Beer

Historically hops, yeast, malted barley, and water have all played the greatest and most important role in society. For almost 8000 years these ingredients have been mixed and have been appreciated by all classes of society in almost all civilizations. The old cliche "accident is the mother of invention" is a phrase that definitely holds true in the world of beer. The discovery was made way back when the Mediterranean region was the seat of civilization and barley flourished as a dietary staple. The climate of the Mediterranean was perfect for the cultivation of barley, and was used as the primary ingredient in breads, cakes, and other common food products. A farmer during this period discovered that if barley become wet,
They had first proposed to sail to Virginia but were forced to land at Cape Cod instead because they were running low on beer. When the Pilgrims arrived they saw the the Indians too had discovered their own beer made of maize, rather than barley. The Indians had learned the art of brewing from their Aztec and Mayan neighbors. Beer was being brewed by Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam as early as
1612. Harvard College ran a brewhouse on campus in 1674, and the Harvard's first president was ousted because he failed to supply enough beer and food rations (5). Beer was valued so high in the Colonial economy that Harvard students were allowed to pay school tuition in wheat and malted barley.
Students were rationed two pints of beer a day until the end of the 1700s when they stopped brewing. Many of the Statesmen had a love for beer. William Penn had a malt house and a brewery on his estate in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Samuel Adams had the same set-up in Massachusetts. Benjamin Franklin kept very accurate records of his household expenses which allowed orders of twenty gallons of beer per month. George Washington developed his own recipes for the beer and made thirty gallons of beer at a time. Thomas Jefferson built his own brewery at
Monticello in 1813 and maintained it until his death in 1826. His beer was considered by many to be some of the best in the young country. In the 1800s a boom of breweries swept across