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A Natural History of Beer
A Natural
History of
Beer
ROB DESALLE &
IAN TATTERSALL
Illustrated by Patricia J. Wynne
Published with assistance from the Louis Stern Memorial Fund.
Copyright © 2019 by Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall.
Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Yale University.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including
illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by
Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by
reviewers for the public press), without written permission from
the publishers.
Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for
educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please
e-mail sales.press@yale.edu (U.S. office) or sales@yaleup.co.uk
(U.K. office).
Designed by Mary Valencia.
Set in Baskerville and Avenir type by
Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018951186

ISBN 978-0-300-23367-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Illustration on frontispiece and title pages: iStock/micropic

To Erin and Jeanne,
even though they prefer wine
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Preface ix
PART ONE GRAINS AND YEAST: A MASHUP FOR THE AGES

1 Beer, Nature, and People 3
2 Beer in the Ancient World 14
3 Innovation and an Emerging Industry 24
4 Beer-Drinking Cultures 38
PART TWO ELEMENTS OF (ALMOST) EVERY BREW

5 Essential Molecules 55
6 Water 69
7 Barley 82
8 Yeast 97
9 Hops 112
PART THREE THE SCIENCE OF GEMÜTLICHKEIT

Fermentation 127
10
11 Beer and the Senses 138
12 Beer Bellies 152
13 Beer and the Brain 165
PART FOUR FRONTIERS, OLD AND NEW

Beer Phylogeny 179
14
15 The Resurrection Men 198
16 The Future of Brewing 209
Annotated Bibliography 219

Index 233
Preface
B
eer is possibly the world’s oldest alcoholic beverage, and it is cer-
tainly the most important historically. What is more, although
beer has tended to lag behind wine in public esteem, in its more
inspired manifestations it has at least as much to offer as wine does to
our five senses, and to our human capacity for aesthetic appreciation.
Indeed, it has been argued that beer not only is both conceptually and
operationally more complex than its rival, but also can offer a more
complete expression of its makers’ intentions. None of this means, of
course, that we lack enthusiasm for wine—as we hope any reader of our
book A Natural History of Wine will immediately understand. Wine occu-
pies a unique and important place in human experience, and in our own
lives. But then again, so does beer; and it is clear to us that the two bev-
erages, while complementary, are wholly distinct. If one of them mer-
its consideration from a natural history perspective, so does the other.
Hence this book, which appears in a golden age for beer drinkers
virtually everywhere. True, the recent excitement in craft brewing has
unfolded against a monolithic backdrop of rather uniform mass-market
beers, produced and sold in mind-numbing quantities by international
giants. But at the more innovative end of the market, beers have never
been produced in such variety and with such amazing inventiveness.
The abundance of creative new offerings has had the effect of making
the world of beer not only an exciting place but a rather confusing
one as well, with an almost incomprehensible riot of consumer choice
available through an archaic distribution system that makes many well-
reputed beers hard to find. But sometimes a bit of anarchy can be ex-
hilarating.
There are plenty of publications that will help you navigate the
chaos, though frankly the craft is developing so fast that it is a full-time
job just to keep up. Our intention here, though, is very different. Our
ix
x Preface
goal is to show just how complex the identity of beer is, by situating it
first in its historical and cultural contexts, and then in the setting of the
natural world from which both its ingredients and the human beings
who make and drink it have emerged. In the process, we traverse evo-
lution, ecology, history, primatology, physiology, neurobiology, chem-
istry, and even a bit of physics, in the hope of offering a more complete
appreciation of the wonderful pale-straw-to-blackish-brown liquid that
reposes in the glass in front of you. We hope you will find the journey
as enlightening as we did.
This book was enormous fun to write, and even more fun to research.
For help with the latter, we must thank many good friends and col-
leagues. Among them we wish particularly to mention Heinz Arndt,
Mike Bates, Günter Bräuer, Annis Cordy, Mike Daflos, Patrick Gan-
non, Marty Gomberg, Sheridan Hewson-Smith and the University
Club of New York City, Chris Kroes, Mike Lemke (who originally
taught RD to homebrew, two decades ago), George McGlynn, Patrick
McGovern, Michi Michael, Christian Roos, Bernardo Schierwater, and
John Trosky. We also want to express our appreciation to our favorite
drinking establishments in New York City. There are many, but among
them ABC Beer Company, The Beer Shop, Carmine Street Beers, and
Zum Schneider come particularly to mind, just as the old West 72nd
Street Blarney Castle and its incomparable host Tom Crowe remain a
fond memory.
At this point in our careers we can hardly imagine producing a
book without both the art and the moral support of Patricia Wynne,
who is always at least as much collaborator as illustrator. Thank you,
Patricia, for the pleasure of working with you, both on this project and
over the years.
At Yale University Press we are above all indebted to our long-
time and frequently long-suffering editor Jean Thomson Black, with-
out whose energy, encouragement, and enthusiastic support this book
would never have gone forward. We would also like to express our grati-
Preface xi
tude to Michael Deneen, Margaret Otzel, and Kristy Leonard for help
with production and contract matters, Julie Carlson for her excellent
copyediting skills, and Mary Valencia for the book’s elegant design.
Finally our thanks are due, as ever, to Erin DeSalle and Jeanne
Kelly for their patience, forbearance, and good humor at all stages of
the book’s gestation.
PA RT O N E
Grains and Yeast

A MASHUP FOR THE AGES
1
Beer, Nature,
and People
If a howler monkey could get happily sloshed, then so could we. “White Mon-
key,” said the label on the tall bottle, the eponymous primate having apparently
presided, hands across eyes, over the three-months-long aging of this Belgian-
style tripel in white wine barrels. Eyes open, we unwound the wire cage, popped
out the Champagne-like cork, and admired the bubbles lazily rising through the
golden-amber ale. Those wine barrels were subtly detectable on the nose, but
the beer hit the palate as a classic harmonious tripel, with sweet malty tones and
a decadent finish. We hoped the original drunken howler monkey had enjoyed
his fermented Astrocaryum fruits half as much!
H
uman beings may be the only creatures who make beer. But if
we take a broad view of what “beer” is, they are not the only
creatures who drink it. As any thirsty paleontologist who has
scoured the torrid Arabian landscape with only a pallid “near beer” to
3
4 Grains and Yeast: A Mashup for the Ages
look forward to at the end of the day will tell you, the key ingredient of
this marvelous beverage is ethyl alcohol. Yet there is nothing intrinsi-
cally amazing about this simple molecule, which turns out to be aston-
ishingly widely distributed in nature. Vast clouds of it, for example,
swirl around the center of our Milky Way galaxy, giving rise to what
our colleague Neil deGrasse Tyson has called “the Milky Way Bar.” Far
surpassing anything in the famous bar in the first Star Wars movie, the
alcohol molecules in this galactic cloud add up, by Tyson’s calculation,
to something like “100 octillion liters of 200-proof hooch.” Disappoint-
ingly, though, the alcohol molecules offered by the Milky Way Bar are
so vastly outnumbered by those of water that, in combination, they
would yield a beverage of only 0.001 degrees proof.
Better, then, to look a bit closer to home. Although the numbers
may be less extravagant here on Earth, the results are a lot more inter-
esting. As we explain in Chapter 8, the yeasts that convert sugars into
alcohol are omnipresent in the environment, just waiting for the raw
materials to become available. And there is a lot of sugar around in the
global ecosystem for those yeasts to work on, especially since, toward
the end of the Age of Dinosaurs, some plants began producing flowers
and fruit to attract pollinators and seed dispersers. The Bertam palm
of Malaysia, for example, bears large flowers that exude a sugar-rich
nectar. This nectar spontaneously ferments to produce a pungent bev-
erage with some 3.8 percent alcohol by volume (ABV), which is about
the strength of the beer traditionally served in British pubs.
This generous provision has been noticed by a whole variety of
forest residents, but it is most particularly loved by our very remote
relative the pen-tailed tree shrew. During the flowering season these
tiny (chipmunk-sized) creatures binge on fermenting Bertam nectar for
hours at a time. In a single session, a pen-tail might consume an amount
equivalent to two six-packs of beer for an adult human, yet it will do so
without showing any signs of inebriation. That is just as well, because
the tree shrews’ habitat is rife with predators, and even a momentary
slowing of their reflexes could well prove fatal. Nobody knows how the
tree shrews pull off this remarkable trick; but what is clear is that the
palm nectar’s appeal to the tiny mammal goes far beyond the merely
nutritive.
Beer, Nature, and People 5
A similar attraction to the products of natural fermentation is

