Science! # 1.5

"Science!" is an ongoing feature of "Where the Wild Things Were Last Thursday Around 8" that covers the mystical world of science in all it's God punching glory.


When sitting down to think about what I was going to write for the next issue of "Science!"I initially thought of doing something a little more serious than the healing powers of beer. I was thinking it would be a good idea to write up a P.S.A about the recent outbreak of cancer that is wiping out the the Tasmanian Devil, but luckily for you I came to my senses and decided to stay within the Jimbolaya wheelhouse and get right back to writing about something I actually know a thing or two about.

Pictured Above: Evolution

You'd never know it, but that beer you and I can't wait to pop open at the end of a long, hard day of work has been around for thousands of years (not that specific beer, just beer in general). The earliest chemical evidence of what you and I know as "happiness" dates back to roughly 3500-3100 B.C, and was found in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran, but it has been suggested that a form of beer has been in existence since as far back as 9000 B.C. Ancient civilizations like the Sumerians and Babylonians were sitting around getting drunk just like you and I. It didn't stop there; ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian writings are full of references to a type of beer; which, let's be honest, probably isn't even close to resembling the wonderful, sudsy brew we've all come to love, but it got the trick done and probably tasted better than Bud Light. Hell, the Mesopotamians even had their very own beer goddess, Ninkasi whose titular hymn serves as both a prayer and a way of remembering the recipe for beer in a culture that had very few literate people.

"You put the lime in the coconut..."

If it wasn't for the discovery of beer modern civilization as we know it may have never developed, because back in the olden days when humans were nomadic by nature and survived by following around herds of animals, they didn't have a reason to set up shop in one location. Then one day Jeb was out shootin' at some food when out from the ground came a sprout of barley and much like the pivotal scene in Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" the monkeys went ape sh_t and figured out how to make bread, and later on beer. Well, not beer-beer, but the bread they made from barley could be crumbled and converted to a liquid that would make them a little less likely to feel the need to pack up and move because they could plant and grow the barley crops for future use (thus inventing farming), and it also had the added benefit of making ancient cavemen and women appear more attractive for small amounts of time, thus greatly contributing to the reproductive rates of the human species. Okay, I made the last part up, but it makes sense right? Cavemen were ugly as sh_t.

The first ever "walk of shame"

Think about that for a minute: if it wasn't for beer (and bread too if you want to be a dick about it) proto-humans would never have learned the skills to farm, or pushed themselves far enough to create primitive technology that allowed them to do more work with less effort. In other words; man would never have evolved past praying to some ridiculous god for food and moving from place to place, grazing on the land like a bunch of hopeless sheeple. When the food ran out in one area they just packed up the tents and it was splittsville, baby. Leaving the entire area barren of edible foliage and meat, but, beer let them keep the tents up and form villages and those villages eventually became towns and so on and so forth once again allowing civilization to jump up a few rungs on the evolutionary ladder. Since the old tribes were now sticking around they had to develop a way of defending themselves from predators and the elements, so they must have used their tiny almost-monkey brains to figure out a way to shield themselves from intense heat, cold, rain, sun and the hamburglar. This must have provided them with an unforeseen side-effect, because the animal herds they were following weren't running out of food so quickly, they would stick around longer and possibly long enough for a few of them to get caught; meaning it could be argued that beer is responsible for man developing livestock (meaty, succulent livestock) that would feed them indefinitely. And that all happened before Beer made it's way into Europe.

Beer made its way to Western Europe via ancient Germanic and Celtic tribes sometime around 3000 B.C, and was mainly brewed on a domestic scale and distributed among the tribe. By most accounts the ancient brews of yore were nothing like today's beer and contained a sh-t load of fruit, honey, spices and even narcotics (sounds fine to me). Missing from the ancient recipes were hops; which would be added later on and were first mentioned in Europe around 822 A.D by a Carolingian Abbot. The production and distribution of beer remained a local enterprise until around 7 A.D when European monasteries started to sell off some of their excess ale, and even then it took the mother f_cking Industrial Revolution to spring board beer into mass production.

By the end of the 19th century domestic manufacturers stopped being relevant to the beer consuming world, and with the introduction of thermometers and hydrometers the brew master was allowed more control over the entire brewing process and the outcome it could produce. I don't want to say that the need for a better beer led to the invention of thermometers and hydrometers, but the need for a better beer led to the invention of thermometers and hydrometers (not really, but really). Before the hydrometer, beer was brewed as a single malt, meaning that if you wanted a brown beer you had to brew a brown malt, if you wanted a Labatt Blue you had to drink water from the Hudson (I hate Labatt Blue), but when the hydrometer was introduced into the mix (pun not intended) brewers could calculate the yield from a variety of malts. So, that's exactly what they did.

