The most pressing question ever for mankind . Beer or bread which came first .

Of course my position is beer came first. If the founding of civilization came because of beer. Makes me feel vindicated every time I got sloppy drunk.

The ongoing theory is that hunter gatherers settle down to cultivate grain and make bread. Which lead to the rise of human Civilization .

Fermented beverages were discovered by every society that in habited earth. From the sumerians to the Aztecs and the Stone Age cultures to this very day. Everybody liked to get a buzz on.

New information has come to light and cast doubt on the bread first theory.

The earliest depiction we have of beer in the archaeological record is a pictogram on a seal dating to the 4,000s BC. It was discovered in an ancient Mesopotamian settlement in the area of what is now modern-day Iraq. The drawing depicts two figures drinking from a pot from two straws.

Beer in the ancient world was a social event, often drunk communally in groups. Of course, it looked a lot different than modern beer. Early beer resembled soup rather than a drink. The ancients took wild grains, pounded them, and mixed them with water. The mixture was fermented and was drunk through straws in order to filter out some of the impurities.

The fermented grains left over from beer production were used to make some of the earliest bread.

The earliest evidence of beer and bread production came out of the Natufian civilization. The archaeologist dated the beer at around 15,000 years ago and bread at around 14,600 years ago.

By archaeological dating methods that’s virtually the same time. Beer also appears on the oldest written testimony of human civilisation – the tablets from Uruk in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq).

Some of the earliest bread known was found to be produced from fermented grains. Which leads credence to the new theory.

In antiquity beer was far more nutritious and one of the safest way to keep assume a water.

That’s beside the point that things must of been boring as hell back then.

Beer does a body good and just might have led to the rise of the modern world

Makes women prettier.

And

Men stupider

😵🍺

I read quite a bit about the grains in Early Europe. originally bread was made and then they decided to make beer. That was years ago. I guess there was evidence that they gave the guys building the pyramids Beer as pay some sources say.

I think that bread is older than beer myself. But that is just my opinion, I am sure that different areas had different start dates on both of these. They also made mead out of maple in the far north of Europe. I had some mead and it was ok, lots better than wine.

Remember, the deer love fermented apples, I put a bunch of them out back on my land and there must have been fifteen deer out there partying. Usually we have between two and five deer coming around to get snacks. We feed them potatoes, they can make their own vodka in their first gut out of potatoes. They like carrots too, I wonder what fermented carrots would taste like and what it would be called.

a reply to: Fallingdown

Wine came first.

Fruit on the vine that fermented because of their sugar content and the natural yeasts on their outer skin.

It happens in nature without man having to do anything to it.

Everything else came after wine.

Beer is actually kind of a pain in the ass to make as opposed to wine.

a reply to: rickymouse

I've made wine and beer my whole life, as did my father and his father and on and on.

Carrot wine turns out horribly, because after the sugars are gone you are left with a clear fluid with no taste at all but the alcohol.

Potato wine (poteen) is an excellent wine that turns out yellow with a taste that most people equate to pears.

The most fragile and best tasting wine you can ever make is maple leaf wine, using maple sap for the sugar.

It takes about 3 years to settle and has a palette that I can't even describe.

Dandelion wine done right is a real treat as well, but the prep is pretty time-consuming.

Sorry... currently relaxing and drinking an elderberry/huckleberry wine that just blows the top of your skull off after about 2 glasses.

a reply to: rickymouse

I agree there’s no hands down answer to this and it will be debated forever .

But some of the articles I read mention that Wild grains were gathered to make beer. And then bread was made from the fermented grains. You didn’t need as many grains to make beer as you did to make bread. Which caused people to settle down and cultivate grains for the superior nutrition in breads.

Makes sense to me. 🤔

Never had mead always want to try it .

a reply to: Fallingdown

after reading your thread i was compelled to open a nice cold bottle of lion red thank you ancestors

a reply to: Lumenari

I can agree with that. Fruit was fermenting before Homo sapiens . I guess the thing we’re exploring here is the connection between beer and bread .

originally posted by: Fallingdown
a reply to: Lumenari

I can agree with that. Fruit was fermenting before Homo sapiens . I guess the thing we’re exploring here is the connection between beer and bread .