shown by our closer relative, the howler monkey of South and Central
America—which, unlike the tree shrew, seems to feel the buzz. Back in
the 1990s, primatologists studying howlers in Panama noticed one indi-
vidual feeding with unusual enthusiasm on the fruits of the Astrocaryum
palm. So frenzied did the monkey become that the observers suspected
he might be drunk; analysis of the alcohol content of fruit that he had
let drop to the forest floor confirmed that he almost certainly was. By
the researchers’ rough calculations, the twenty-pound howler had con-
sumed the human equivalent of ten bar drinks in a single session.
This and other observations led the biologist Robert Dudley to
wonder about the origins of the widespread (though far from univer-
sal) fondness among living creatures for naturally fermented alcohol.
He eventually concluded that the main importance of alcohol to pri-
mates lies in the signal it carries from the plant (which wants its seeds
ingested, and thereby ultimately spread around the forest) announcing
the presence of the sugars being fermented. Fermentation sends out
strong fumes, guiding keen-nosed fruit-eaters toward all that nutritious
ripe fruit, and giving them a clear dietary advantage. The logic here
applies even to the evolution of humans, because although our species
Homo sapiens is famously omnivorous today, there are good reasons for
believing that we are descended from a primarily fruit-eating ancestor.
If Dudley’s “drunken monkey” hypothesis is correct (and not
everybody buys it), we can view our own human predilection for alco-
hol as, ahem, an “evolutionary hangover.” As such, this tendency of ours
was probably inconsequential for as long as the only alcohol around
was the little bit that mother nature spontaneously produced. It is only
very recently—and, in evolutionary terms, entirely accidentally—that
things have gotten a bit out of hand with the development of technolo-
gies to produce limitless amounts of alcohol at will.
Still, if we examine the matter more closely, it begins to look a bit more
complicated than the drunken monkey explanation suggests. For a start,
alcohol and many of its derivatives are toxic to many organisms, includ-
ing most primates. Indeed, the ancestors of today’s yeasts are believed
to have hit on producing alcohol specifically as a weapon against the
other microorganisms with which they jostled for ecological space. And
although it has certainly given them a major edge in this regard, in suf-
ficient concentrations (usually around 15 percent ABV in wine, less in
a beer), alcohol is also toxic to the yeasts themselves. This is not a sig-
nificant issue out there in the natural world, but it is a very important
consideration in brew houses and wineries.
Closer to home, an unfortunate hedgehog was reported to have
expired after lapping up a lot less egg liqueur than it would have taken
to make him legally drunk in New York State. Even more suggestively,
at least as many mammalian fruit-eaters (primates included) are said
to be repelled by alcohol fumes as are attracted by them. Plainly, there
is something a little unusual about being drawn to alcohol, and some-
thing even more unusual about being able to handle relatively large
quantities of it—as we humans are to a certain extent, and tree shrews
are in spades.
So where does our (modestly impressive) human tolerance for
alcohol come from? As we discuss in more detail in Chapter 13, our
physiological ability to handle beer and other alcoholic beverages de-
rives from our bodies’ production of a class of enzymes called alcohol
dehydrogenases. Manufactured in a variety of internal organs, these en-
zymes break down alcohol molecules of all sorts into inoffensive smaller
components. One kind of alcohol dehydrogenase, called ADH4, is pres
ent in the tissues of the tongue as well as in the esophagus and stomach,
and is thus the first molecule of its kind your beer encounters when you
imbibe it. Like other alcohol dehydrogenases, ADH4 is far from mono-
lithic; instead it comes in a whole host of different versions. Some of
these go straight for the ethyl alcohol molecules; others attack differ-
ent alcohols, as well as the terpenoids that are widely present in plant
leaves, an important source of sustenance for many of our primate rela-
tives.
Molecular biologists have compared the distribution of alcohol-
active ADH4s among a broad sampling of primates ranging from bush
babies, to monkeys, to chimpanzees and humans. In doing so they dis-
covered that, some ten million years ago, there was a dramatic switch
in the pre-human lineage from “ethanol inactive” ADH4 to an “ethanol
active” form. Caused by a single gene mutation, the change to the etha-
nol active version of the enzyme resulted in a forty-fold increase in the
body’s ability to metabolize ethanol.
Just why this transition occurred is hard to say. Indeed, it might
well have been an adaptively random event rather than one associated
with a specific dietary shift. Researchers trying to make a causal link
have suggested that the relatively large-bodied primate that first ac-
quired the enzymatic innovation might have spent increasing amounts
of time on the forest floor, precisely where it was most likely to en-
counter the ripest and most actively fermenting fallen fruit. But since
fermenting fruit can only make up a fraction of the diet of even the
most dedicated frugivore, it is doubtful that a more efficient use of this
resource could have alone accounted for this physiological innovation.
What is more, while the fateful shift certainly occurred in an an-
cient human precursor, the ancestor concerned appears to have lived
before the evolutionary split between humans and their closest relatives,
the chimpanzees and gorillas. It thus also existed before our ancestors
had become the omnivores that humans are today—which, in turn,
means that the change was not associated with anything that humans
or their close extinct relatives uniquely do, or did. Still, whatever the
initial context of this notable physiological innovation may have been,
it certainly preadapted more recent humans to handle ethyl alcohol
after they had (very much later) figured out how to make it in signifi-
cant quantities.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that early hominids (early members
of our own lineage) may not have had—and even joyfully expressed—
a predilection for the alcohol that mother nature, whatever her motives,
had generously given them the ability to tolerate. It is far from un-
common for naturally occurring sugars (in honey, nectar, or fruits) to
ferment spontaneously into alcohol; and despite the aversion to alco-
hol and its fumes that is also reported among fruit-eating and other
organisms, the literature is replete with anecdotal accounts of animals
of many kinds—elephants, moose, cedar waxwings, those howler mon-
keys—getting happily hammered on overripe fermenting fruits. It is
hard to imagine that our early ancestors did not at least occasionally
indulge themselves in this way—and indeed, there is now a scientific
account of our similarly alcohol-tolerant chimpanzee relatives doing
something similar.
Researchers at Bossou in the west African country of Guinea have
reported that wild chimpanzees repeatedly returned to a plantation of
raffia palms that workers had tapped to obtain sugar-rich sap. Drip-
ping into plastic containers, the sap would rapidly and spontaneously
ferment into prized palm toddy, which was normally collected by the
laborers at the end of the day. But the workers had other duties, and
while their attentions were elsewhere the chimpanzees would illicitly
retrieve the toddy, crumpling leaves to form “sponges” that could be
dipped into the full plastic containers. They would then eagerly suck
the liquid from the loaded sponges. The researchers estimated that, at
the point at which it was consumed by the apes, the toddy had typically
reached a pretty respectable ethanol content of 3.1 percent ABV. Some-
times it was as high as 6.9 percent.
Palm toddy begins fermentation as a sweet and delicate-tasting
beverage. But by the time the alcohol content has risen to the higher
levels achieved at Bossou, the liquid invariably becomes pungent and—
to us—quite repellent. Nonetheless, the chimpanzees appear to have
loved it, dipping and emptying their sponges on average almost ten
times a minute, for minutes on end. And while the sugar-rich sap is
undoubtedly nutritious, there can be little doubt that the chimpanzees
also greatly appreciated the alcoholic buzz that came along with it. The
researchers certainly noted “behavioural signs of inebriation” among
some of their subjects, though they reported no actual rowdiness. At
least at Bossou, chimpanzees apparently don’t seriously overindulge,
though some went right to sleep after finishing their drinking sessions.
Still, while apes may enjoy the buzz they get from alcohol—and
early human precursors almost certainly appreciated it too—there is an
added dimension to our own modern human experience of the ethanol
molecule. This is because only Homo sapiens, as far as we know, possesses
the kind of cognition that not only allows us to predict the future conse-
quences of our actions, but also gives us an awareness of our impending
mortality. This knowledge places an existential burden on humankind
that no other species faces: a burden that, of all available drugs, alcohol
most benevolently helps alleviate.
Members of our species are uniquely capable of worrying not
only about what is happening to them right now, but about things that
might happen to them in the future. And since we know that our lives
are uncertain and fraught with hazard, we welcome anything that will
help distance us from this unpleasant reality. Through its inebriating
effects, alcohol helps us to keep that distance; and beer delivers that
alcohol both pleasantly and sociably. The French gastronome Jean An-
thelme Brillat-Savarin had this all figured out almost two centuries ago,
when he wrote that two significant characteristics differentiate us from
the beasts: fear of the future, and desire for fermented liquors. As an
added attraction, our peculiarly human cognitive style also allows us
to process the input from our senses in an entirely unprecedented way,
making it possible for us to analyze our experience of what we are drink-
ing in aesthetic terms (see Chapter 11). This adds yet another dimension
to our experience of beer, a beverage that offers us a huge variety of sen-
sory experiences to appreciate—and to argue about.
We will delve further into mild inebriation and its charms in Chapter
13. But before we forget the important point that any fermented bever-
age may be quite nutritious as well as intoxicating, we might also men-
tion that beer has occupied a very special place as a dietary resource
throughout the history of sedentary Homo sapiens. Intimately connected
both historically and chemically to bread, “the staff of life,” beer is often
referred to as “liquid bread.” Indeed, the two substances are so closely
related—after all, they are often fermented from the very same cereals
by the very same yeast species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae—that it is still vo-
ciferously argued which came first, bread or beer.
It is probably wise to avoid that controversy here, but we do want
to clear up a question that often comes up in barroom arguments in-
volving the bread-and-beer issue. As we will discuss in some detail in
Chapter 10, the byproducts of fermentation using yeasts are ethanol
and carbon dioxide. When a baker makes bread, he or she mixes the
dough and puts it in the oven. As the mixture heats up the yeast go to
work, producing carbon dioxide gas that bubbles into the dough, caus-
ing it to rise. But what happens to the ethanol inevitably generated at
the same time? Why don’t we get drunk eating bread as well as drink-
ing beer? The answer lies in the high temperatures involved in baking,
which cause most of the alcohol to evaporate. But not quite all. When
the bread leaves the oven, it contains a bit of residual ethanol; and
while the lingering quantity is mostly minute, sometimes as low as 0.04
percent ABV, for a moment or two it might be as much as 1.9 percent
ABV. No wonder fresh-baked bread smells so good! Interestingly, the
1.9 percent figure is very close to the 2 percent ABV that is the most
you can metabolize as fast as you take it in. So while some bread hot
out of the oven might momentarily contain half as much alcohol as the
average English ale, you could never eat it quickly enough to get even
slightly tipsy.
Why have humans so eagerly co-opted the natural process of fer-
mentation? Until the end of the Ice Ages, some ten thousand years ago,
all members of Homo sapiens were hunters and gatherers, living itiner-
ant lives and living off whatever bounty nature provided—which would
have varied greatly from place to place. There is some evidence that our
hunting-gathering forebears occasionally consumed cereals, but grains
did not come into their own as a major human dietary resource until
climates ameliorated at the end of the last Ice Age. The rise in tempera-
tures caused huge changes in the plant and animal resources locally
available to the human populations that by this point were scattered all
over the habitable world. In response to this major environmental chal-
lenge, people—independently in several different localities around the
globe—adopted settled lifestyles that depended on the domestication
of plants and animals.
This fateful transition to sedentary life was not a simple process,
and it unfurled differently and at varying paces from place to place.
But although it turned out to be a hugely Faustian bargain—hunter-
gatherers are typically much healthier and more egalitarian than seden-
tary folks are, with much more leisure time—the time had evidently
come for the new economic style. And everywhere the change hap-
pened, domesticated cereals were at the fore—wheat and barley in the

