While an array of flavorful adjectives can be ascribed to this intoxicating beverage, few words can capture the true soul and spiritual connection that has been shared between man and beer for thousands of years. Since its first batch, beer has brought enlightenment to humanity, encouraging man to manifest himself in a way that would mold a vibrant, expressive, and innovative civilization. Of course, in gratitude for giving humanity its creative input, sharing mythological tales about the epic qualities and creation of beer was also prominent during the evolution of civilization. Raise your glass and fill your mind’s mug with these tales of brew.

10A Heavenly Goat

There’s plenty a goat can provide—cheese, milk, YouTube videos of them fainting—but what if you had a goat capable of supplying an endless current of beer? You would undoubtedly be able to throw the most outlandish keg parties in town, an eternal celebration no stranger to fallen soldiers in the Viking heaven of Asgard.

According to Norse mythology, the principal god Odin houses the noblest of fallen soldiers in his massive banquet hall, Valhalla, on top of which a giant goat brimming with beer named Heidrun is perched. At each daybreak, these warriors hone their battle skills by fighting on the Asgard plain in preparation for their final contest against Ragnarok, the Norse apocalypse. Fingers, hands, and even heads may be sacrificed during the fighting, but at nightfall, their bodies are reassembled and an endless supply of beer and food is offered to all. Heidrun sits atop Valhalla, nibbling on branches from the Norse tree of life and awaiting the dead, with udders full of frothy brew eager to flow down into Valhalla’s bottomless tub. Asgard’s Viking maidens, the Valkyries, serve the fallen soldiers beer after beer in reward for their hard day’s work.

9The Salvation Of Humanity

If your night has ever consisted of sloshing down seven beers, you’re no stranger to the beverage’s intoxicating consequences. Now imagine chugging 7,000 beers, a feat that transcends Andre The Giant’s unofficial world record by 6,881.

The Egyptian goddess of war, Sekhmet, not only sports a head of a lioness but can drink just about anyone under the table. Regarded for her uncontrollable rage, she was originally sent forth by the Sun god, Ra, to destroy evildoers. When she could no longer suppress her lust for blood, she conspired to slaughter all of humanity.

Ra thwarted Sekhmet’s plot by ordering his high priest to whip up 7,000 jars of beer mixed with red ochre and scatter them all over the land. While storming through Egypt in preparation for the massacre of mankind, Sekhmet discovered the red beer and immediately guzzled down every drop, believing it to be blood. Her thirst quenched, Sekhmet drunkenly staggered away, unable to fulfill her plan. Thus, according to Egyptian mythology, beer is the savor of the human race.

8Enlightenment

The oldest piece of written literature known to man, dating somewhere between the years of 2750 and 2500 B.C., The Epic of Gilgamesh originates from ancient Sumeria and recounts the adventures of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk. The epic also tells of a feral half man named Enkidu who was raised by wild animals in the hills and guided toward civilization by a prostitute named Shamhat. Of course, what is civilization without beer?

As a representation of primitive mankind prior to enlightenment, Enkidu is clueless in the ways of man and even unaware of how to accept an offering of bread and beer. Shamhat explains that eating bread is what humans do for survival, while drinking beer is what civilized people do as a custom of the land. Seven pitchers in, Enkidu becomes human, shaves his matted hair, and acquires a proper wardrobe. This evolution from primitive creature to humanity is symbolic of the fierce relationship Sumerians ascribed to beer and the civilization of mankind.

7The Kalevela

The Kalevela is an epic of Finnish mythology published in its entirety in 1849 by Elias Lonnrot. A collection of earlier works ranging from 1000 B.C. through the 17th century, The Kalevela tells the story of the creation of Earth and humanity, but more importantly, the creation of beer. One of the most intriguing aspects of the epic is the number of lines dedicated to beer—approximately 400—while the creation of the Earth is summed up in a measly200. The Kalevela also illustrates the mythological history behind beer’s first fermentation, revealing what scholars believe to be the origins of using hops in the brewing process.