I can't believe I just derailed a thread based on beer or bread.

I'm going to drink some more wine and think about that.

a reply to: Lumenari

No sweat, this thread wasn’t going anywhere anyway .

I was a little surprised at that. When I first looked into this it was a big debate among archaeologist and academics .

The beer first theory because of recent discoveries has merit.

It seems like it would be a better use of resources.

Make beer from grain and bread from the residuals .


Plus personally I think it would be kind of cool .

What's wrong with the idea that yeast came first and then bread and beer came about at roughly the same time? Perhaps a container of grain got soaked and began to ferment. So they ended up making dough out of half of it while the rest turned into beer. I'm fairly certain that nothing was allowed to be wasted esp. if a lot of time and effort was made to produce it.

Of course there is the question of, "Which civilization discovered how to use yeast in their diet first?"

a reply to: Fallingdown
People would have been looking for ways to satisfy their hunger long before they knew it was possible to get drunk.
When they discovered grains, "Let's try to make this edible" would have been the original thought, and the old routine of heating the stuff would probably have been tried first. Discovering what happens when the grain is steeped in water would have been an accidental side-effect of their experiments.

a reply to: DISRAELI

I can agree it sounds completely sensible. But you need to keep in mind beer then wasn’t beer like we know it now .

Making a meal out of grain adding, some type of sugar source and water then forgetting about it. ( i’m not entirely sure you even need sugar )

Could be a happy coincidence if you tried to consume it later .

Guys in prison make hooch with a similar process .

Bread on the other hand would need to be made into some type of flour and heated. But in Bread’s favor they could’ve crushed grain added water and made some type of paste for consumption. The theory I heard was that some might have dropped on a rock near the fire get heated and become bread .

I don’t think the answer to this question as cut and dry.

I think with the current data it’s more along the lines of which came first the chicken or the egg .

With sanitation of the early containers being suspect, I would bet that drinking some of the first fermented beverages were a real hit and miss type of thing.

a reply to: rickymouse

Hey that would make sense.

Beer is full of minerals. I never believed it until recently when I asked someone who works in a company that forges camshafts for big ships and trucks.

They get free beer and are encouraged to drink it even. Because of the heat and sweating, it is good. Our standard beer has like 5.6% alcohol (metric % ) but he says they just sweat it out, they do not really get drunk.

So... makes sense, them working in the heat. I know today many construction sites are busy at night in Egypt. I do not know if they could illuminate the area with their torches so maybe they were working daytime... in the scorching sun..

A slightly cooled beer fresh from the tap system would have refreshed them very well.

a reply to: butcherguy

I do not like to make two messages in a row but I only now saw your message.

Back in the older days (like, centuries), many people drank more schnaps, a high percentage (40%) alcoholic beverage made from corn or potatoes, than water. Little kids even!

Because of the bad fresh water supply back then.

originally posted by: Oleandra88
a reply to: butcherguy

I do not like to make two messages in a row but I only now saw your message.

Back in the older days (like, centuries), many people drank more schnaps, a high percentage (40%) alcoholic beverage made from corn or potatoes, than water. Little kids even!

Because of the bad fresh water supply back then.

I was speaking of millenia ago.
One thing that is very important in brewing and winemaking is sanitation of the equipment used for the fermentation process and the containers used to store the finished product. Beer will go foul and wine will turn into vinegar if sanitation is not good.

a reply to: butcherguy
Sorry I sidetracked with that message but I thought it was something interesting to share.

a reply to: Oleandra88

What you said is true, but I think they wanted to get drunk too!

Hm, getting back on topic, I am not sure what was first (very obvious).

This could be happened through so many accidents. Like, exploring apple must / cider (fermented apple juice) and then someone tried it with hop and barley by accident.

I can only retell the idea my teacher gave me when he taught us about cavemen or what we think we know about them. Like, playing with clay and leaving it at the fire place. They notice it gets hard..

Things like that I think.

a reply to: rickymouse

yup, I was going to point out that a lot of animals enjoy fermented fruits, I don't know of any that bake bread.