Beer
A recently published German work on the chemistry of beer, by M. Reischauer, states that the use of beer dates from very early times. Tacitus says, in his book on the manners of the ancient Germans, “Potus humor ex hordeo aut frumento, in quandam similitudinem vini corruptus;” and also that these Germans were indeed simple and moderate in their food, but less so in the use of this drink from barley or wheat. Diodorus Siculus (30 B.C.) affirms that Osiris even (1960 B.C.) introduced a beer made from malted grain into Egypt. Archilochus (720 B.C.) and Æschylus and Sophocles (400 B.C.) refer to a barley wine (vinum hordeaceum), and Herodotus (450 B.C.) relates that the Egyptians made wine from barley. The Spaniards knew beer, Pliny reports, as “celia” or “ceria;” the Gauls under the name “cerevisia.” In England and Flanders beer was commonly in use at the time of the birth of Christ; while old books represent Gambrinus, King of Brabant (A.D. 1200), as the inventor of beer. It is certain that beer was known to the Chinese from very early times. In the Middle Ages there was a celebrated brewery at Pelusium, a town on one of the mouths of the Nile.