Near East, rice in eastern Asia, maize in the New World.
If you are a hunter-gatherer, your economic strategy is relatively
straightforward. You make use of what nature offers, something that
often obliges you to move across hundreds of miles of territory in any
given year. But for a settled agriculturist, growing seasonal crops at a
particular place, life is more complicated. You find yourself with an em-
barrassment of riches in some seasons, and nothing at all to harvest in
others. You thus need ways of storing food, so that nourishment will be
available to you and your family year-round. Especially in the warm-
ish places in which agriculture initially developed, however, preserving
stored food can be a headache. Grain kept in piles or pits rapidly rots
through oxidation, and even presents a risk of spontaneous combustion.
Just as important, it also needs to be kept safe from the nibblings of hun-
gry animals, ranging from hordes of tiny insects to voracious rodents.
Enter fermentation. The researcher Douglas Levey has proposed
that, from an anthropological perspective, the deliberate fermentation
of grain is best regarded as a sort of controlled spoilage. Most of the
microbes that are responsible for the decomposition of stored food are
unable to live in the presence of alcohol—it is, after all, a famous dis-
infectant—so by permitting a certain degree of fermentation of their
grains by naturally occurring yeasts, the early farmers could preserve
a lot of their nutritional value, even if not their freshness. This was so
hugely important for them that Levey reckons fermentation was used
as a preservation strategy before it was co-opted for making intoxicat-
ing beverages. Since the byproduct of fermentation is alcohol, and you
can’t have the one without the other, maybe the issue is moot. But there
can be no question that, in addition to its mind-altering qualities, beer
was an important source of stored nutrition in the ancient world—as
indeed it was, until not too long ago, in ours.
It is worth noting that, although wine more or less makes itself
as the sugars naturally present in the grape are fermented through the
action of yeast, beer requires more fiddling. The cereal grains used to
make beer contain long molecules of starch that have to be broken
down into simpler sugar molecules before fermentation can even begin.
The modern brewer’s preferred way of achieving this conversion is by
malting the grain—that is, soaking and aerating it to stimulate sprout-

ing, then drying it to stop the sprouting process before the resulting
sugars are consumed. The dormant sugars can then be exposed to the
tender mercies of the yeast whenever required.
We cannot conclude this chapter without mentioning what some con-

sider to be the best news about ethyl alcohol: in limited concentrations,
it can actually be good for you. This proposition has been tested on fruit
flies, a favorite subject of laboratory researchers because they are easy
to keep, and reproduce very rapidly. And it turns out that fruit flies ex-
posed to moderate concentrations of alcohol fumes live longer and re-
produce more successfully than either “heavy drinkers” or “teetotalers.”
What is more, larval fruit flies infested with parasites have been ob-
served medicating themselves by preferentially seeking out foods con-
taining ethanol. Perhaps less promisingly, adult flies prevented from
mating showed an increased attraction to ethanol, perhaps as if to
drown their sorrows.
In humans, clinical studies have repeatedly associated light-to-
moderate drinking with a reduced prevalence of a whole spectrum of
individual diseases, and with an overall decreased risk of death. The
cardiovascular system seems to benefit especially here, with moderate
alcohol consumption being solidly associated with such advantages as
lowered hypertension, reduced LDL and higher HDL cholesterol levels,
and a diminished probability of ischemic stroke. A 2017 study that
tracked more than 300,000 people over an average of about eight years
found that, compared to lifetime abstainers, light to moderate drinkers
were about 20 percent less likely to die of any cause over the tracking
period—and were 25 to 30 percent less likely to die from cardiovascu-
lar disease. Among other specific conditions, lowered incidences of dia-
betes and gallstones have also been reported among moderate drinkers,
though on the other side of the ledger, recent studies have also raised
the possibility of an association between moderate drinking and breast
cancer in young women.
Overall the indications seem to be that, for most of us, the health
benefits of moderate drinking considerably outweigh its risks. But mod-
eration seems to be key, since there is no questioning the health and so-
cial damages that are wrought by excessively high intakes of alcohol—
damages that overwhelm any benefit that the alcohol might or might
not confer at lower levels of consumption. That same 2017 study found
that over the period it covered, male heavy drinkers had a 25 percent
increased risk of mortality from all causes compared to the lifetime ab-
stainers, and a whopping 67 percent additional risk of dying from can-
cer. As we stress in Chapters 12 and 13, quite aside from the terrible
social effects of alcoholism, these figures on their own make a compel-
ling argument for avoiding the immoderate consumption of any alco-
holic beverage. Still, in a perverse way they are (relatively) good news
for beer drinkers, whose preferred beverage has an inherent advantage
over drinks that deliver more alcohol per sip.
2
Beer in the
Ancient World
This, the parent of all modern ales, was one we had to make ourselves. Into
the pot went New York City water, a frighteningly large amount of fresh-milled
two-row barley, and a sockful of flaked barley for good measure. After boiling
this mixture, we added a gruit of hibiscus and other herbal and citrusy ingre-
dients, then let it ferment with available yeast. A month later we siphoned the
dark brown liquid into bottles, then aged it for two long weeks. Our first bottle
opened with a satisfying hiss. Now soupy and yellowish-brown in color, our
simple gruited ale was pleasingly sour on the palate, with a grassy aftertaste.
We were very agreeably surprised at how drinkable it was. No wonder those
Iron Age Germanic tribes had clung so tenaciously to their brewing traditions.
T
he first literary mention of beer firmly positions the beverage as
a civilizing influence. In the epic poem Gilgamesh, the mytholo-
gized account of a Sumerian king who reigned around 4,700
14
Beer in the Ancient World 15
years ago, a wild man called Enkidu is brought into a village and en-
treated to “Drink beer, as is the custom of the land.” Only once he had
drunk the beer, and consumed the bread he was also offered, was the
feral Enkidu at last considered ready to enter civilized society, and to
proceed to Gilgamesh’s capital city of Uruk. And what could have been
more emblematic of civilization than beer and bread? For the very exis-
tence of the fabled metropolis of Uruk had been made possible by the
productivity of the vast and astonishingly fertile cereal-growing plain
that lay between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia, the
“land between two streams.” The Sumerian Empire, like the Babylo-
nian one that followed it, was built on grain, and on the beer and bread
made from it.
By Gilgamesh’s time, settled life and the raising of the cereals
from which beer is made already had a respectably long history. As
noted earlier, the ancestral human hunting-gathering way of life began
to be abandoned when the huge polar icecaps started to shrink due to
climatic warming at the end of the last Ice Age. In their wanderings
around the landscape, ancient hunter-gatherers must have occasion-
ally encountered naturally fermenting fruits and honey, and the alcohol
they produced. Although it is doubtful that any fully itinerant human
societies ever possessed the technology necessary to malt and ferment
significant quantities of cereals, it is unlikely that, with the advent of
settled life, much time was allowed to pass before brewing began on a
significant scale.
In the Near East, where wheat and barley were first cultivated,
the transition from itinerant to settled life is particularly well docu-
mented at a Syrian site called Abu Hureyra. Between about 11,500 and
11,000 years ago, the people who camped there were still practicing a
traditional hunting and gathering lifestyle. By around 10,400 years ago,
their descendants had begun to supplement their diets with cultivated
cereals; and by 9,000 years ago, residents’ food supply came princi-
pally from domesticated animals and plants of various kinds—although
plenty of wild gazelles continued to be slaughtered on their annual mi-
grations through the area.
Over this period, Abu Hureyra itself developed from a gaggle of
simple roofed-over “pit dwellings” excavated in the ground, to a sub-
stantial village of clustered mud-brick houses and open courtyards.

