grains with stone pestles and later grindstones to break the hulls and let water soften their innards. At some point wild yeast, which was and still is ubiquitous in the air, settled on the mash and began to predigest it, making the carbohydrates and proteins inside the grains more available for human absorption. Heating—baking—the dough halted the process by killing the yeast, which otherwise turned the mash sour.
I'll drink to that, Dr. Brands! You write "The fermentation of beer mimicked the fermentation in baking. Both versions unlocked nutrients that would have passed right through the human alimentary canal. Beer lasted longer than bread. And it had the inestimable advantage of giving its drinkers a pleasant buzz. In our modern era, this buzz is what beer is best known for. But in the early days of brewing, the nourishment beer provided was more important."
A decade or so ago, I read an interesting article on Belgian beers. The Belgians call their thicker ales "liquid bread." The article said that monks who weren't allowed to eat on certain fast days would "cheat" by drinking the dark ales Belgium is famous for. They got their nutrients plus a buzz and it wasn't considered a sin. Let's hear it for Belgium!
I'll drink to that, Dr. Brands! You write "The fermentation of beer mimicked the fermentation in baking. Both versions unlocked nutrients that would have passed right through the human alimentary canal. Beer lasted longer than bread. And it had the inestimable advantage of giving its drinkers a pleasant buzz. In our modern era, this buzz is what beer is best known for. But in the early days of brewing, the nourishment beer provided was more important."
A decade or so ago, I read an interesting article on Belgian beers. The Belgians call their thicker ales "liquid bread." The article said that monks who weren't allowed to eat on certain fast days would "cheat" by drinking the dark ales Belgium is famous for. They got their nutrients plus a buzz and it wasn't considered a sin. Let's hear it for Belgium!