According to the mythology of The Kalevala, a female brewer wished to make beer for a wedding celebration, but to her distress, the beer wouldn’t ferment. She sent a white squirrel into the forest to gather cones from a fir tree, but the beer remained flat. She then sent a marten to collect foam from the mouths of irritated bears, but still, the beer would not bubble. Once more, the brewer sent a honeybee to travel to a desert island and harvest pollen from blooming flowers. Elated, the brewer observed the beer froth up and overflow into the streams of the mythical city of Pohjola, thus creating the first batch of hoppy beer.

6The Hymn To Ninkasi

Since boiled water was used in its brewing, beer was actually healthier than the available canal water in Mesopotamia in 2500 B.C. Additionally, beer contained nutrients all other beverages lacked, making the brew a prominent aspect of the Mesopotamian diet. It’s no surprise, then, that the earliest instruction manual for the brewing process of beer was recorded in Mesopotamia.

The Hymn to Ninkasi—which was also a chorale of praise to the Sumerian goddess of beer, as the title implies—was recorded around 1800 B.C. However, it is believed to be much older, as the brewing of beer in Mesopotamia dates back to 3500–3100 B.C. The hymn instructs readers and listeners to handle the dough with a shovel; mix with sweet aromatics, honey, and grains; soak the malt in a jar; and filter it in the vat. The end result was not just any beer—it was a beer comparable to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, bringing life and enlightenment to all those who partook of it.

5The Hospitable God Of The Sea

While feared by sailors due to the immense amusement capsizing ships brought him, Aegir, the Norse god of the sea, is regarded in the deity realm as one of mythology’s most hospitable gods. The Norse god of thunder, Thor, gifted Aegir with a mile-deep cauldron brimming with ale for use during annual banquets for the gods. With a cauldron of that substantial size, many honorable gods in Norse mythology would gather at Aegir’s golden sanctuary at the bottom of the sea during the winter months and partake in his neverending supply of perfectly crafted ale.

Because of these lavish celebrations, Aegir is known for not only his hospitality but putting any host to shame by providing a literal “bottomless keg” that instantly replenishes mugs upon draining. In fact, so much beer is enjoyed by his guests that the white froth seen atop waves is attributed to Aegir’s massive parties.

4Witch’s Brew

Cerridwen, the Welsh witch-like goddess of barley, resides in the underworld and keeps guard over the Cauldron of Wisdom, which is believed to hold a beer concoction known as the “Brew of Inspiration and Knowledge.” According to Welsh mythology, Cerridwen birthed two children, a beautiful daughter and a hideous son. Taking pity on the boy, she decided to grant him more wisdom than any other in existence, but in order to do so, she has to stir her brew for a year and a day. Soon tiring, she handed the task over to a young boy named Gwion, warning him to avoid tasting or letting his skin come in contact with the brew.

At the end of the year, when Gwion had faithfully completed his duty, three drops splashed out of the cauldron, burning his hand. After sucking on his finger to relieve the pain, he instantly became the wisest to have ever lived. Furious at the enlightened Gwion for unintentionally defying her, she chased after the boy, who met his end when the witch ate him after he shape-shifted into a single grain of wheat in an attempt to conceal himself.

3The Flemish King Of Beer

According to the Flemish myth, a lowly apprentice glassmaker named Gambrinus was rejected by a beautiful maiden he had fallen in love with named Flandrine. Heartbroken and distraught, he fled from his home in Fresne to a nearby forest to hang himself. While there, however, he was confronted by the devil, who proposed a deal. If he could not win Flandrine’s love, the devil would grant Gambrinus the ability to forget the maiden forever, at the cost of his soul in 30 years.

Even with the devil’s luck, Flandrine remained unimpressed with Gambrinus and rejected him yet again. He stormed back to the forest, vexed by his unrequited love as well as his inability to forget the maiden, but to his surprise, a field full of green, aromatic plants appeared before him. The devil explained that the plants were hops and would make a drink called “beer” that was strong enough to make Gambrinus forget about Flandrine once and for all. In addition, he was granted chimes, which he played for the townspeople of Fresne when they complained of the brew’s bitterness.