Rather unusually, the Abu Hureyra villagers first selected rye for culti-
vation; in the Near East more generally, barley as well as einkorn and
emmer wheats were the cereals of choice for domestication, making this
a leading region for the invention of barley-based beers.
Interestingly, the domestication of cereals occurred before the in-
vention of pottery, which first turns up in the Near East about 8,200
years ago. Although pottery might not have been entirely essential for
making beer in some form, it was certainly a prerequisite for making
it in any quantity. By the time it came along, people had been grind-
ing cereals for a long time, with an early example of cereal grinding
from some 23,000 years ago giving us one reason for suspecting that
bread may have preceded beer in the human diet. What is more, large,
hollowed-out stone containers as much as 11,600 years old at the pre-
Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe, in eastern Turkey, may have contained
a beverage fermented from wild cereals.
When pottery vessels first came into use, settlements were small,
and people lived in relatively egalitarian communities of a few hun-
dred at most. Most members of those communities were related to one
another, worked in the fields together, and shared similar skills. But
change happened fast. By five thousand years ago, around the time that
the newly civilized Enkidu was spirited off to Uruk, a strongly stratified
society had already developed in Mesopotamia. Specialized skills had
proliferated, and social roles and status had become strongly differen-
tiated. Most citizens still labored in the fields, but the more important
of them lived in towns and in the burgeoning new cities. Some of them
were brewers. And those early brewers, it seems, were women.
No one knows exactly when people started brewing in the newly
available ceramic pots. The earliest chemical traces of barley beer, dis-
covered in the form of calcium oxalate (beerstone) deposits in a pot-
tery jar from the Sumerian outpost of Godin Tepe, in northern Iran,
date from only a little over five thousand years ago, making the liquid
from which the beerstone had precipitated more or less contemporary
with our friend Enkidu. But nobody would doubt that the Near East-
ern brewing tradition is much more venerable than this; we wouldn’t
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This mystical error is distinctly characterized in the first chapter of
this gospel, and is there met by the direct assertions, that in Jesus
Christ, the Word, and the God, was not only life, but that the life
itself was the light of men;――and that John the Baptist “was not
the Light, but was only sent to bear witness of the Light;” and
again, with all the tautological earnestness of an old man, the aged
writer repeats the assertion that “this was the true Light, which
enlightens every man that comes into the world.” Against these
same sectaries, the greater part of the first chapter is directed
distinctly, and the whole tendency of the work throughout, is in a
marked manner opposed to their views. With them too, John had
had a local connection, by his residence in Ephesus, where, as it is
distinctly specified in the Acts of the Apostles, Paul had found the
peculiar disciples of John the Baptist long before, on his first visit to
that city; and had successfully preached to some of them, the
religion of Christ, which before was a strange and new thing to them.
The whole tendency and scope of this gospel, indeed, as directed
against these two prominent classes of heretics, both Gnostics and
Sabians, are fully and distinctly summed up in the conclusion of the
twentieth chapter;――“These things are written, that ye might
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that in
believing on him, ye might have life through his name.”
As to the place where this gospel was written, there is a very

