colinspooky: Wait, that's before the world was invented. Phew, I need a drink to contemplate how the men of science got this sooo wrong

I have no trouble believing that The Beer Almighty existed before the Universe did.

In fact, in the logical regression ending in 'Well, where did God come from?!', the answer is 'BEER!'

FTA: "A signal also appeared in South America, but Jacobsson said that's probably a false positive."


Of course he'd say that. To imply otherwise would fark with all of the "facts" about migration to the region.

Apparently we inherited blond hair from Denisovans

Amos Quito: Of course he'd say that. To imply otherwise would fark with all of the "facts" about migration to the region.

For example?

LewDux: Apparently we inherited blond hair from Denisovans

Amos Quito: Of course he'd say that. To imply otherwise would fark with all of the "facts" about migration to the region.

For example?

To my knowledge there has never been any claim of the sort. Scientists have found that some Neanderthals had red hair, but the Neanderthal mutation that led to red hair was different from the mutation that causes red hair in humans.

Blond hair has been estimated in one study to have evolved around 11,000 years ago.

If you want a real mindfark, some scientists say that light skin evolved as recently as 5500 years ago. That's 3500 BC, or just before the dawn of history in Egypt and Mesopotamia.

I know subby was trying to make a joke, but evidence of beer being invented 40,000 years ago would be a major discovery.

I know subby was trying to make a joke, but evidence of beer being invented 40,000 years ago would be a major discovery.
I R TOO DUMB whats the joke precious?

Wine came first. Natural fruit being et on by yeast gettin animals and people drunk. I bet civilization was built more on wine than beer.

Subby should know; the oldest alcoholic beverage known to man is mead--honey wine.

//got 5.5 gallons upstairs that has been fermenting for 13 months--soon to be bottled!

Jlop985: To my knowledge there has never been any claim of the sort. Scientists have found that some Neanderthals had red hair, but the Neanderthal mutation that led to red hair was different from the mutation that causes red hair in humans.

Blond hair has been estimated in one study to have evolved around 11,000 years ago.

If you want a real mindfark, some scientists say that light skin evolved as recently as 5500 years ago. That's 3500 BC, or just before the dawn of history in Egypt and Mesopotamia.

_{badaboom tish (new window)}

LeglessDog: Subby should know; the oldest alcoholic beverage known to man is mead--honey wine.

//got 5.5 gallons upstairs that has been fermenting for 13 months--soon to be bottled!

I'd dispute that without evidence. There's a lot more involved in harvesting honey in the wild or raising bees then there is in grabbing a sweet potato or something similar. I'd assume we tried it with carbohydrates that're easier to obtain.

Cat With Two Heads: LeglessDog: Subby should know; the oldest alcoholic beverage known to man is mead--honey wine.

//got 5.5 gallons upstairs that has been fermenting for 13 months--soon to be bottled!

I'd dispute that without evidence. There's a lot more involved in harvesting honey in the wild or raising bees then there is in grabbing a sweet potato or something similar. I'd assume we tried it with carbohydrates that're easier to obtain.

Do you have much knowledge of brewing or fermentation? In order to produce alcohol, yeast needs sugar to feed upon. Starches must be converted into sugars through enzymatic reactions in order to produce a fermentable substance. Honey is already highly-fermentable. Making honey wine is as easy as dissolving honey into water and allowing wild yeast to find it (or adding yeast).\

So, it would only make sense that a naturally-fermentable substance (honey, tree sap, fruit) would have been the first.

Of course this is complete bullcrap. Biblical evidence would suggest that beer couldn't have been invented more than 3,000 years ago.

Bravo, Subby...magnificent!

Modern humans have been around a lot longer than most ordinary people think. The evidence is clear if you can read between the lines. The problem is that most 'historical' records were written within the last 500 years by western europeans who felt they needed to dominate other cultures.

LeglessDog: Do you have much knowledge of brewing or fermentation? In order to produce alcohol, yeast needs sugar to feed upon. Starches must be converted into sugars through enzymatic reactions in order to produce a fermentable substance. Honey is already highly-fermentable. Making honey wine is as easy as dissolving honey into water and allowing wild yeast to find it (or adding yeast).\

So, it would only make sense that a naturally-fermentable substance (honey, tree sap, fruit) would have been the first.

Right, and potato was a bad example, but of those, honey is the least accessible. Wikipedia is telling me that the oldest alcoholic beverages were brewed of rice, honey, and fruit 9,000 years ago in China. So I guess we're both partially wrong and right? High five!

It also says that the Greeks were really into mead and even made spicy mead which just makes my mouth water. Time for some

Jlop985: some scientists say that light skin evolved as recently as 5500 years ago. That's 3500 BC, or just before the dawn of history in Egypt and Mesopotamia.