Unable to resist Gambrinus’s tunes, the townsfolk began dancing uncontrollably and soon became thirsty, acquiring an appreciation for the beer. Gambrinus began playing chimes all around the world to introduce beer to humanity, landing him the title “King of Beer.” In response to his newfound fame, Flandrine returned to Gambrinus to profess her love for him, but as he was too wasted to recognize her, he simply offered her another beer and carried on with his life.

When the devil returned after 30 years, Gambrinus played the chimes until the devil was too tired of dancing and agreed to break off the deal. When Gambrinus died, his body disappeared and was replaced by a barrel of beer, having lived a happy and drunk life.

2Mythology’s Party Animals

Dionysus, the Greek god of pleasure and festivity, seemed to live an enviable life, even for a mythological deity—eternally tipsy, surrounded by a flock of devoted nymphs, and able to cause a ruckus anywhere he goes because “Oh, it’s just Dionysus. He’s probably drunk again.”

But one isn’t born mythology’s most notorious party animal—he had to be taught. His teacher was the sozzled, big-bellied Greek god of beer named Silenus. As a foster father and drinking buddy to Dionysus, Silenus is usually depicted as a jovial man, often having to be carried on the back of a donkey due to his immense enjoyment of all things intoxicating or cavorting all night to a dance he named “The Silenus.”

Unlike most drunkards, who believe beer grants them some sort of philosophical enlightenment, Silenus actually acquired prophetic powers upon a heavy night of drinking, which made him one of Greek mythology’s wisest deities. In fact, he was so respected and renowned that he was once taken hostage for five days by King Midas, who sought his drunken prescient knowledge. Dionysus, concerned for the whereabouts of his tutor, finally discovered Silenus and was so elated by his well-being that he granted King Midas the ability to turn everything he touched into gold.

1The Beer Of Life

Also known by his Welsh name of Govannon, Goibniu is a respected Celtic god and master goldsmith. In addition to constructing the most valuable and sustainable weapons in Ireland, he is also known for his skill and craft in brewing the most vital of beers.

According to legend, his brew was crafted with fruit from trees of the Otherworld, a realm of Celtic deities, and rendered the drinker indestructible in battle. Even those with a simple illness could take advantage of Goibniu’s fantastic ale, as it could cure any sickness. If thought worthy enough, a soldier killed in battle could be placed in Goibniu’s cauldron and brought back to life, fully intact.

The primary purpose of his beer, however, was to bestow immortality and invincibility upon Celtic deities. Served at the sacred Manann’s Feast of Age, all those sipping the heady elixir were granted immortality as well as eternal youth.

Belgians are crazy about beer. Young Belgians are weaned on beer with soda, and old Belgians drink it with breakfast. Even the monks in Belgium make beer. The country has been in the brewing tradition since the 1100s—before it even was a country—and time has only served to open the doors for more and better ways to make the inebriating honey of the gods.

SEE ALSO: 10 Legendary Beer Facts To Get You Drunk Off Knowledge

We visited a few places in Belgium where beer is nigh religion and tasted for ourselves the holy fervor that has stood to make this country a bastion of alcoholic enlightenment. In the process, we’ve come to an inescapable conclusion: These guys are crazy about beer, and we love it.

10Beers Per Capita

Belgium has more individual styles of beer per capita than any other country in the world. With a population barely scraping past 11 million, they produced a whopping 1,132 distinct types of beer in 2011. Fast-forward to 2013 and that number is a mind-blowing 3,043 beers that were brewed among all 10 provinces of Belgium. The Flemish Brabant, a province in the north of Belgium, makes 457 beers on its own.

The region’s interest in beer began when the Catholic Church sanctioned the use of abbeys to brew and distribute beer to raise money for upkeep near the end of the 10th century. Over the years, the nuns in the abbeys began pioneering new ways to brew, strengthening the diversity that was available to the locals in brewing villages. At the turn of the 20th century, there were over 3,000 breweries in Belgium, but the two World Wars had a devastating effect on the Belgian economy that reached deep into the brewing industry. Now, there are only about 180 breweries in Belgium.

9Spontaneous Fermentation

Known in Belgium as lambic, spontaneously fermented beers have been brewed since the 14th century. The process isn’t at all unique to Belgium, but they’re certainly pioneering the modern form of spontaneous fermentation. Normal beer is made with three ingredients—malt, hops, and yeast. The malt makes it sweet, the hops add the bitter taste, and the yeast ferments the whole thing into alcohol.