decided difference of opinion among high authorities, both ancient
and modern,――some affirming it to have been composed in
Patmos, during his exile, and others in Ephesus, before or after his
banishment. The best authority, however, seems to decide in favor of
Ephesus, as the place; and this view seems to be most generally
adopted in modern times. Even those who suppose it to have been
written in Patmos, however, grant that it was first given to the
Christian world in Ephesus,――the weight of early authority being
very decided on this latter point. This distinction between the place of
composition and the place of publication, is certainly very reasonable
on some accounts, and is supported by ancient authorities of
dubious date; but there are important objections to the idea of the
composition of both this and the Apocalypse, in the same place,
during about one year, which was the period of his exile. There seem
to be many things in the style of the gospel which would show it to
be a work written at a different period, and under different
circumstances from the Apocalypse; and some Biblical critics, of
high standing, have thought that the gospel bore marks in its style,
which characterized it as a production of a much older man than the
author of the energetic, and almost furious denunciations of the
Apocalypse, must have been. In this case, where ancient authority is
so little decisive, it is but fair to leave the point to be determined by
evidence thus connected with the date, and drawn from the internal
character of the composition itself,――a sort of evidence, on which
the latest moderns are far more capable of deciding than the most
ancient, and the sagest of the Fathers. The date itself is of course
inseparably connected with the determination of the place, and like
that, must be pronounced very uncertain. The greatest probability
about both these points is, that it was written at Ephesus, after his
return from Patmos; for the idea of its being produced before his
banishment, during his first residence in Asia, has long ago been
exploded; nor is there any late writer of authority on these points,
who pretends to support this unfounded notion.
his first epistle.
All that has been said on the character and the objects of the
gospel, may be exactly applied to this very similar production. So
completely does it resemble John’s gospel, in style, language,
doctrines and tendencies, that even a superficial reader might be
ready to pronounce, on a common examination, that they were
written in the same circumstances and with the same object. This
has been the conclusion at which the most learned critics have
arrived, after a full investigation of the peculiarities of both,
throughout; and the standard opinion now is, that they were both
written at the same time and for the same persons. Some reasons
have been given by high critical authority, for supposing that they
were both written at Patmos, and sent together to Ephesus,――the
epistle serving as a preface, dedication, and accompaniment of the
gospel, to those for whom it was intended, and commending the
prominent points in it to their particular attention. This beautiful and
satisfactory view of the object and occasion of the epistle, may
certainly be adopted with great propriety and justice; but in regard to
the places of its composition and direction, a different view is much
more probable, as well as more consistent with the notion, already
presented above, of the date and place of the gospel. It is very
reasonable to suppose that the epistle was written some years after
John’s return to Ephesus,――that it was intended, (along with the
gospel, for the churches of Asia generally, to whom John hoped to
make an apostolic pastoral visit, shortly,) to confirm them in the faith,
as he announces in the conclusion. There is not a single
circumstance in gospel or epistle, which should lead any one to
believe that they were directed to Ephesus in particular. On the
contrary, the total absence of anything like a personal or local
direction to the epistle, shows the justice of its common title, that it is
a “general epistle,” a circular, in short, to all the churches under his
special apostolic supervision,――for whose particular dangers,
errors and necessities, he had written the gospel just sent forth, and
to whom he now minutely commended that work, in the very opening
words of his letter, referring as palpably and undeniably to his
gospel, as any words can express. “Of that which ‘was from the
beginning, of the Word,’ which I have heard, which I have seen with
my eyes, which I have looked upon, which my hands have
handled,――of the Word of Life” &c.; particularizing with all the
minute verbosity of old age, his exact knowledge of the facts which
he gives in his gospel, assuring them thus of the accuracy of his
descriptions. The question concerns his reputation for fidelity as a
historian; and it is easy to see therefore, why he should labor thus to
impress on his readers his important personal advantages for
knowing exactly all the facts he treats of, and all the doctrines which
he gives at such length in the discourses of Christ. Again and again
he says, “I write,” and “I have written,” recapitulating the sum of the
doctrines which he has designed to inculcate; and he particularizes
still farther that he has written to all classes and ages, from the
oldest to the youngest, intending his gospel for the benefit of all. “I
have written to you, fathers,”――“unto you, young men,”――“unto
you, little children,” &c. What else can this imply, than a dedication of
the work concerning “the WORD,” to all stations and ages,――to the
whole of the Christian communities, to whom he commits and
recommends his writings;――as he writes “to the
fathers――because they know him who was from the
beginning,”――in the same way “to the young men, because they
are constant, and the Word of God dwells in them,” and “that the
doctrine they have received may remain unchangeable in them,” and
“on account of those who would seduce them.” He recapitulates
all the leading doctrines of his gospel,――the Messiahship, and the
Divinity of Jesus,――his Unity, and identity with the divine
abstractions of the Gnostic theology. Here too, he inculcates and
renewedly urges the great feeling of Christian brotherly love, which
so decidedly characterizes the discourses of Jesus, as reported in
his gospel. So perfect was the connection of origin and design,
between the gospel and this accompanying letter, that they were
anciently placed together, the epistle immediately following the
gospel; as is indubitably proved by certain marks in ancient
manuscripts.
It was mentioned, in connection with a former part of John’s life, that this epistle is
quoted by Augustin and others, under the title of the epistle to the Parthians. It seems very
probable that this may have been also addressed to those churches in the east, about
Babylon, which had certainly suffered much under the attacks of these same mystical
heretics. It is explained, however, by some, that this was an accidental corruption in the
copying of the Greek.――The second epistle was quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus, under
the title of “the epistle to the virgins,” προς παρθενους, which, as some of the modern critics
say, must have been accidentally changed to παρθους, by dropping some of the syllables,
and afterwards transferred to the first (!) as more appropriate;――a perfectly unauthorized
conjecture, and directly in the face of all rules of criticism.
the second and third epistles.
These are both evidently private letters from John to two of his
intimate personal friends, of whose circumstances nothing whatever
being known, except what is therein contained, the notice of these
brief writings must necessarily be brief also. They are both honorably
referred to, as entertainers of the servants of Jesus Christ as they
travel from place to place, and seem to have been residents in some
of the Asian cities within John’s apostolic circuit, and probably
received him kindly and reverently into their houses on his tours of
duty; and them he was about to visit again shortly. The second
epistle is directed to a Christian female, who, being designated by
the very honorable title of “lady,” was evidently a person of rank; and
from the remark towards the conclusion, about the proper objects of
her hospitality, it is plain that she must have been also a person of
some property. Mention is made of her children as also objects of
warm affection to the aged apostle; and as no other member of her
family is noticed, it is reasonable to conclude that she was a widow.
The contents of this short letter are a mere transcript, almost
verbatim, of some important points in the first, inculcating Christian
love, and watchfulness against deceivers;――(no doubt the
Gnostical heretics,――the Cerinthians and Nicolaitans.) He
apologizes for the shortness of the letter, by saying that he hopes
shortly to visit her; and ends by communicating the affectionate
greetings of her sister’s children, then residents in Ephesus, or
whatever city was then the home of John. The third epistle is
directed to Gaius, (that is, Caius, a Roman name,) whose hospitality
is commemorated with great particularity and gratitude in behalf of
Christian strangers, probably preachers, traveling in his region.
Another person, named Diotrephes, (a Greek by name, and probably
one of the partizans of Cerinthus,) is mentioned as maintaining a
very different character, who, so far from receiving the ministers of
the gospel sent by the apostle, had even excluded from Christian
fellowship those who did exercise this hospitality to the messengers
of the apostle. John speaks threateningly of him, and closes with the
same apology for the shortness of the letter, as in the former. There
are several persons, named Gaius, or Caius, mentioned in apostolic
history; but there is no reason to suppose that any of them was
identified with this man.
For these lucid views of the objects of all these epistles, I am mainly indebted to Hug’s
Introduction, to whom belongs the merit of expressing them in this distinctness, though
others before him have not been far from apprehending their simple force. Michaelis, for
instance, is very satisfactory, and much more full on some points. In respect to the place
whence they were written, Hug appears to be wholly in the wrong, in referring them to
Patmos, just before John’s return. Not the least glimmer of a reason appears, why all the
writings of John should be huddled together in his exile. I can make nothing whatever of the
learned commentator’s reason about the deficiency of “pen, ink and paper,” (mentioned in
Epistle ii. 12, and iii. 13.) as showing that John must still have been in “that miserable
place,” Patmos. The idea seems to require a great perversion of simple words, which do not
seem to be capable of any other sense than that adopted in the above account.
the traditions of his life in ephesus.
To this period of his life, are referred those stories of his miracles
and actions, with which the ancient fictitious apostolic narratives are
so crowded,――John being the subject of more ancient traditions
than any other apostle. Some of those are so respectable and
reasonable in their character, as to deserve a place here, although
none of them are of such antiquity as to deserve any confidence, on
points where fiction has often been so busy. The first which follows,
is altogether the most ancient of all apostolic stories, which are not in
the New Testament; and even if it is a work of fiction, it has such
merits as a mere tale, that it would be injustice to the readers of this
book, not to give them the whole story, from the most ancient and
best authorized record.
It is related that John, after returning from banishment, was often

called to the neighboring churches to organize them, or to heal
divisions, and to ordain elders. On one occasion, after ordaining a
bishop, he committed to his particular care and instruction a fine
young man, whom he saw in the congregation, charging the bishop,
before the whole church, to be faithful to him. The bishop accordingly
took the young man into his house, watched over him, and instructed
him, and at length baptized him. After this, viewing the young man as
a confirmed Christian, the bishop relaxed his watchfulness, and
allowed the youth greater liberties. He soon got into bad company, in
which his talents made him conspicuous, and proceeding from one
step to another, he finally became the leader of a band of robbers. In
this state of things, John came to visit the church, and presently
called upon the bishop to bring forward his charge. The bishop
replied that he was dead,――dead to God;――and was now in the
mountains, a captain of banditti. John ordered a horse to be brought
immediately to the church door, and a guide to attend him; and
mounting, he rode full speed in search of the gang. He soon fell in
with some of them, who seized him, to be carried to their head
quarters. John told them that this was just what he wanted, for he
came on purpose to see their captain. As they drew near, the captain
stood ready to receive them; but on seeing John, he drew back, and
began to make off. John pursued with all the speed his aged limbs
would permit, crying out, “My son, why do you run from your own
father, who is unarmed and aged? Pity me, my son, and do not fear.
There is yet hope of your life. I will intercede for you; and, if
necessary, will cheerfully suffer death for you, as the Lord did for us.
Stop,――believe what I say; Christ hath sent me.” The young man
stopped, looked on the ground, and then throwing down his arms,
came trembling, and with sobs and tears, begged for pardon. The
apostle assured him of the forgiveness of Christ; and conducting him
back to the church, there fasted and prayed with him, and at length
procured his absolution.
Another story, far less probable, is related in the ancient

