Beer!

Microbes have been responsible for some of the worlds most devastating diseases, but at the same time, these unicellular organisms have aided our survival on earth.  Though we didn't know, microbes have been being put to work for thousands of years, and especially in ancient Egypt, where they created one of the worlds most popular beverages.

Beer.

Today, making beer is a multi million dollar industry.  More than two billion people each year will drink 133,000,000 litres of beer.

Yet, if it wasn't for microbes, there wouldn't be any beer.

Beer is a very ancient drink, in fact, scientists believe that it began to be produced at about 6,000 BC.

We can find evidence of this in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the Egyptians took their beer extremely seriously.

Some of the hieroglyphs show that they even gave names to beer like Joeybringer', 'Heavenly', to their beer.  They also loved wine.

Some scientists believe that the Egyptians came over this beverage when a piece of leavened bread containing yeast fell into a vat of soaking grain.

Egyptian beer, however was extremely different to the beer that we know today.  It contained about 50% alcohol, so it was very strong, but the taste was quite unpleasant.  Scientists believe that the Egyptians enjoyed the drunkenness more than the beverage itself.

In the 1800's, scientists were able to recreate the beer form ancient Egypt, and the taste was bad because it contained very alien ingredients (in terms of a beer) such as hops and honey.

In some tomb paintings, Egyptians were seen drinking their beer from ceramic pots with a sort of straw, which filtered the solid parts from the actual liquid itself.

So, how do you make the best beer?

Well, different types of yeast, that have different needs, such as heat, produce different types of beer.

Lager, for example, needs lower temperatures to ferment, and ferments more slowly, thus the high price.

Ale, on the other hand, prefers higher temperatures and grows quite quickly.  You can change the taste by adding different types of malt, grain and hops, or even dried fruits and spices.


But even after all that, its all coming down to the yeast microbes.