Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Patrick Woodward.
Speaker 2: And I'm Megan Nolette. Spotlight uses a special English method
Speaker 2: of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
Speaker 2: matter where in the world they live.
Speaker 1: India, pale, ale, lager, stout, hefe, weison, These are all
Speaker 1: different kinds of beer. No matter where you are from,
Speaker 1: you have probably heard of this grain based alcoholic drink.
Speaker 1: Aside from tea and water. It is the most popular
Speaker 1: drink in the world.
Speaker 2: But beer is not just another alcoholic drink. Beer was
Speaker 2: once a holy drink in many societies. In ancient Egypt,
Speaker 2: people were paid in beer. Experts have found evidence of
Speaker 2: beer in writing from ancient Iraq. This writing contained directions
Speaker 2: for making the drink. It also included a poem praising
Speaker 2: the god of beer. Some experts even think that beer
Speaker 2: helped create modern culture.
Speaker 1: Today's Spotlight is on beer. On this program, we will
Speaker 1: explore the history of this important drink. We will see
Speaker 1: how it shaped culture. We will explore its influence on
Speaker 1: the present day.
Speaker 2: Beer is a very wide description of drink. Today, there
Speaker 2: are hundreds of different kinds of beer. People create new
Speaker 2: kinds every day, but there are two basic things that
Speaker 2: make a beer, grain and yeast.
Speaker 1: All beer is made from grain. This includes plants like rice, barley, sorghum,
Speaker 1: and corn. Today most people use barley to create beer,
Speaker 1: but other grains were more popular in the past.
Speaker 2: To make beer, brewers place grain in warm water. This
Speaker 2: water breaks the grain down into sugars. Brewers call this
Speaker 2: mixture of water and grain a wart. Yeast is a special,
Speaker 2: very small form of life. There are many different kinds
Speaker 2: of yeast, but several turn sugar into alcohol. This is
Speaker 2: called fermentation. Brewers add yeast to a wart after it
Speaker 2: has cooled. This turns the sugary wart into an alcoholic beer.
Speaker 2: It also gives beer a special taste.
Speaker 1: Beer is one of the oldest man made drinks in
Speaker 1: the world. Experts have found evidence of beer as far
Speaker 1: back as eleven thousand BCE, but people have probably been
Speaker 1: making beer for much longer.
Speaker 2: Most likely, the discovery of beer was an accident. The
Speaker 2: Natufians were a group of ancient people from the Middle East.
Speaker 2: They lived in what is now Israel, Syria, and Egypt.
Speaker 1: The Natufians did not live in one place. Instead, they
Speaker 1: hunted animals. They also gathered wild barley, a kind of grain.
Speaker 1: Experts believe that somehow this barley mixed with wild yeast
Speaker 1: and water. The Natufians must have tasted this mixture. They
Speaker 1: must have liked how it made them feel.
Speaker 2: For many of these ancient people, the process of making
Speaker 2: beer must have seemed like magic. They did not know
Speaker 2: how it worked. Many seemed to have believed it was
Speaker 2: the work of God's As a result, beer became part
Speaker 2: of religious ceremonies. People drank beer to celebrate and mark
Speaker 2: special days. Brian Hayden is an expert on ancient peoples.
Speaker 2: He works at Simon Fraser University. In a story on
Speaker 2: Natufian beer, he wrote.
Speaker 3: Beer was an important part of getting people to celebrations.
Speaker 3: It made these gatherings better places for creating political structures
Speaker 3: and power within communities. It also encouraged people to produce
Speaker 3: food in ever increasing amounts.
Speaker 1: Some experts even believe that beer helped create farming. Instead
Speaker 1: of gathering grain, people started growing it for themselves. They
Speaker 1: began to stay in one place instead of hunting and gathering.
Speaker 1: They created strong communities around celebration and meals. These communities
Speaker 1: may have been the start of modern towns and cities.
Speaker 1: Beer was one thing that brought people together to form
Speaker 1: complex communities.