With the hydrometer firmly in place the post-industrial revolution brewers started to experiment with different types of malt, and they noticed that the more pricey, pale malt produced more product than the less expensive, brown malt (about 80 pounds/Pale Malt vs. 54 pounds/brown malt) and once they figured this out everybody and their annoying cousin switched to the pale malt (supply and demand, people). Because America was still a bunch of puritan jerkfaces at the time, the majority of beer science was coming from Great Britain, and they didn't f_ck around about their beer, or the way you were allowed to make it.

Ye olde beer making robot

If you thought prohibition was bad, imagine not being able to enjoy a variety of wonderful beers, because that's what England decided it was going to take away from its citizens. An 1816 British law forbid the use of any ingredients other than malt and hops, so of course the beer making community went a little nuts trying to figure out a way to color up their pale, mass produced beer. Thankfully a cheeky fellow by the name of Daniel Wheeler invented the drum roaster in 1817 that brewed very dark, roasted malts that heavily contributed to the flavoring of the popular at the time porters and stouts. The day was saved and England continued on the path to rotting teeth and warm beer like nothing had ever changed. All hail the queen and what not.

America, being what it is, caught on quickly and prior to prohibition (1920) there were literally thousands of breweries across the country that made heavier, darker beers than we see or are used to today. Unfortunately for us, prohibition forced most of these noble brews-men to go out of business or switch to making soda and other soft drinks (hey, anything to feed the kids, right?). This also marks the point in history when beer went from deliciously filling, dark, heavily flavored alcoholic greatness to watered down, urine colored and barely tolerable shite all thanks to bootlegging.

This man hated good beer.

Anyone who has watched "The Untouchables" or the "Beer Baron" episode of "The Simpsons" knows that there is a certain art to bootlegging that was rarely perfected by anyone not named Kennedy or Capone, but was it worth it? Sure, you could get cheap whiskey on the skinny from some guy at a speak easy and still get sauced enough to do the jitterbug with some dame, but beer isn't whiskey. Beer is beer and when you put water into beer you've broken the 11th commandment (thou shalt not ruin beer), and that's exactly what the prohibition era bootleggers did. Why? Because when you add water to something it makes more of that something and allows you to make a larger profit by selling a ton of watered down grog (or, Labatt Blue). Capone did it. Joe Kennedy did it. And in the process the art of the American beer was set back decades.

When you have such a definitive law as prohibition in place and the only way you're able to enjoy your favorite beverage is by going to the black market and picking up a cask of watery, tasteless brew chances are after a decade or so you and the entire country are used to it. So when the modern day breweries started to pop up when prohibition was repealed they sort of forgot about the old ways to make beer that didn't include ruining it in the process. The consolidation of the brewing industry allowed for gigantic distribution of incredibly light beers; which all but rendered the American palate useless against the onslaught of actual flavor that non-American beers provided, a trend that is still in place today. Shame on you, America. Shame on you!

It was almost 50 years before America caught on to their mistake and started making micro-brews for those of us that didn't want to drink piss-water anymore, and as of now there are over 2,000 regional brewcrafters servicing the needs of those of us who actually want to drink beer the way it was meant to be drank. Chances are if you live in a city or near one you can go to a bar devoted entirely to beer and only beer. Generally they serve a variety of hard to find ales, lagers and barley wines that would make anyone not familiar with great tasting beer wet themselves. Luckily for me I live 4 doors down from just such a place and every time I go in for a pint I feel like I've been taken to beer college. I love it. Obviously. I don't even care that I sound like an arrogant prick right now. I love good beer, and you should to.

See that up there, that's what beer should look like.

The next time you decide to head out to the bar with your buddies to grab a few rounds don't sully your name and order something yellow and watery and made by retarded Canadian hop jockeys. Step up to the plate and order something a little bit more expensive that tastes a lot better (and, is usually more alcoholic, so win-win-win). It will be worth it. Think of this brief history of the worlds oldest man-made beverage when you're sipping on your Coors Light and wonder if your ancestors would be hanging their heads in shame if they could see you now. Don't be an idiot, be a scientist and drink good beer, it's in your genes.