martyrologies, and by the counterfeit Abdias. Craton, a philosopher,
to make a display of contempt for riches, had persuaded two wealthy
young men, his followers, to invest all their property in two very
costly pearls; and then, in the presence of a multitude, to break
them, and pound them to dust. John happening to pass by, at the
close of the transaction, censured this destruction of property, which
might better have been given in alms to the poor. Craton told him, if
he thought so, he might miraculously restore the dust to solid pearls
again, and have them for charitable purposes. The apostle gathered
up the particles, and holding them in his hand, prayed fervently, that
they might become solid pearls, and when the people said “Amen,” it
took place. By this miracle, Craton, and all his followers, were
converted to Christianity; and the two young men took back the
pearls, sold them, and then distributed the avails in charity.
Influenced by this example, two other young men of distinction,
Atticus and Eugenius, sold their estates, and distributed the avails
among the poor. For a time, they followed the apostle, and
possessed the power of working miracles. But, one day, being at
Pergamus, and seeing some well-dressed young men, glittering in
their costly array, they began to regret that they had sold all their
property, and deprived themselves of the means of making a figure
in the world. John read in their countenances and behavior the state
of their minds; and after drawing from them an avowal of their regret,
he bid them bring him each a bundle of straight rods, and a parcel of
smooth stones from the sea shore. They did so,――and the apostle,
after converting the rods into gold, and the stones into pearls, bid
them take them, and sell them, and redeem their alienated estates, if
they chose. At the same time, he plainly warned them, that the
consequence would be the eternal loss of their souls. While he
continued his long and pungent discourse, a funeral procession
came along. John now prayed, and raised the dead man to life. The
resuscitated person began to describe the invisible world, and so
graphically painted to Atticus and Eugenius the greatness of their
loss, that they were melted into contrition. The apostle ordered them
to do penance thirty days,――till the golden rods should become
wood, and the pearls become stones. They did so, and were
afterwards very distinguished saints.
Another story, of about equal merit, is told by the same authority.

While John continued his successful ministry at Ephesus, the
idolaters there, in a tumult, dragged him to the temple of Diana, and
insisted on his sacrificing to the idol. He warned all to come out of
the temple, and then, by prayer, caused it to fall to the ground, and
become a heap of ruins. Then, addressing the pagans on the spot,
he converted twelve thousand of them in one day. But Aristodemus,
the pagan high priest, could not be convinced, till John had drunken
poison without harm, by which two malefactors were killed instantly,
and also raised the malefactors to life. This resuscitation he
rendered the more convincing to Aristodemus, by making him the
instrument of it. The apostle pulled off his tunic, and gave it to
Aristodemus. “And what is this for?” said the high priest. “To cure you
of your infidelity,” was the reply. “But how is your tunic to cure me of
infidelity?” “Go,” said the apostle, “and spread it upon the dead
bodies, and say: ‘The apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ hath sent me
to resuscitate you, in his name, that all may know, that life and death
are the servants of Jesus Christ, my Lord.’” By this miracle the high
priest was fully convinced; and afterwards convinced the proconsul.
Both of them were baptized,――and persecution, from that time,
ceased. They also built the church dedicated to St. John, at
Ephesus.
For this series of fables I am indebted again to the kindness of Dr. Murdock, in whose
manuscript lectures they are so well translated from the original romances, as to make it
unnecessary for me to repeat the labor of making a new version from the Latin. The sight of
the results of abler efforts directly before me, offers a temptation to exonerate myself from a
tedious and unsatisfactory effort, which is too great to be resisted, while researches into
historical truth have a much more urgent claim for time and exertion.
The only one of all these fables that occurs in the writings of the Fathers, is the first,
which may be pronounced a tolerably respectable and ancient story. It is narrated by
Clemens Alexandrinus, (about A. D. 200.) The story is copied from Clemens Alexandrinus
by Eusebius, from whom we receive it, the original work of Clemens being now lost.
Chrysostom also gives an abridgement of the tale. (I. Paraenes ad Theodosius) Anastasius
Sinaita, Simeon Metaphrastes, Nicephorus Callistus, the Pseudo-Abdias, and the whole
herd of monkish liars, give the story almost verbatim from Clemens; for it is so full in his
account as to need no embellishment to make it a good story. Indeed its completeness in all
these interesting details, is one of the most suspicious circumstances about it; in short, it is
almost too good a story to be true. Those who wish to see all the evidence for and against
its authenticity, may find it thoroughly examined in Lampe’s Prolegomena to a Johannine
Theology (I. v. 4‒10.) It is, on the whole, the best authorized of all the stories about the
apostles, which are given by the Fathers, and may reasonably be considered to have been
true in the essential parts, though the minute details of the conversations, &c., are probably
embellishments worked in by Clemens Alexandrinus, or his informants.
The rest of these stories are, most unquestionably, all unmitigated falsehoods; nor does
any body pretend to find the slightest authority for a solitary particular of them. They are
found no where but in the novels of the Pseudo-Abdias, and the martyrologies. (Abdiae
Babyloniae episcopi et Apostolorum discipuli de Historia, lib. V., St. John.)
his death.
Respecting the close of his life, all antiquity is agreed that it was
not terminated by martyrdom, nor by any violent death whatever, but
by a calm and peaceful departure in the course of nature, at a very
great age. The precise number of years to which he attained can not
be known, because no writer who lived within five hundred years of
his time has pretended to specify his exact age. It is merely
mentioned on very respectable ancient authority, that he survived to
the beginning of the reign of Trajan. This noblest of the successors
of Julius, began his splendid reign in A. D. 98, according to the most
approved chronology; so that if John did not outlive even the first
year of Trajan, his death is brought very near the close of the first
century; and from what has been reasonably conjectured about his
age, compared with that of his Lord, it may be supposed that he
attained upwards of eighty years,――a supposition which agrees
well enough with the statement of some of the Fathers, that he died
worn out with old age.
Jerome has a great deal to say also, about the age of John at the time when he was
called, arguing that he must have been a mere boy at the time, because tradition asserts
that he lived till the reign of Trajan. Lampe very justly objects, however, that this proof
amounts to nothing, if we accept another common tradition, that he lived to the age of 100
years; which, if we count back a century from the reign of Trajan, would require him to have
attained mature age at the time of the call. Neither tradition however, is worth much. Our old
friend Baronius, too, comes in to enlighten the investigation of John’s age, by what he
considers indubitable evidence. He says that John was in his twenty-second year when he
was called, and passing three years with Christ, must have been twenty-five years old at the
time of the crucifixion; “because,” says the sagacious Baronius, “he was then initiated into
the priesthood.” An assertion which Lampe with indignant surprise stigmatizes as showing
“remarkable boldness,” (insignis audacia,) because it contains two very gross
errors,――first in pretending that John was ever made a priest, (sacerdos,) and secondly in
confounding the age required of the Levites with that of the priests when initiated. For
Baronius’s argument resting wholly on the very strange and unfounded notion, that John
was made a priest, is furthermore supported on the idea that the prescribed age for entering
the priesthood was twenty-five years; but in reality, the age thus required was thirty years,
so that if the other part of this idle story was true, this would be enough to overthrow the
conclusion. Lampe also alludes to the absurd idea of the painters, in representing John as a
young man, even while writing his gospel; while in reality all writers agree that that work was
written by him in his old age. This idea of his perpetual youth, once led into a blunder some
foolish Benedictine monks, who found in Constantinople an antique agate intaglio,
representing a young man with a cornucopia, and an eagle, and with a figure of victory
placing a crown on his head. This struck their monkish fancies at once, as an
unquestionable portrait of John, sent to their hands by a miraculous preservation.
Examination however, has shown it to be a representation of the apotheosis of Germanicus.
But even here, the monkish inventors have found room for new
fables; and though the great weight of all ancient testimony deprives
them of the opportunity to enter into the horrible details of a bloody
and agonizing death, they can not refuse themselves the pleasure of
some tedious absurdities, about the manner of his death and burial,
which are barely worth a partial sketch, to show how determined the
apostolic novelists are to follow their heroes to the very last, with the
glories of a fancifully miraculous departure.
The circumstances of his death are described in the

martyrologies, and by Abdias, in this manner. He had a vision
acquainting him with his approaching exit, five days before it
happened. On a Lord’s-day morning, he went to the great church at
Ephesus, bearing his name, and there performed public worship as
usual, at day-break. About the middle of the forenoon, he ordered a
deacon, and some grave diggers, with their tools, to accompany him
to the burying ground. He then set them to digging his grave, while
he, after ordering the multitude to depart, spent the time in prayer.
He once looked into the grave, and bid them dig it deeper. When it
was finished, he took off his outer garment, and spread it in the
grave. Then, standing over it, he made a speech to those present,
(which is not worth repeating,) then gave thanks to God for the
arrival of the time of his release,――and placing himself in the grave,
and wrapping himself up, he instantly expired. The grave was filled
up; and afterwards miracles took place at it, and a kind of manna
issued from it, which possessed great virtues.
There is no need, however, of such fables, to crown with the false

