The Hip and Hop of Civilisation

Before beer, we were nomads. There was hardly a reason to sit tight, and every reason to pack up and move on. But beer needs crops, and crops need time to grow and someone to stay put and harvest.

It’s very likely that humankind settled for beer.

So it’s only fair to sing its praises.

Beer is one of the world’s great civilisers. Maybe the first, too, long before The Wheel. The first alcoholic drink resembling a beer was brewed some 12,000 years ago, in the Middle East, somewhere between the Tigris and the Euphrates. The Sumerians, the first true civilisers of our world, and clever at business too, needed a beer accounting system, so they invented maths. They also came up with the first alphabet and wrote (in the Hammurabi Code) about beer. The hero of Gilgamesh, “wild man” Enkidu, became human by drinking beer: all it took was seven jugs.

The first breweries were temples. No beer, no religion. The Sumerians had a beer goddess, Ninkasi, “the lady who fills the mouth”. She lived on mythical Mount Sabu, the “mountain of the tavern keeper”. Ninkasi was also the goddess of fertility, harvest, love- and war-making, but the most important asset in her portfolio was her hops: she gave each of her nine children an alcohol-related name, such as “the boaster” or “the brawler”.

There’s no record of anyone drinking beer in the Garden of Eden. But they probably did; it’s just something the Bible forgot to mention. There must have been a tavern under the Tree of Knowledge, and Eve was its keeper: women discovered the malting process, women were the first priestess-brewers, and women were, and often still are, the tavern-keepers.

Even after banning breweries inside the churches, the Christian church made sure there were taverns around the corner, and even boasts of a beer miracle. During the burial of Arnold, the beloved Bishop of Metz, there was a shortage of beer, but the single goblet the mourners passed around allegedly came to the rescue: it never emptied. Thus, ever since, St Arnold has been the Patron Saint of Beer. The seventh-century Irish monk Gallus, founder of the Swiss town St Gall, is considered the first modern brewer: the town still has one of the best breweries in the country. (As I was born in that beautiful town, naturally Gallus is my favourite saint.)

Beer has also been ready to help when civilisation is in danger. Vaclav Havel, when still a prisoner, not yet a president, called brewing good beer a form of resistance. (He said good beer; maybe he had in mind that ancient Egyptian law that sentenced the maker of bad brew to death by drowning.) In case of a national crisis (and he surely had one at hand), Abraham Lincoln recommended giving the people two things: real facts and beer. During the Second World War, the US brewing industry advertised drinking beer as a way of supporting the troops: the “right to enjoy a refreshing glass of beer” was promoted as a morale-builder.

It is also true that beer can threaten civilisation. For the Vikings, who had breweries on their ships, pillaging without drinking beer was unthinkable. Today’s equivalent Vikings are the soccer hooligans, giving (usually bad) beer a bad name. Who needs that much courage to go to a soccer game?

Beer is the better water. It is healthful and nutritious. In ancient Egypt, it was a crucial element of medical treatment because it would not infect the drinker with typhoid or cholera. Sophocles recommended a daily glass. In medieval times, hospitals like the renowned St Bartholomew’s in London prescribed beer brewed in their own breweries. Beer was what initially kept the Pilgrims on board the Mayflower because they didn’t trust the water of the Promised Land. Beer is liquid bread: imbibe a German Weizen (wheat beer) and you’ve had a meal. Beer is a great healer and comforter, as John Taylor, the Water-Poet, had it: “The speedy taking of it doth comfort a heavy and troubled minde; it will make a weeping widow laugh and forget sorrow for her deceased husband.” Benjamin Franklin, perhaps the biggest booster of beer, informs us that Noah decried the drinking of water, “For he knew that all Mankind, by drinking it, dy’d”. Edgar Allan Poe, less radical, saw in beer the perfect antidote to ageing: “What care I how time advances; / I am drinking ale today.”

Beer is—and isn’t that the point?—intoxicating. It doesn’t have to be “Beer for Breakfast” (Frank O’Hara), nor “rivers and seas” of it (Charles Bukowski). But yes to beer as a “joy-bringer”, as the ancient Egyptians called one of their brews. They also issued a stern warning about drinking too much for “fear that people repent the words that come out of their mouths”. Indeed, the intoxicating quality of beer may make “the fool more foolish”, as the great Finnish epic, The Kalevala, has it, but for the most part it “cheer[s] the broken-hearted”, makes “the aged young” and “the timid brave”, and fills “the heart with joy”. It is even proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy, as Benjamin Franklin allegedly said (although, likely, he didn’t). Henry Lawson summed it up neatly: “Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer.”

Beer is money. In Sumer, barley was the earliest form of currency. Today, beer is a gigantic industry. Global beer production in 2016 was 196 billion litres, slightly less than the previous year, but, over the last two decades, growing, growing, growing. Light beers are down, crafts are up. The “good beer” trend seems unstoppable: in America there hardly seems a town that doesn’t have a microbrewery (and likely a good one).

Hops are hip. A beer craze is sweeping America: trendy growler boutiques are popping up everywhere; every self-respecting restaurant is adding artisanal beers to the menu; the annual three-day Great American Beer Fest in Denver recently attracted 49,000 visitors; home-brewing kit sales are growing; beer trails proliferate. A variety of glassware is now essential for aficionados, foodies consult beer apps to tell them which brew goes well with their meal, and they can, with just a tap, buy a friend a beer at a bar on the other side of town. Meanwhile, down at the neighbourhood joint, good old familiar brews are still providing solace to noble working stiffs.

Finally, beer is poetry. Did beer also produce poetry, civilisation’s most beautiful speech? “Hymn to Ninkasi” is about a thousand years older than Gilgamesh. Naturally, that epic has a gorgeous section about beer. Before poetry was written down, it was music, song and prayer, and many of the poems in Hip Hops: Poems About Beer are songs and prayers, old and new. Some are lyrics by Hank Williams and Tom Waits, some were composed in the service of social causes, like the “No Beer, No Work” movement of Prohibition days. Far too many great poets to name them all have written about beer through the centuries.

Yes, there is sometimes too much bawling and roaring on Beer Street, the effect of too much relaxing of inhibitions, and no, we don’t ignore the damaging side of drinking too much. (Check out the Small Beer section in Hip Hops, and, even more so, the Hangover section.) We do honour a few teetotaller poems, even though they’re a bit dry. Sometimes you have to heed Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s warning as she asks, “Are you bound for hell? Then step this way,” meaning any available watering hole. But sometimes you can’t help following Charles Baudelaire’s advice: “Get drunk! / Stay drunk! / On beer, virtue, poetry, whatever!”

So, in general, drink your favourite hop, but drink moderately; ne quid nimis, as the Romans advised: of nothing too much. In moderation is how to enjoy joy. See you—hopfully—one day at your local tavern, mug of beer in one hand and book of poetry in the other.

Beer, you know, made us human.

It still does.

Cheers,

Christoph Keller