Drinks 4. The beer or an historic drink

The habit of drinking beer has a very much deep roots in our culture. It is a drink which history is perhaps as much ancient as the epoch during which men started to cultivate the land. The processes of the beer fabrication have varied throughout the time, but, in most part of the cases, the departure point is the barley. In the ancient Babylonia, the beer was prepared imbibing the brad inside the water until it could transform in a paste which after fermented and it was flavored with cinnamon, dates and honey. The Egyptians and the Vikings made a similar drink. The last one arrived to offer that to the god Odin in liturgical ceremonies. During the Middle Age, the hop started being employed in the production of the beer. The own preparation was during much long at the charge of craftsmen and, until short time ago, the one was made inside the own houses for domestic consumption.

After a period of decline during the 18th century, the production of the beer started to prosper in Germany, where it could industrialize in the 19th century. The experiences with leaven conducted by Pasteur, in the mid 19th century, fixed the basis of the Danish method of E. C. Hansen about the leaven culture, inside a sterile environment, from one single selected cell. With diverse species of cultivated leavens in sterile environment of refrigerators, grand recipients of fermentation and tanks or metal reservoirs, actually there is a production of beer which satisfies all the exigencies of hygiene and of quality. The normal components of the beer are the water, the alcohol, the sugar, the dextrin, and the albuminoidal substances (peptones etc.), the hop, the dioxide of carbon, glycerin, the lactic acid , and, sometimes, acetic acid; it contains also some composites of potassium, phosphoric acid, magnesium etc.

Nowadays, there is a rich variety of beer types, from the Pilsner and the black beer of Baviera until an intermediary type, the Lager, passing through the British beers Pale Ale and Mild Ale, which are aromatic and they contain grand quantity of hop and the Porter, a very dark and bitter beer, based on hop, to which is added burned barley or malt, which give to it a characteristic taste. The Bock is a dark beer, sweetish and thick. The one is produced during the autumn for being consumed during the spring.