Typically, the yeast is added from a package or a live culture. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a common brewing yeast, although there are others. But in spontaneous fermentation, the malt and hops are left to cool in the open air. This introduces wild yeast into the mixture, giving the brew a quality that is unique to the region where it was brewed, since it depends on the natural yeasts in the air to start the fermentation. Lambic is made exclusively in Belgium’s Zenne valley, where the wild yeasts Brettanomyces bruxellensis and Brettanomyces lambicus thrive.

Lambic by itself is acidic and flat, but if there’s one thing you can say about Belgian brewers, it’s that they never give up on a beer. To fix it, they brew a batch of lambic and then age it for six months. Then, they brew a fresh batch and mix the two together. Finally, while it’s still fermenting, they bottle it, trapping the carbon dioxide and keeping it nice and bubbly. When you throw all those steps together, the result is an even more unique beer type known as Geuze (pronounced like a heavily accented “goose”). Now that’s dedication.

8Beer Cocktails

Jurgen Bollion and his brother Steven are the joint owners of the Taste M, a little bar bolted to the front of a small art museum in Leuven. Jurgen, a jovial man with a linebacker build and perpetually flushed cheeks, visits each table in person with a tray full of “fixings” for his signature drinks: beer cocktails.

The only way to describe a beer cocktail is “whatever Jurgen wants to put in it.” But you’re in good hands. As he works, he explains what each ingredient does for the drink: Sweetwood (part of the licorice family) for a tart flavor, tonic for a bitter middle taste, several shots of gin for strength, a bottle of Caulier 28 tripel for the beer, and ice to give the flavor more variety. He explains that, as the ice melts and the sweetwood seeps into the drink, the flavor changes, making each sip a little different. Then he makes a round of the table to tip more gin into each glass with a gruff “drink more.”

And that’s just one cocktail. Jurgen has created hundreds of recipes for unique beer cocktails, each one meant to emphasize a different taste profile. One of his goals is to get past the perception that beer is a “man’s” drink. In his words, everybody likes beer, you just have to find the right one—“They say to me, ‘I don’t like beer.’ And I say, ‘No, you don’t like the beers that you have tried up to this point.’ ” He wants to find everybody’s perfect beer. That’s a man with an admirable mission.

7“The Longest Bar In The World”

This is a local colloquialism for a square officially known as the Oude Market, located in Leuven. The market is basically a long, open courtyard with a line of businesses running along one side. So why is it called the longest bar in Europe? Well, over 40 of those businesses just happen to be bars. Since each bar has an outdoor patio, the experience is one of an unbroken outdoor terrace that runs for nearly half a kilometer (0.3 mi).

Of course, despite its name, it’s not actually the longest bar in the world, or even Europe. There are several contenders to the title, most of them named by generations of locals who grew up with the phrase and simply want to keep it alive in their home town. Nevertheless, the Oude Market is a unique place to visit, and one of the bars, Domus, is even supplied by a direct pipeline to its nearby brewery.

And the other side of the square? That’s a university. In many parts of Belgium, especially Leuven, college students get beers for €1 as a thanks from the brewers to their best customers.

6The Bruges Beer Pipeline

When the De Halve Maan brewery opened up a new bottling plant at the outskirts of Bruges, they hit a snag: As the last brewery in downtown Bruges, their facility has become something of a cultural icon. Bruges was once the proud home of dozens of breweries both large and small, but one by one they each closed their doors for the last time. De Halve Maan has been standing since the 16th century, and over 100,000 tourists flock to Bruges to view their brewery and beer museum every year.

So moving the brewery closer to the bottling plant is definitely not an option, but as it stands now, a fleet of 500 trucks is required to transport the beer from barrel to bottle, a fleet that accounts for 85 percent of Bruges’s current commercial traffic. The streets are literally clogged with beer.