Speaker 2: As time passed, methods for making beer changed. In some places,
Speaker 2: beer continued to have religious importance. In others, people used
Speaker 2: beer as a special drink for workers. Drinking beer had
Speaker 2: many advantages for people working physical jobs. Early beer had
Speaker 2: much less alcohol than it does today and much more sugar.
Speaker 2: It was like liquid bread. Beer kept workers energetic, even
Speaker 2: if they did not have enough food. Beer was also
Speaker 2: safer to drink than some water. William Bostwick is a
Speaker 2: beer reporter for the New York Times. He told National
Speaker 2: Public Radio.
Speaker 4: Beers then were richer and heartier than today. They were
Speaker 4: a way of providing something like food for the lower
Speaker 4: classes who did not have healthy food.
Speaker 1: The first major change in beer came with the discovery
Speaker 1: of the hot plant in the ninth century CE in Europe.
Speaker 1: Adding this bitter plant to beer gives a special taste,
Speaker 1: but the oils from the hot plant are also natural preservatives.
Speaker 1: When added to beer, hops keep the drink from going bad.
Speaker 2: Many people who made beer during this time were Christian monks.
Speaker 2: This special class of religious person lived in a group
Speaker 2: away from normal society. These monks spent much of their
Speaker 2: lives in prayer and thought. Time away from society also
Speaker 2: gave them space to develop methods for beer making. They
Speaker 2: passed their methods down to other monks, who built on them.
Speaker 2: Hops gave them better taste control. The beers the monks
Speaker 2: developed are responsible for today's modern beers.
Speaker 1: Soon other people tried monastic beer methods. Beer taste became
Speaker 1: more complex, and hops became one of the most important
Speaker 1: elements in beer. William the fourth was the ruler of
Speaker 1: a part of Germany called Bavaria in the sixteenth century.
Speaker 1: He declared that people should only use three things to
Speaker 1: make beer, barley, water and hops.
Speaker 2: The next big discovery in beer was the identification of yeast.
Speaker 2: Humans had used yeast to make beer for thousands of years,
Speaker 2: but they did not know that yeast was what made beer.
Speaker 2: The discovery of this process gave people another chance to experiment.
Speaker 2: They could use different yeasts for a desired effect. This
Speaker 2: helped brewers control what their beer was like even more.
Speaker 1: Today beer is only a little like the drink the
Speaker 1: Natufians made. Modern beer has more alcohol. The taste of
Speaker 1: different beers are much more specialized. There are dark, sweet
Speaker 1: beers like the Irish stout, the India pale ale is
Speaker 1: famous for its bitter, hop taste. Rice wines like Japan's
Speaker 1: saki are very similar to beer. These drinks have a
Speaker 1: cleaner taste than European beers.
Speaker 2: But modern beer does have one similarity to its ancient ancestor,
Speaker 2: where those who drink it. Beer is a thing that
Speaker 2: brings people together. It encourages talking and celebration.
Speaker 1: Drinking alcohol is not good for everyone. Too much alcohol
Speaker 1: can cause health issues like liver disease and cancer. Some
Speaker 1: people reject it on religious grounds, but even then it
Speaker 1: is difficult to deny beer's historic importance. This ancient drink
Speaker 1: changed how many societies were formed. It may have even
Speaker 1: created them.
Speaker 2: Beer holds much importance in many countries. Do people drink
Speaker 2: beer where you live? Why or why not? You can
Speaker 2: leave a comment on our website at www dot Spotlight
Speaker 2: English dot com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok,
Speaker 2: and x. You can also get our programs delivered directly
Speaker 2: to your Android or Apple device through our free official
Speaker 2: Spotlight English app.
Speaker 1: The writer and producer was Dan Christman. The voices you
Speaker 1: heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States.
Speaker 1: All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight.
Speaker 1: This program is called the History of Beer.
Speaker 2: We hope you can join us again for the next
Speaker 2: Spotlight program. Goodbye,