honors of a vain prodigy, the calmly glorious end of the “Last of the
Apostles.” It is enough for the Christian to know, that, with the long,
bright course of almost a century behind him, and with the mighty
works of his later years around him, John closed the solemn
apostolic drama, bearing with him in his late departure the last light
of inspiration, and the last personal “testimony of Jesus, which is the
spirit of prophecy.” Blessed in his works thus following him, he died
in the Lord, and now rests from his labors on the breast of that loved
friend, who cherished so tenderly the youthful Son of
Thunder;――on the bosom of his Redeemer and his Lord,――
“The bosom of his Father and his God.”
PHILIP.
In all the three gospel lists, this apostle is placed fifth in order, the
variations in the arrangements of the preceding making no difference
in his position. In the first chapter of Acts, however, a different
arrangement is made of his name, as will be hereafter mentioned.
The mere mention of his name on the list, is all the notice taken of
him by either of the three first evangelists, and it is only in the gospel
of John, that the slightest additional circumstance can be learned
about him. From this authority it is ascertained that he was of
Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter, and probably also the home
or frequent visiting-place of the sons of Zebedee, by the younger of
whom he is so particularly commemorated. Immediately after the
narration of the introduction of Andrew, John and Peter, to Jesus, in
the first chapter of this gospel, it is said that Jesus next proceeded
from Bethabara into Galilee, and there finds Philip; but the particular
place is not mentioned, though Bethsaida being immediately after
mentioned as his home, very probably was the place of the meeting.
Andrew and Peter, on their return home, had doubtless had no small
talk among their acquaintances, about the wonderful person
announced as the Messiah, to whom they had been introduced, and
had thus satisfied themselves that he was really the divine character
he was said to be. Philip too, must have heard of him in this way,
before he saw him; so that when Jesus met him, he was prepared at
once to receive the call which Jesus immediately gave
him,――“Follow me.” From the circumstance that he was the first
person who was summoned by Jesus, in this particular formula of
invitation to the discipleship, some writers have, not without reason,
claimed for Philip the name and honors of the Protoclete, or “first-
called;” though Andrew has commonly been considered as best
entitled to this dignity, from his being the first mentioned by name, as
actually becoming acquainted with Jesus. Philip was so devoutly
engaged, at once, in the cause of his new Master, that he, like
Andrew, immediately sought out others to share the blessings of the
discipleship; and soon after meeting one of his friends, Nathanael,
he expressed the ardor of his faith in his new teacher, by the words
in which he invited him to join in this honorable fellowship,――“We
have found him of whom Moses, in the law, and all the prophets did
write,――Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” The result of this
application will be related in the life of the person most immediately
concerned. After this, no notice whatever is taken of Philip except
where incidental remarks made by him in the conversations of
Jesus, are recorded by John. Thus, at the feeding of the five
thousand, upon Jesus’s asking whether they had the means of
procuring food for the multitude, Philip answered, that “two hundred
pence would not buy enough for them, that every one might take a
little,”――thus showing himself not at all prepared by his previous
faith in Jesus, for the great miracle which was about to happen;
though Jesus had asked the question, as John says, with the actual
design of trying the extent of his confidence in him. He is afterwards
mentioned in the last conversations of Jesus, as saying to him,
“Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us,”――here too, betraying also
a most unfortunate deficiency, both of faith and knowledge, and
implying also a vain desire to gratify his eyes with still more
miraculous displays of the divine power of his Master; though, even
in this respect, he probably was no worse off than all the rest of the
disciples, before the resurrection of Jesus.
Protoclete.――Hammond claims this peculiar honor for Philip, with great zeal. (See
his notes on John i. 43.)
Of his apostleship not one word is recorded in the New Testament,

for he is no where mentioned in the Acts, except as being one of the
apostles assembled in the upper chamber after the ascension; nor
do the epistles contain the slightest allusion to him. Some of the
most ancient authorities among the Fathers, however, are distinct in
their mention of some circumstances of his later life; but all these
accounts are involved in total discredit, by the fact that they make
him identical with Philip the deacon, whose active and zealous
labors in Samaria, and along the coast of Palestine, from Gaza,
through Ashdod to Caesarea, his home, are minutely related in the
Acts, and have been already alluded to, in that part of the life of
Peter which is connected with these incidents. It has always been
supposed, with much reason, in modern times, that the offices of an
apostle and a deacon were so totally distinct and different, that they
could never both be borne by one and the same person; but the
Fathers, even the very ancient ones, seem to have had not the
slightest idea of any such incompatibility; and therefore uniformly
speak of Philip the apostle, as the same person with Philip, one of
the seven deacons, who is mentioned by Luke, in the Acts of the
Apostles, as having lived at Caesarea, in Palestine, with his
daughters, who were virgins and prophetesses. Testimony more
distinct than this, can no where be found, among all the Fathers, on
any point whatever; and very little that is more ancient. Yet how does
it accord with the notions of those who revere these very Fathers as
almost immaculate in truth, and in all intellectual, as well as moral
excellence? What is the evidence of these boasted Fathers worth,
on any point in controversy about apostolic church government, or
doctrine, or criticism, if the modern notion of the incompatibility of the
two offices of apostle and deacon is correct?
The testimony of the Fathers on this point, is simply this. Eusebius (Church History, III.
31,) quotes Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, who, in his letter to Victor, bishop of Rome,
(written A. D. 195, or 196,) makes mention of Philip in these exact words: “Philip, who was
one of the twelve apostles, died in Hierapolis;” (in Phrygia;) “and so did two of his
daughters, who had grown old in virginity. And another of his daughters, after having
passed her life under the influence of the Holy Spirit, was buried at Ephesus.” This certainly
is a most perfect identification of Philip the apostle with Philip the deacon; for it is this latter
person who is particularly mentioned in Acts, xxi. 8, 9, as “having four daughters who did
prophesy.” He is there especially designated as “Philip the evangelist, one of the seven,”
while Polycrates expressly declares, that this same person “was one of the twelve.”
Eusebius also, in the preceding chapter, quotes Clemens Alexandrinus as mentioning Philip
among those apostles who were married, because he is mentioned as having had
daughters; and Clemens even adds that these were afterwards married, which directly
contradicts the previous statement of Polycrates, that three of them died virgins, in old age.
Yet Eusebius quotes all this stuff, with approbation.
Papias, (A. D. 140,) bishop of Hierapolis, the very place of the death and burial of Philip,
is represented by Eusebius as having been well acquainted with the daughters of Philip,
mentioned in Acts, as the virgin prophetesses. Papias says that he himself “heard these
ladies say that their father once raised a dead person to life, in their time.” But it deserves
notice, that Papias, the very best authority on this subject, is no where quoted as calling this
Philip “an apostle;” though Eusebius, on his own authority, gives this name to the Philip of
whom Papias speaks. It is therefore reasonable to conclude, that this blunder, betraying
such a want of familiarity with the New Testament history, originated after the time of
Papias, whose intimate acquaintance with Philip’s family would have enabled him to say, at
once, that this was the deacon, and not the apostle; though it is not probable that he was
any less deplorably ignorant of the scriptures than most of the Fathers were.
Now what can be said of the testimony of the Fathers on points where they can not refer,
either to their own personal observation, or to informants who have seen and heard what
they testify? The only way in which they can be shielded from the reproach of a gross
blunder and a disgraceful ignorance of the New Testament, is, that they were right in
identifying these two Philips, and that modern theologians are wrong in making the
distinction. On this dilemma I will not pretend to decide; for though so little reverence for the
judgment and information of the Fathers has been shown in this book, there does seem to
me to be some reason for hesitation on this point, where the Fathers ought to have been as
well informed as any body. They must have known surely, whether, according to the notions
of those primitive ages of Christianity, there was any incompatibility between the apostleship
and the deaconship! If their testimony is worth anything on such points, it ought to weigh so
much on this, as to cause a doubt whether they are not right, and the moderns wrong.
However, barely suggesting this query, without attempting a decision, as Luther says, “I will
afford to other and higher spirits, occasion to reflect.”
This is all the satisfaction that the brief records of the inspired or
uninspired historians of Christianity can give the inquirer, on the life
of this apostle;――so unequal were the labors of the first ministers of
Christ, and their claims for notice. Philip, no doubt, served the
purpose for which he was called, faithfully; but in these brief
sketches, there are no traces of any genius of a high character, that
could distinguish him above the thousands that are forgotten, but
whose labors, like those of the minutest animals in a mole-hill,
contribute an indispensable portion to the completion of the mass, in
whose mighty structure all their individual efforts are swallowed up
forever.
And though the ancient Polycrates may have blundered

