4300BC
Babylonian clay tablets detail recipes for beer.
3,000 BC
Beer brewed in China called “Kui”.
3,000 BC
In the imperial Egypt of the pharaohs, beer was already an important food in the daily diet and was made with lightly baked barley bread. Beer was also used as a sacrament.
2100 BC
Hammuabi, the sixth king of Babylon, specified provisions regulating the business of innkeepers in his great legal code covering the sale of beer. These laws were designed to protect the public. If an innkeeper gave a short measure, his punishment was drowning.
2000 BC
Mesopotamia: A 4,000-year-old clay tablet suggests that brewing was a highly thought-out profession, as the maltsters were women.
2000 BC
Fragments of drinking vessels found on the Isle of Skye in the Scottish Highlands suggest that the drinks were made from heather blossoms.
2000 BC
An Assyrian tablet suggests that beer was one of the first provisions Noah brought to the ark.
1800 BC
A hymn to Ninkasi, the summary goddess of brewing, it is a hymn of praise and also the oldest recorded beer recipe.
1600 BC
A medical document lists some 700 recipes, 100 of which contained the word ‘beer’.
1550-1100 BC
Archaeological excavations have found the presence of beer making utensils in the kitchen of Queen Nefertiti’s temple at Tel el-Armana.
1200 BC
Pharaoh Ramses ll made an annual offering of 30,000 gallons of beer to the Gods.
1000 BC
3,000-year-old beer mugs were unearthed in Israel in the 1960s.
· Residues from a Norse ceremonial drinking pail give evidence that the Danes were making beer from wheat, berries and marsh myrtle.
450 BC
The famous Greek writer Sophocles stressed moderation and recommended a diet of “bread, meat, green vegetables, and zythos (beer).”
55 BC
Roman legions introduced beer to Northern Europe.
49 BC
Julio César, after the fateful crossing of the Rubicon River in the year 49 a. C., toasted his officers with beer. This was the beginning of the Roman Civil War.
438-441 AD
Senchus Mor, the book of the ancient laws of Ireland states that Saint Patrick had a brewer in his house, a priest named Mescan.
540 AD
Saint Mungo, the patron saint of Scotland’s oldest city, Glasgow, established a religious brotherhood and one of the brothers began brewing beer to supply the others.
580 AD
Arnold, who was ordained Bishop of Metz, France in AD 612, was the patron saint of brewing.
616 AD
During the reign of King Ætelbert of Kent, beer was brewed with spices instead of hops. This beer called Gruit was the drink of choice for 500 years in England.
742-814 AD
The Christian ruler and emperor Charlemagne, who thought beer an important item for a moderate life, himself trained the kingdom’s brewmasters.
822 AD
Hops began to be cultivated in England.
1000 AD
Hops began to be used in brewing processes.
1040 AD
‘Weihenstephan’, a Benedictine monastery in Germany, was the first known brewery.
12th century
Hofbraus in Freising, Germany, was originally the Bishop’s home brewery.
1158 AD
When Saint Thomas A’Becket went to France in 1158 to seek the hand of a French princess for Prince Henry of England, he took several barrels of British ale as a gift.
AD1200
The brewery is firmly established as a trading company in Germany, Austria and England.
1251-1295 AD
Duke Jan Primus of Belgium was hailed as the “king of beer” and could drink 144 mugs during a single feast. He also passed a law prohibiting the adulteration of beer.
1260 AD
Duke Ludwig of Bavaria maintained his own brewery.
1295 AD
King Wenceslaus grants Pilsen of Bohemia the brewing rights. (formerly Czechoslovakia, now Slovakia and the Czech Republic).
1300 AD (late)
London had 2,000 pubs to serve its 35,000 citizens.
1367-1404 AD
William of Wykeham founded a Pilgrim’s Dole of beer and bread.
1400 AD
The original ‘lager’ beer was made in Germany by storing beer in caves in the foothills of the Alps, which promoted a slow and clean fermentation.
15th century
Dutch beer begins to be imported into England.
Before the 15th century, beer was always known as an ale and was made with malted barley (or other grains) and water.
· In the fifteenth century, beer was introduced from Flanders to Belgium using hops to bitter and preserve.
· By the end of the century, the ale had nearly replaced the old English sweet ale and was being exported to Europe.
1489 AD
Germany’s first brewing guild, ‘Brauerei Beck’, was established.
AD1490
Columbus found Indians making beer from corn and black birch sap.
16th century AD
Flemish hop growers immigrate to Kent in England bringing their skills in growing hops and their uses in brewing.
The Dean of St Pauls is credited with inventing bottled beer.
Beer first came to America on the ships of Christopher Columbus.
1502 AD
· Columbus found the natives of Central America making beer from “corn, similar to English beer.”
The Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock, rather than further south as planned, partly because they had no beer.