Or some scientist created whities in 3500 BC.

FloydA: Boloxor the Insipid: I know subby was trying to make a joke, but evidence of beer being invented 40,000 years ago would be a major discovery.
I R TOO DUMB whats the joke precious?

The joke is that you'd need to be really drunk to have sex with a Denisovian or a neandertal, and therefore the possibility of gene flow among and between these three species must indicate the existence of beer.

Not one of the world's great jokes by any stretch of the imagination, but sort of worth a chuckle, I guess.

I got it before I even looked at the article.

LeglessDog: So, it would only make sense that a naturally-fermentable substance (honey, tree sap, fruit) would have been the first.

people were making bread over 5,000 years ago, if they could make bread, they could make beer. Water, grain and yeast, makes beer, makes bread.

They found evidence of someone puking their guts out in a commode carbon dated 40,000 years old?

WhyteRaven74: LeglessDog: So, it would only make sense that a naturally-fermentable substance (honey, tree sap, fruit) would have been the first.

people were making bread over 5,000 years ago, if they could make bread, they could make beer. Water, grain and yeast, makes beer, makes bread.

Beer almost certainly came before bread. The invention of bread probably went something like this:

"But Mommy, I put a blarkma of water into the mixture like you said!"
"I said put in four blarkmas of water. You never listen, you irresponsible little imp. As your punishment, I'm going to make you eat this whole disgusting mess."
"No, mommy, please."
"Yes! Eat it, swallow it!"
"I... actually this is pretty good."

WhyteRaven74: LeglessDog: So, it would only make sense that a naturally-fermentable substance (honey, tree sap, fruit) would have been the first.

people were making bread over 5,000 years ago, if they could make bread, they could make beer. Water, grain and yeast, makes beer, makes bread.

I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make--but grain-based beers did not come first. Mashing grain to produce the sugars necessary for fermentation didn't happen until later. That is essentially the step that separates beer and wine.

LeglessDog: Cat With Two Heads: LeglessDog: Subby should know; the oldest alcoholic beverage known to man is mead--honey wine.

//got 5.5 gallons upstairs that has been fermenting for 13 months--soon to be bottled!

I'd dispute that without evidence. There's a lot more involved in harvesting honey in the wild or raising bees then there is in grabbing a sweet potato or something similar. I'd assume we tried it with carbohydrates that're easier to obtain.

Do you have much knowledge of brewing or fermentation? In order to produce alcohol, yeast needs sugar to feed upon. Starches must be converted into sugars through enzymatic reactions in order to produce a fermentable substance. Honey is already highly-fermentable. Making honey wine is as easy as dissolving honey into water and allowing wild yeast to find it (or adding yeast).\

So, it would only make sense that a naturally-fermentable substance (honey, tree sap, fruit) would have been the first.

I agree with ya there actually. A water logged tree with with a soaked out beehive? yep.
Honey is actually very sterile. its pretty much concentrated frutrose and NOTHING can live in it. it MUST be diluted in order for any bug to take hold. My personal ratio for mead is one pound per two gallons, and ferment on a french red wine yeast, but that is niether here nor there at this moment.

also.. fruit, fermenting on the vine. this happens all the time actually. And the wildlife knows this. there is a long documented history of wildlife picking out the right berries to get thier.. krunk on as it were. I story I can tell on this matter is that about fifteen years ago, VDOT decided to plant bushes that bear berries all over the state at highway ramps and mediums to provide a natural anti headlight glare shield. unfortunatly these berries were inedible to humans, so the berries would sit on the bushes, drop off, hang out, but generally rot out and the juices would ferment. The result of this was that birds, starlings mostly would make the habit of plucking off all the fermenting berries and then try to fly off... usually right into traffic. The roadways became a killing field of song birds getting hammered and fluttering off into traffic. other forms of wildlife had the same idea of course. the highways and interstates were littered with the remains of drunken road kill.

about five years ago VDOT ripped out all the bushes.

but with all that said.. Wine, and its forms? yes... the earliest fermented beverages. Beer? Beer takes a little more effort than that. Cereal grains need to be modified before they can be used to ferment a beverage.. And I go into this topic on the tour I give of the beer mines. In far away times in the long long ago, most grains we take for granted nowadays were wild grasses. few and far between, and with low yields of the seeds. the old hunter gatheres would accumilate these grains and store them the best they could. Here and there, the grains would be left out in the rain, and when the grains were found to be water logged, there would be an attempt to rescue this valuable resource, so the grain would be dried out, at this point, enzymatic action had taken place and it was discovered that the bread made from the flour of these grains was sweeter and tastier. and a good time was had by all. eventually they put two and two together and this rudimentary "malting" became common practice.

go on a little longer, and the bread made from these modified grains was also left out in the rain... and it formed a nasty foamy mess in the earthen ware jar. somebody decided to take a sip of that slushy mess and found it was good and tasty, and somehow put them in a good mood. and much merriment commenced.