That’s all going to change with an underground beer pipeline. It won’t be the first in the world—Germany has a beer pipeline running under the Veltins-Arena football stadium, and the Great Lakes brewery in Cleveland has a small underground system. But while Great Lakes only pipes their beer across the street, De Halve Maan is building a monstrosity that runs 3 kilometers (1.8 mi) under the city. It’ll pump 100 liters (26 gal) of freshly brewed beer every minute.

5The Farm Brewery

In the fields outside the tiny town of Tildonk, father and son team Andre and Dries Janssens operate one of the most unique breweries in the world: Hof ten Dormaal. What started as a simple barley farm slowly evolved into an international brewing venture. Looking for ways to make their farm more efficient, the Janssens decided to set up a small brew operation to get rid of the extra barley. Then, they decided to grow their own hops instead of buying them.

From that point, they settled on a unique concept: Everything in their beer would be made or grown on their farm. Soon, they were also bottling the finished creations right beside the haystacks. A state-of-the-art bottling line lets them cap 2,000 bottles of their farm brews per hour.

Even after they began shipping 90 percent of their output to willing buyers in the US, the Janssens weren’t content—they decided to try aging some of their beers in old liquor barrels, and so they took off on a trek across Europe to find wooden barrels that had spent years soaking up the flavors of cognac, armagnac, port, sherry, and whiskey.

4Trappist Beer

In the silent halls of a 17th-century Trappist monastery, something dark is brewing. The Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, commonly referred to as the Trappists, is a monastic order that focuses on the work of one’s own hands as the true path to salvation. Although they don’t take an official vow of silence, Trappist monks avoid speaking unless absolutely necessary, and any speech that mocks or puts down someone else is a sin. All in all, they’re not bad fellows.

But regardless of any religious affiliation, Trappist monks brew some of the meanest beers in the world. There are only 10 authentic Trappist breweries in the world, and six of those are in Belgium. Westvleteren XII, a Trappist beer brewed not far from the city of Ypres, is often called the best beer in the world. Everything the Trappists make from their beer goes back into their abbeys in accordance with their vow of poverty.

3World’s Largest Beer Menu

The current holder of the Guinness World Record for most available beers on the menu is Delirium Cafe, located in Belgium’s capital city of Brussels. They have 3,162 beers available on their shelves. You’d have to drink 8.5 beers every day for a year just to taste them all.

We didn’t have a chance to visit Delirium Cafe, but we did stop in for a brew at Belgium’s valiant underdog: The Capital, located in Leuven. With the distinction of second largest beer menu in the world, this unassuming little place looks just the same as any other bar on Brusselsestraat—on the outside. Even the inside, at first glance, looks like your typical bar. But then you realize that the frosted tiles on the floor aren’t tiles—they’re windows. And through the windows is a vision of Valhalla: an entire lower level with row after row of beer-filled shelves standing dark sentinel like Belgium’s answer to Qin Shi Huang’s terra-cotta army.

It works like this: A customer orders a beer. The waitress passes the order to The Capital’s underbelly, where a “beer finder” locates the brew. He places it on a vertical conveyor belt that runs up behind the bar, and it’s served. It may take longer than a traditional bar, but what are a few minutes compared to the option to drink thousands of beers you’ve never heard of?

2Unholy Consumption

As a country, Belgium has been drunk for over a millennium, but to say that Belgians drink a lot of beer is like saying the ocean has a lot of water—we need some specifics. Country by country, Belgium currently stands at No. 18 on the global list of beer consumption by country per capita. On average, each Belgian drinks 74 liters (19.5 gal) of beer every year.

But that’s a symptom of modern times. In 1900, Belgians were guzzling an unholy 200 liters (53 gal) of the fizzy brown stuff each year. One of the reasons for the drop in beer sales is the rise of soft drinks, and even the beer capitals of the world are getting hit by the shift. Many breweries have even begun to reduce the bitter qualities of their beer in an effort to keep up with a customer base that’s gravitating toward sweeter drinks.

1A Glass For Every Beer

The above photo is just a fraction of the absolute insanity of everyday drinking in Belgium. Every beer comes with a specially designed glass from which to drink it. This isn’t a suggestion—it’s a cardinal rule. When you order a new beer, your old glass will be removed so that a new goblet will have a place to rest its crystal stem. The glass styles are split about evenly between the typical beer-style mugs, pints, steins, and plenty of wine-style flutes. One beer even comes in a bowl.

