- [Matthew] Rome 98 CE.
Roman historian Tacitus
takes a sip of wine
as he pours over scrolls.
He's compiling an ethnographic study
of the German Tribes,
including their drinking customs.
"To pass an entire day and night in drinking,
"disgraces no one,"
he says to the scribe he's dictating to.
"Their quarrels, as it might be expected
"with intoxicated people,
"are seldom fought with mere abuse.
"But commonly with wounds and bloodshed.
"Yet it is at their feasts
"that they consult
"on the reconciliation of enemies,
"matrimonial alliances, choosing chiefs,
"and even on peace and war.
"For they think at no time
"is the mind more open to simplicity of purpose
"or more warmed to noble aspirations."
After a digression,
he describes their particular alcohol.
"A liquor for drinking
"is made out of barley or other grains,
"which once rotted,
"has a certain resemblance to wine.
"Revolting barbarians," he thinks
as he takes another sip
of his fermented grapes.
(bright upbeat music)
Thanks so much to Hello Fresh
for helping us bring
this history to the table.
Beer was the drink
of the Fertile Crescent,
of Egypt and North Africa.
Indeed, the beverage ruled the ancient world
until it was conquered
by the same enemy
that menaced all of Europe, the Romans.
The Romans were a wine culture.
A drink they considered
synonymous with civilization
made from a crop that did well
in the Italian environment.
From the palaces to the far provinces,
to be an Ancient Roman
was to drink wine.
And they exported it everywhere
in their burgeoning empire.
All other alcohols
they labeled as "foreign."
Perhaps the worst slur in Roman culture.
The irony, of course,
being that wine
was imported to Rome from Greece.
And they learned much
of the cultivation from Carthage.
Heck, even their sneering dismissal
of other drinks was,
like practically all their gods,
inherited from the Greeks.
But as the Roman Empire
pushed north into Europe,
it increasingly contacted
other drinking traditions.
One's based around
what can broadly be called beer.
Now all of the information we have
on drinking in Northern and Central Europe
at this period
comes from Roman sources
and archeological evidence,
so there's a lot of gaps.
But Roman writers do note
that even at the time of the Gallic Wars,
the people of Central and Northern Europe
were barrel making cultures
who enjoyed a wide variety of drinks.
These included ale,
ale mixed with honey,
types of local wine
and mead, which is made from fermented honey
rather than grain.
But most importantly,
they make it very clear that to the Romans
all types of ale were absolutely gross.
Beer was generally made from barley,
a grain they mostly fed to horses,
i.e. literal animal feed.
In Rome, barley is what you ate during famine.
And they even punished military units
by making them live on barley.
So when they saw people creating a barley mash,
letting it rot in a wooden barrel,
and then drinking it,
(disgusted groaning)
that was a double yuck.
Though, just FYI,
this rotting was the same process of fermentation
that produced their precious wine.
So glass houses and all that.
Some tribes like the Gals,
who inhabited what is now France,
took to Roman wine
and even began cultivating it themselves
while others were more resistant.
In his Gallic War,
Caesar wrote that the toughest and wildest tribes
were the Germans.
And in particular, the Belgians,
who both refused Romes drink.
"They do not at all allow wine
"to be imported among them," he wrote,
"Since they believe that by it,
"men are made soft and effeminate
"for the endurance of hardship."
And Caesar agreed,
believing that wine drinking
had weakened the Gals
and assisted Rome's civilized conquest.
Now Cesar never mentioned beer at all.
But later Roman authors
expanded on this idea
of beer making barbarians
wild and strong
with the comforts of civilization,
particularly wine, enfeebling them.
At the same time,
the rulers of the tribes
who came under the Roman banner
started drinking wine,
making it associated with higher status.
And do you detect a stereotype forming here.
Wine, the drink of the civilized and powerful,
of educated city dwellers.
One that tames wild men,
but makes them a effeminate and weak.
And beer, a common man's brew
that makes drinkers strong and wild,
courageous and quarrel prone,
that imparts the raw toughness
civilization lacks.
And like it or not,
those ideas are still with us today.
It should be noted, however,
that Roman troops did gradually
start drinking beer,
especially in the far flung posts like Britain
when wine wasn't available.
And that's kind of how things stood.
With wine as the dominant drink
until the Western Roman Empire fell
and the transport networks
for wine crumbled.
So what are people drinking
after Rome's collapse, you ask?