So.. to keep the party rolling, they noticed that some of these grains made little baby plants, so they planted the baby plants, and tended to those babies.. and agriculture was born. so now.. instead of hunting and pecking for resources, you planted and tended to the resources, and people stayed close to those resources and built societies around those resources. and hence was born...

...civilization.

I like giving that speech in a mild impersonation of the Gary Oldmans character from the fifth element. it also works in describing the over foaming fermentation tank at high Krausen as the salty leavings of the yeast cells cropulance and evidence of their Caligulian like congress. I also like to adapt the destruction begets life speech from that movie to describe whats going on in the fermentation tank.

its amazing how many laughs I get off of all that... comfortable and uncomfortable, but never any complaints.
I've had 12 years as the weekend guy at the brewery to develop my routine for the free tour.

Cerebral Knievel: LeglessDog: Cat With Two Heads: LeglessDog: Subby should know; the oldest alcoholic beverage known to man is mead--honey wine.

//got 5.5 gallons upstairs that has been fermenting for 13 months--soon to be bottled!

I'd dispute that without evidence. There's a lot more involved in harvesting honey in the wild or raising bees then there is in grabbing a sweet potato or something similar. I'd assume we tried it with carbohydrates that're easier to obtain.

Do you have much knowledge of brewing or fermentation? In order to produce alcohol, yeast needs sugar to feed upon. Starches must be converted into sugars through enzymatic reactions in order to produce a fermentable substance. Honey is already highly-fermentable. Making honey wine is as easy as dissolving honey into water and allowing wild yeast to find it (or adding yeast).\

So, it would only make sense that a naturally-fermentable substance (honey, tree sap, fruit) would have been the first.

I agree with ya there actually. A water logged tree with with a soaked out beehive? yep.
Honey is actually very sterile. its pretty much concentrated frutrose and NOTHING can live in it. it MUST be diluted in order for any bug to take hold. My personal ratio for mead is one pound per two gallons, and ferment on a french red wine yeast, but that is niether here nor there at this moment.

also.. fruit, fermenting on the vine. this happens all the time actually. And the wildlife knows this. there is a long documented history of wildlife picking out the right berries to get thier.. krunk on as it were. I story I can tell on this matter is that about fifteen years ago, VDOT decided to plant bushes that bear berries all over the state at highway ramps and mediums to provide a natural anti headlight glare shield. unfortunatly these berries were inedible to humans, so the berries would sit on the bushes, drop off, hang out, but generally rot out and the juices would ferment. The result of this was that birds, starlings mostly would make the habit of plucking off all the fermenting berries and then try to fly off... usually right into traffic. The roadways became a killing field of song birds getting hammered and fluttering off into traffic. other forms of wildlife had the same idea of course. the highways and interstates were littered with the remains of drunken road kill.

about five years ago VDOT ripped out all the bushes.

but with all that said.. Wine, and its forms? yes... the earliest fermented beverages. Beer? Beer takes a little more effort than that. Cereal grains need to be modified before they can be used to ferment a beverage.. And I go into this topic on the tour I give of the beer mines. In far away times in the long long ago, most grains we take for granted nowadays were wild grasses. few and far between, and with low yields of the seeds. the old hunter gatheres would accumilate these grains and store them the best they could. Here and there, the grains would be left out in the rain, and when the grains were found to be water logged, there would be an attempt to rescue this valuable resource, so the grain would be dried out, at this point, enzymatic action had taken place and it was discovered that the bread made from the flour of these grains was sweeter and tastier. and a good time was had by all. eventually they put two and two together and this rudimentary "malting" became common practice.

go on a little longer, and the bread made from these modified grains was also left out in the rain... and it formed a nasty foamy mess in the earthen ware jar. somebody decided to take a sip of that slushy mess and found it was good and tasty, and somehow put them in a good mood. and much merriment commenced.

So.. to keep the party rolling, they noticed that some of these grains made little baby plants, so they planted the baby plants, and tended to those babies.. and agriculture was born. so now.. instead of hunting and pecking for resources, you planted and tended to the resources, and people stayed close to those resources and built societies around those resources. a ...

this guy sounds like he knows what he's talkin' about . . . so I'm glad he agrees with me.

Honey, the only food on the planet which does not spoil.

LeglessDog: this guy sounds like he knows what he's talkin' about . . . so I'm glad he agrees with me.

Honey, the only food on the planet which does not spoil.

That guy sounds drunk. Also, Twinkies.