The idea of using a specific glass for every beer is so prevalent in the region that many breweries start a new recipe by first designing the glass. And believe it or not, this long-standing tradition has been backed up by a handful of studies that conclude that the shape of a glass definitely affects the flavor and aroma of the beer inside.

So what’s in a glass? Quite a lot, apparently. We’re just happy as long as one of those things is beer.

We’d like to thank Marie Venhellemont at Leuven Leisure for the instructive beer tour on our first day. We’re sorry we were so jet lagged. And of course, thanks to Marcos Stupenengo at VisitFlanders for making the whole trip possible. Hope to see you again soon, Belgium!

As summed up by Homer Simpson, the most important philosopher of the 20th century: Beer is the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems. The amber liquid deserves a fair share of the credit for a lot of major changes and advances throughout humanity’s history.

10Refrigeration

Fridges keep our food fresh and safe for our consumption. They are absolutely critical to our survival and the way we have flourished in the modern world. We also use them to keep our beers nice and cold, which is actually what they were created for.

Brewing traditionally only took place during the cooler months, as it is an exothermic process. It generates heat, and too much heat can kill the yeast and ruin the beer. For hundreds of years, blocks of ice were harvested and stored in cellars to keep the beer cool. Then came the breakthrough of mechanical refrigeration by Carl Von Linde, who was employed by the Spaten Brewery in Munich.

By the 1880s, refrigeration was common in breweries. It was expensive, but it let them brew all year round. It further let breweries grow and pop up in locations far from ice sources. This also led to the dominance of cooler lager beers . . . as well as, eventually, the presence of refrigerators in everyone’s home.

9Glass Bottles

While not creating glass, beer was the driver behind the glass bottles that contain everything from amber ales to water, ketchup, baby milk, and medicine. This it was one of the earliest examples of large-scale mechanical production, which would flourish so incredibly in the 20th century.

Michael Joseph Owens was the man behind the machine. Owens linked up with Libbey Glass to market his product with the aim of using it to mass-produce long-neck beer bottles. Owens’s machine was a raging success. By 1903, he had created a commercial machine that could churn out 12 glass bottles per minute. By 1912, it could make 50 every minute. The machine created by Owens was used around the globe by 1915.

The company formed by Owens owned the rights to making brandy, wine, and specialty bottles. Exclusive rights were sold to Heinz for ketchup, Hazel-Atlas for general bottles, and Ball Brothers for fruit jars.

8Pasteurization And Germ Theory

The process of pasteurization is now commonly associated with milk. It involves heating and subsequently cooling substances to remove harmful bacteria. However, the man who discovered the benefits of this process, Louis Pasteur, wasn’t worried about milk—he was trying to fix beer.

Local breweries wanted to know what was causing their beer to spoil, and helping local industries was part of Pasteur’s job at the University of Lille. They hired Pasteur, who demonstrated that bacteria caused this—bacteria that could be removed by heating and cooling the beer. He called the process pasteurization.

This process, all from beer experiments, led to the development and proof of germ theory, which stated that outside pathogens cause disease. Previously, it had been thought that pathogens spontaneously generated inside a substance rather than coming from without. This in turn led to vaccinations and modern medicines, all thanks to people getting tired of sour beer.

7The Thermometer

James Joule needed the extremely specific conditions and skills he learned in his brewery to measure and define mechanical heat. For example, the ambient temperature had to be ultra-precise, he had to work alone, and he had to work for many hours uninterrupted. Under these unique constraints, forced by brewing, he performed his experiments that would affect the entire field of physics.

Joule recognized that he needed a more precise thermometer, giving us the mercury model that is so key today, rather than the inaccurate air thermometers that were previously commonplace. Perhaps even more importantly, Joule devised the mechanical heat ratio in his brewery, which eventually became the basis of the science of energy.