Well, in places like Normandy and Bordeaux
that produced wine grapes, still wine.
But outside those areas,
mead was now the most important
beverage of the elite.
Particularly in Germany, Scandinavia, and Britain.
There, mead halls were
an important part of culture.
A communal spot
for socializing, swearing oaths,
and conducting bit business.
Now we could spend an entire episode
on mead halls and their social-political functions.
But right now,
I want you to look at its architecture.
With its large open spaces,
benches and long tables.
What does that look like to you?
Yep, it's a beer hall.
The kind largely associated today with Germany.
And if you're in my neck of the woods, Astoria.
What up, Bohemian Hall!
Sorry, back on track.
Though spurned by the powerful,
ale had never gone fully
out of fashion with average households.
It was too useful and easy to make.
And therefore, the preferred everyday beverage.
In Germany, it held on tenaciously.
And in Ireland,
which the Romans decided not to mess with,
beer was never interrupted at all.
Now, the idea that medieval people
drank beer due to water
being unsafe is mostly a myth.
The Middle Ages not being Ancient Sumer after all.
And fresh supplies of clean water
were abundant even in cities,
but ale was considered
more pleasurable, hardy, and hospitable.
A young monk spoke for most Europeans
when he observed that he drank, quote,
"Ale if I can get it
"and water if I have no ale," unquote.
By the year 1000,
ale was also starting to become commercial.
Monks brewed it for the poor
or sold it to sustain the monastery.
Ale was also considered
a type of liquid bread,
meaning it could be drunk for sustenance
during fast days when the monks
were only supposed to consume
bread and water.
However, women still did
the vast majority of brewing.
They brewed for the household,
and sold or exchanged
whatever they had left over.
Sometimes, neighbors took turns
in a goods exchange.
With one neighbor brewing one week
and the other the next.
Inevitably, some women
were better at it than others
and began to open the front rooms
of their homes as businesses.
When the beer was ready,
this alewife would put an ale wand,
a sprig of branch,
outside to signal
that they were open for business.
Then neighbors would come to either
fill their buckets to take back home
or bring cups to consume beer on the premises.
These homes, dubbed alehouses in England,
were the first type of public house.
And soon, they were joined by taverns,
which also sold wine
and offered private rooms for the wealthy,
and inns that offered food,
overnight accommodation, stables,
and often financially incentivized company
in the rooms upstairs.
The ale they served was porridge-like,
full of spice and berry flavorings.
And mostly the low alcohol small beer.
People drank 10 liters of it a day.
By the reign of Henry III
in the 13th Century,
the trade was big enough
to attract regulation.
As part of a law
called the Assize of Bread and Ale,
the first food and drink
quality legislation in Britain,
local officials called ale tasters
would tour establishments
every six weeks
doing the very hard, demanding work
of ensuring the ale being sold
was of sufficient quality, fairly priced,
and had its strength labeled.
Ooh, that sounds like a tough job, Zoey,
but someone had to do it.
You know, preferably someone
who gave their brother-in-law, the mayor,
a nice fat purse
right before their appointment.
(satisfied sighing)
Delicious, delicious corruption.
But on the continent,
a new innovation would change beer forever.
Because in Germany,
people were adding hops to ale
in order to give it
a more complex, bitter, smokey flavor
and also preserve it.
This also, by some definitions,
turned ale into true beer.
Now, sometimes it's been said
that the polymath abbess
Hildegard von Bingen
was the first to hop ale.
Creating what we now know is beer.
And while it's possible
she did some experiments with that,
you know, between running a convent,
writing poetry and plays,
receiving visions from God,
practicing medicine,
drafting works of philosophy and science,
creating her own language,
and being the most prolific musical composer
of the Middle Ages,
people had been experimenting with hops
for centuries before her birth.
So, you know,
maybe we can't chalk this one up to her.
And hops changed everything.
Taste wise, sure.
But also, when it came to production.
Hop beer lasted weeks.
Meaning for the first time,
beer could be made
in large quantities
and exported as commercial product.
Importantly, far across the sea.
So grab a barrel and roll with us next week
as we form guilds,
swig with Martin Luther
and ask the pressing question,
"Is getting drunk a sin?"
And while you ponder
that thirst quenching question,
perhaps you'd enjoy a home cooked meal
to go with your possibly sinful beverage?
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And now that Zoey and I
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(cat meowing)
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(light upbeat music)