The famous beer hunter Michael Jackson, (not Wacko Jacko), says in his Beer Companion, “Beer deserves to be treated as a civilized drink; it may even have been the cause of civilization.”

Although wild grapes and grain were probably both turned into drinks before either was cultivated, the latter seems to have been the beginning of farming, between 13,000 and 8,000 years ago. Humans ceased to be nomadic hunters and gatherers, and settled in organized communities to grow grain, but why?

In the Museum Magazine of Archeology and Anthropology produced by the University of Pennsylvania, Professor Soloman Katz in 1986 described as 'the world's oldest recipe' a series of tablets in the Sumerian language. These early accounts, with pictograms of what is recognizably barley, show bread being baked, then crumbled into water to make mash, which is then made into a drink that is recorded as having made people feel 'exhilarated, wonderful and blissful.'

-Beer Companion p.10

As you can see beer has a long history, one that is as rich and complex as beer itself. There are many ways to make beer and a wide variety of beer styles that are found throughout the world. But oddly enough there are only two kinds of beer, ales and lagers.

Ales are brews that have a warm fermentation, traditionally with strains of yeast that rise to the top of the vessel. These “top-fermenting” yeasts distinguish ales from lagers, where the yeasts work at cool temperatures, at the bottom of the vessel. Ales are likely to have a fruity aroma and palate, and often a complex flavor. Members of the ale family are typically fermented at 59-77°F, and are usually matured for short periods, often just a week. Ales made traditionally will most fully express their aroma and flavor if served at a similar temperature.

To lager is to lay down. In German, a lager means a bed, a camp, a stockade or a storehouse. A lager is a beer that is fermented with yeast that works at cool temperatures — then laid down for cold maturation, or storage, at close to 32°F. Once filtered and bottled or kegged, this type of beer is not intended for further laying down. It will not improve in character, and may deteriorate. Lager yeasts produce beers that are characteristically clean and rounded, though not always complex. Lagers should be consumed cold, at temperatures ranging from 41-48°F.

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