6The pH Scale

The pH scale is an integral part of modern science across several fields. It defines the acidity or alkalinity of a solution. A pH of 7 is neutral, and anything lower is an acid, while anything higher is alkaline, 14 being the most alkaline. The scale describes optimal levels for liquids, such as within the body and in drinking water. And it all came about thanks to a bunch of beer lovers annoyed that they couldn’t consistently measure their beer.

Frustrated brewers at Carlsberg hated having no standard measure of describing their product’s acidity. They had to use subjective terms that were not precise. Creating the scale enabled them to monitor the fermentation of their beer as well as allow anybody to repeat their manufacturing process and get the same result.

5The T-Test

When conducting studies, you ideally want a large sample size to verify your hypothesis. But in life, things rarely go ideally. What do you do when such a size isn’t available?

That problem was faced by Guinness breweries, since they couldn’t easily repeat tests on new barley varieties. Sample sizes were small, and it would take another year for a new crop, which would be subject to different weather conditions. It was like trying to gauge a population of 1,000 using a group of 10.

Brewer William Seally Gosset devised the t-test as a solution to this problem, publishing it in an international journal under the name “Student,” as he was not allowed to use his real name. In more technical terms, the t-test is about testing hypotheses drawn from a small sample when the standard deviation is unknown. Statisticians have Guinness to thank for it.

4Carbon Dioxide

Air was once thought to be one homogenous substance, not the combination of gases we know it is today. It was all thanks to beer that Joseph Priestley discovered carbon dioxide. And with it, he discovered the existence of individual gases.

Living next door to a brewery, Priestley observed that gas floating off the fermenting mixtures fell to the ground, indicating that it was heavier than the air around it. He had discovered carbon dioxide. In addition, he observed that it extinguished lit wood. Priestley figured out how to produce it without alcohol, inventing carbonated beverages as well, so beer also led to the creation of all your favorite fizzy drinks.

This monumental discovery inspired Priestley to figure out what other kinds of “airs” (later called gases) floated around. In the end, the heavy air coming off his beer let Priestley discover not only CO₂ and oxygen but six other gases, including laughing gas—a feat unequalled.

3The Age Of Exploration

The European voyages to discover and colonize land during the Age of Exploration were very long, with little to no chance of stopping in at a port to resupply. So the rations aboard had to last long enough that the crew would not die of starvation on the journey.

When Christopher Columbus left the shores of the Iberian Peninsula seeking the New World, the foodstuffs onboard included hard cheeses, honey, olives, and anchovies—and, of course, barrels and barrels and barrels of beautiful beer. It wasn’t strange for a sailor to be rationed over a gallon of beer a day. Water would spoil below deck, so sailors in the Age of Exploration drank nothing but beer on their long voyages.

2The Success Of Colonial America

Continuing on our early American history theme, the flourishing of colonial America would not have been possible without history’s favorite drink.

Europeans of the era were not fans of drinking water. Back in the old country, it was considered unsafe, so they all drank beer instead. The first settlers had to make do with water, though. The further south they settled, the more likely that this water was to be infected with dangerous pathogens.

When the Pilgrims were contemplating traveling to America in the 1600s, one of their key concerns was getting sick because they had to drink water. The sailors, fearing that the passengers were consuming too much of their beer, dumped the Pilgrims farther north than they would’ve liked. The settlers found the northern water to be tasty to drink, much to their surprise.

In the Virginia colony, 1630 finally brought about some relief—they began to brew beer. The colony had been unsustainable with the previous death rate, so the arrival of alcohol kept them alive.

1Communism

There was no more divisive and influential philosophical doctrine in the 19th and 20th centuries than communism. The original Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, led to over a century of international political turmoil and tension. The book would never have come about without a legendary beer-drinking session between the two men.

Both Engels and Marx were no strangers to the drop. Marx’s first year of university was a “wild rampage,” in the words of his father. The following years saw him regularly knocking back pints while finishing his PhD. Engels’s preferred tipple was wine, with a month-long tour of France seeing him drunk for almost all of it.

While traveling through Paris, Engels arranged to grab a beer with Marx. What followed was far more than a beer or two. As one historian put it, it was 10 beer-soaked days, over which Engels and Marx exchanged ideas, breaking down and formulating what would become the basis of communism—all thanks to the mind-altering amber ale.

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