Beer, believe it or not, has been around since the dawn of civilization. The rough estimate is alcohol, even though nobody knew what it was at the time, was discovered by accident over 10,000 years ago in the Middle East. How it was discovered is still a mystery. Well, I take that back, scientists and historians have a general idea how alcohol came to be, they just aren’t sure how us humans figured it out.

Now, if you’ve ever watched the Bob Ross show, Joy of Painting, you’ll remember his term “happy accidents”. That’s essentially what alcohol was. The theory on how alcohol, and later officially beer, was discovered is sugars from honey or accidentally malted grains got into water, combined, and the resulting mixture was spontaneously fermented by wild airborne yeast or bacteria. Belgian lambic beers are a perfect example of spontaneous fermentation, I highly recommend trying one, especially if you aren’t big on hop flavor or aroma in beer. And not too surprisingly, beer became the cornerstone of civilization. Mesopotamians used it as currency, writing was supposedly developed as a way to keep track of grains and brewing methods, and beer was sanitary to drink. Ancient Egyptians used it for real medicinal purposes, especially for stomach problems. A good source on brewing history is Sacred Herbal and Healing Beers, which gives the history of brewing worldwide as well as ancient/historical recipes. Some of those recipes and purposes behind them I’ll be exploring in this blog at a later date.

Like many of us, I “discovered” beer and alcohol in high school (DISCLAIMER, I do not condone underage drinking), but didn’t discover good beer and alcohol until college, and only learned how to start making it a few years ago from a one-gallon recipe kit from Brooklyn Brew Shop. I’m still learning more every day when I create my own recipes, talk with local brewers, visit , or find articles online. To this date I’ve brewed dozens of ales, had some success with meads, and still doing some work on figuring out lagers and ciders. I’m even exploring a potential shortcut on making rice wine. Some of these ideas have been hits, others, well, you can’t win all the time. I’ll be posting more on each of these as time goes on. I’m keeping this short as I’m planning on making a post tomorrow of the process I’ll be using to make a brown ale I call Drunken Otter, and how I came up with the name and idea of it. Until then, good night, and God Bless.