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First
things first (this is an English teaching site).
Beer
rhymes with here and dear not with there and care. If you go into a pub and
ask for a bear you
will either be laughed at or offered a large aggressive hairy
animal with enormous teeth.
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The word "beer" didn't come into general use until the 16th.
Century and it was used to describe ale which had had
hops added
to it. The word is believed to be derived from bibere,
"to drink" in Latin and this reflects the importance
of beer in English culture.
Until the late 19th. Century beer was
not a recreational drink but the everyday drink of the entire
population since most water and milk were not safe to drink. It
was only a little over a hundred years ago that tea replaced
beer as the everyday drink of the British.
Until the end of the
1700s nearly every cottage in the English countryside
brewed its
own beer. The rural women brewers were called "ale
wives". By the way, a nice little point to remember is the
fact that the female of "brewer" is
"brewster".
The English pub grew from the homes of the most
successful ale wives. Their homes became "public houses"
or "pubs". Indeed, beer was even once described as
"liquid bread"!
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The
Incredible Antiquity of Beer
Beer was first developed by the Mesopotamians
and the Ancient Egyptians over 5000 years ago. The truth is quite a simple
one. Civilization as we know it evolved
in the great river valleys such as the Euphrates and the Tigris in
Asia Minor and the Nile in North Africa, where the nomads and
cave-dwellers gave up chasing and took to growing grains. And
where there was grain, sooner or later there was beer.
But Egypt was the true home of beer, just as it was the originator
of so many arts and institutions. There the patroness of beer was
the goddess Isis, and beer was literally the national beverage.
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Egyptian
beer -called Hek- was made from lightly baked barley bread. The
bread was crumbled, put into jars with water and allowed to
ferment, after which the liquid was strained and consumed or
bottled. Most Egyptians, even children, drank beer and esteemed it
so highly that it was regularly offered as a libation to the gods.
Egypt gave beer its big start but the Greek and Roman conquerors
took that special knowledge of brewing with them and spread it al
over the world. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon,
he toasted his troops with
beer, and he always took plenty of it on long marches to keep the
legionnaires happy. |
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Of course, the Egyptian and Middle Eastern brewing industries
collapsed with the arrival of Islam. Fortunately, by this time the
barbarians in Northern Europe had mastered the art of
brewing. Tacitus and Pliny the Elder
both bear
witness
to the
strange habit of the Germans and the Gauls of drinking beer
instead of wine. Despite the availability of wine in the
north and beer in the south,
Europe still has a north-south drink divide. Further north, ale had a special place in Viking mythology. Valhalla, the
Norse
paradise, was where dead warriors went to spend their days
drinking beer.
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GLOSSARY
hairy:
covered in a lot of hair (peludo)
ale: (specifically) beer without hops; (more generally) beer
(cerveza inglesa muy fuerte)
hops: the dried fruit of a climbing plant which is used to
make beer taste bitter (lúpulo).
cottage: small house in the country (casa de campo)
to brew: make or
ferment beer (or make tea) (elaborar cerveza)
evolved: developed (se desarrolló)
cave-dweller: caveman (cavernícola)
crumbled: broken into pieces or fragments (desmenuzado)
Rubicon:
The boundary in ancient times between Italy and Gaul; Caesar's crossing it with his army in 49 BC was an act of war
(límite entre Italia y la Antigua Galia en la antigüedad)
toasted: saluted, proposed a toast to (brindó)
to master: dominate, control, acquire, learn
(dominar, manejar)
to bear witness to: testify to, comment on (atestiguar, testimoniar)
warrior: fighter, (primitive) soldier (guerrero)
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Sources:
Falstaff's Beer Book - Think in English |
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