Cat With Two Heads: LeglessDog: this guy sounds like he knows what he's talkin' about . . . so I'm glad he agrees with me.

Honey, the only food on the planet which does not spoil.

That guy sounds drunk. Also, Twinkies.

no, really, Honey doesn't spoil. it may form a Crystal mass, but is does not spoil. if yer honey pot turns into a pot of suger, all you need to do is either microwave it for five minutes, or, double boiler it on the stove top.. that honey will go back to honey, and you wont get sick off of it.. the sugar concentration is too high, nothing that can harm you can live in its environment.

And I am at this point drunk... but.. being drunk and eighth of the time is my job actually.

Cerebral Knievel: And I am at this point drunk... but.. being drunk and eighth of the time is my job actually.

Called it. You should probably read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey

Cat With Two Heads: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey

yeah, sorry, it is my Friday night. Ive had time to calm down a little since my last post. what is the point of your link sir? I know the facts about honey, and the points Ive described are backed up by the wiki you suggest
what is the Twinkie reference? Twinkies are fairly long lived as long as they don't oxidize.. the sugar content and preservatives really have nothing to do with their alleged long life..

Remember, BUBBLES have only been in beer for just over 100 years. Thank the Young Einstein for that bit of genius.

tdyak: Remember, BUBBLES have only been in beer for just over 100 years. Thank the Young Einstein for that bit of genius.

*sigh* I have to give up on that reference on the tour about five years ago. kids nowadays don't know nuthin about no histories

Nels: Wine came first. Natural fruit being et on by yeast gettin animals and people drunk. I bet civilization was built more on wine than beer.

Beer the way the ancients brewed it was more like liquid bread. Thick, sweet, and with very little alcohol content. You can get drunk but you can't live on wine. Civilization depended on beer because it was nutritiious, filling and sterilized by boiling during the brewing process, making it safer to drink than the local water.

I thought it went like this:

Move into new valley and make camp. Hunt and gather, but not so much with the hunting this season. Find few berries and fruits, some fragrant herbs, and a field full of grains. Work ass off collecting grains, putting in pouch, dragging back to camp, trying to figure out how to eat them. Crush grains to remove hulls. Winnow broken kernels using water and get wet grits. Let grits soak in really large clay pot to soften for a day or two. Get chased away from camp by horde of sabretooth voles or some such. Return days later for grits and find them a bubbly, sour porridge. Add honey to sweeten. Get sick off of porridge and decide to never eat any more of it. Days later while searching for better food find really ugly tribe has moved in nearby. Also that it has been raining and the sour porridge has become foamy soup with a strong smell. Add a few of the mushy old berries and less edible bits of the fragrant herbs that are left, but to no avail. Cover pot with wet rawhide and tie it down, then move it to a nearby cave to keep the smell away from camp. Consider throwing away everything, but don't want to lose pot. Instead decide more days later, as a joke, to scrape herbs and foam off of porridge soup, pour it into largest water pouch and bring it to ugly tribe as welcoming gift. Discover pot now soaked in with sour gruel, honey and odd, sour smell, and that grits all turned to sticky mush and sank to the bottom of the pot. Play with sticky mush for awhile, discovering it gets thicker and smoother when played with. Leave mush in pot, put hide back on top, then trek to ugly tribe with joke gift. Stay with them that night when they return the favor by offering a chunk of the mammoth haunch they've been carrying with them for the last month. Discover stomach still isn't up to month-old mammoth after previous porridge episode. Apologize and try to convince ugly tribe that vomiting a gifted meal is a local gesture of honor. Get offered some of the honeyed porridge soup and realize ugly tribe isn't as stupid as they look and they want to be sure they're not being tricked. Discover porridge soup is a little better than before, kind of sweet and fiery at the same time. Also that the ugly tribe isn't as ugly after a few bowls. Pass out after a few more bowls of strangely humorous sweet-and-hot porridge soup. Wake up to find really ugly spooning partner. Swear to never eat sour porridge again. ...Again. Get back to camp and find pot with mush which seems to have gotten much bigger than it used to be. Also find crabs where your pee-stick is and get disturbing flashes of memory from the night before. Decide porridge soup is Evil, pull out the sticky mess from the pot and throw it into remains of campfire. Since previous meals haven't gone well and being really hungry, after porridge has turned brown and doesn't smell so bad, fetch it from fire. Discover new kind of food and call it "Bread". Decide to try cleaning the pot by filling it with stream water, scraping the mush up from the bottom and letting it sit, then use that water to try making porridge again. Months later, having established a thriving industry of making bread and several varieties of "Giggle Grain Soup" and "Happy Honey Water" for the local folk, discover ugly spooning partner and seven of her ugly male family members waiting at camp. She is carrying a half-ugly baby and wanting child support.