grievously, in respect to the apostle’s personal identity, his hope of
the glorious resurrection of those whom he supposed to have died in
Asia will doubtless be equally well rewarded, if, to the amazement of
the Fathers, the apostle Philip should rise at last from the dust of
Babylon, or the ashes of Jerusalem, while his namesake, the
evangelist, shall burst from his tomb in Hierapolis. “For,” as
Polycrates truly says, “in Asia, some great lights have gone down,
which shall rise again on that day of the Lord’s approach, when he
shall come from the heavens in glory, and shall raise up all his
saints;――Philip, one of the twelve apostles, who sleeps at
Hierapolis, with his venerable virgin daughters,――John, who lay in
the bosom of the Lord, and who is laid at Ephesus,――Polycarp, at
Smyrna,――Thraseas, at Eumenia,――Sagaris, at
Laodicea,――Papirius and Melito, at Sardis――all await the
visitation of the Lord from the heavens, in which he shall raise them
from the dead.”
NATHANAEL, BAR-THOLOMEW.
his name and call.
In respect to this apostle, there occurs a primary question about

his name, which is given so differently in different sacred authorities,
as to induce a strong suspicion that the two names refer to two
totally distinct persons. The reasons for applying the two words,
Nathanael and Bartholomew, to the same person, are the
circumstances,――that none of the three first evangelists mention
any person named Nathanael, and that John never mentions the
name Bartholomew,――that Bartholomew and Nathanael are each
mentioned on these different authorities, among the chosen disciples
of Jesus,――that Bartholomew is mentioned by the three first
evangelists, on all the lists, directly after Philip, who is by John
represented as his intimate friend,――and that Bartholomew is not
an individual name, but a word showing parentage merely,――the
first syllable being often prefixed to Syriac names, for this purpose;
and Bar-Tholomew means the “son of Tholomew,” or “Tholomai;” just
as Bar-Jonah means the “son of Jonah;” nor was the former any
more in reality the personal, individual name of Nathanael, than the
latter was of Peter; but some circumstance may have occurred to
make it, in this instance, often take the place of the true individual
name.
A few very brief notices are given of this apostle by John, who
alone alludes to him, otherwise than by a bare mention on the list. It
is mentioned in his gospel that Nathanael was of Cana, in Galilee, a
town which stood about half-way between lake Gennesaret and the
Mediterranean sea; but the circumstances of his call seem to show
that he was then with Philip, probably at or near Bethsaida. Philip,
after being summoned by Jesus to the discipleship, immediately
sought to bring his friend Nathanael into an enjoyment of the honors
of a personal intercourse with Jesus, and invited him to become a
follower of the Messiah, foretold by Moses and the prophets, who
had now appeared, as Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. On
hearing of that mean place, as the home of the promised King of
Israel, Nathanael, with great scorn, replied, in inquiry, “Can any good
thing come out of Nazareth?” To this sneering question, Philip
answered by the simple proposition, “Come and see;”――wisely
judging that no argument could answer his friend’s prejudice so well
as an actual observation of the character and aspect of the
Nazarene himself. Nathanael, accordingly, persuaded by the
earnestness of his friend, came along with him, perhaps, partly to
gratify him, but, no doubt, with his curiosity somewhat moved to
know what could have thus brought Philip into this devout regard for
a citizen of that dirty little town; and he therefore readily
accompanied him to see what sort of prophet could come out of
Nazareth.
The words with which Jesus greeted Nathanael, even before he

had been personally introduced, or was prepared for any salutation,
are the most exalted testimonial of his character that could be
conceived, and show at once his very eminent qualifications for the
high honors of the apostleship. When Jesus saw Nathanael coming
to him, he said, “Behold a true son of Israel, in whom is no
guile!”――manifesting at once a confidential and intimate knowledge
of his whole character, in thus pronouncing with such ready decision,
this high and uncommon tribute of praise upon him, as soon as he
appeared before him. Nathanael, quite surprised at this remarkable
compliment from one whom he had never seen until that moment,
and whom he supposed to be equally ignorant of him, replied with
the inquiry, “Whence knowest thou me?” Jesus answered, “Before
Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee.”
The fig-trees of Palestine, presenting a wide, leafy cover, and a
delightful shade, were often used in the warm season as places of
retirement, either in company, for conversation, or in solitude, for
meditation and prayer, as is shown in numerous passages of the
Rabbinical writings; and it was, doubtless, in one of these
occupations that Nathanael was engaged, removed, as he
supposed, from all observation, at the time to which Jesus referred.
But the eye that could pierce the stormy shades of night on the
boisterous waves of Galilee, and that could search the hearts of all
men, could also penetrate the thick, leafy veil of the fig-tree, and
observe the most secret actions of this guileless Israelite, when he
supposed the whole world to be shut out, and gave himself to the
undisguised enjoyment of his thoughts, feelings, and actions, without
restraint. Nathanael, struck with sudden but absolute conviction, at
this amazing display of knowledge, gave up all his proud scruples
against the despised Nazarene, and adoringly exclaimed, “Rabbi!
thou art the Son of God,――thou art the King of Israel.” Jesus,
recognizing with pleasure the ready faith of this pure-minded
disciple, replied, “Because I said unto thee, ‘I saw thee under the fig-
tree,’――believest thou? Thou shalt see yet greater things than
these.” Then turning to Philip as well as to Nathanael, he says to
them both, “I solemnly assure you, hereafter ye shall see heaven
open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the
Son of Man.”
On the day but one after this occurrence, as John records, Jesus
was in Cana of Galilee, the residence of Nathanael, and was present
at a wedding which took place there. From the circumstance that the
mother of Jesus was there also, it would seem likely that it was the
marriage of some of their family friends; otherwise the conjecture
might seem allowable, that the presence of Jesus and his disciples
on this occasion, was in some way connected with the introduction of
Nathanael to Jesus; and that this new disciple may have been some
way concerned in this interesting event. The manner in which the
occurrence is announced,――it being next specified, that two days
after the occurrences recorded in the end of the first chapter, Jesus
was present at a marriage in Cana of Galilee,――would seem to
imply very fairly, that Jesus had been in some other place
immediately before; and it is probable therefore, that he
accompanied Nathanael home from Bethsaida, or whatever place
was the scene of his calling to the discipleship, along with Philip. The
terms of the statement are not, however, absolutely incompatible
with the idea of this first introduction of these two disciples to Jesus,
in Cana itself, which may have been the part of Galilee into which
Jesus is said to have gone forth, after leaving Bethabara; although,
the reasons above given make it probable that Bethsaida was the
scene. After this first incident, no mention whatever is made of
Nathanael, either under his proper name, or his paternal appellation,
except that when the twelve were sent forth in pairs, he was sent
with his friend Philip, that those who had been summoned to the
work together, might now go forth laboring together in this high
commission. One solitary incident is also commemorated by John, in
which this apostle was concerned, namely, the meeting on the lake
of Gennesaret, after the resurrection, where his name is mentioned
among those who went out on the fishing excursion with Peter. His
friend Philip is not there mentioned, but may have been one of the
“two disciples,” who are included without their names being given.
From this trifling circumstance, some have concluded that Nathanael
was a fisherman by trade, as well as the other four who are
mentioned with him; and certainly the conjecture is reasonable, and
not improbable, except from the circumstance, that his residence
was at Cana, which is commonly understood to have been an inland
town, and too far from the water, for any of its inhabitants to follow

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PART ONE GRAINS AND YEAST: A MASHUP FOR THE AGES

PART TWO ELEMENTS OF (ALMOST) EVERY BREW

PART THREE THE SCIENCE OF GEMÜTLICHKEIT

PART FOUR FRONTIERS, OLD AND NEW

Annotated Bibliography 219

Grains and Yeast

A similar attraction to the products of natural fermentation is

pened, domesticated cereals were at the fore—wheat and barley in the

malting the grain—that is, soaking and aerating it to stimulate sprout-

We cannot conclude this chapter without mentioning what some con-

stantial village of clustered mud-­brick houses and open courtyards.

As to the place where this gospel was written, there is a very

his first epistle.

the second and third epistles.

the traditions of his life in ephesus.

It is related that John, after returning from banishment, was often

Another story, far less probable, is related in the ancient

Another story, of about equal merit, is told by the same authority.

The circumstances of his death are described in the

There is no need, however, of such fables, to crown with the false

Of his apostleship not one word is recorded in the New Testament,

And though the ancient Polycrates may have blundered

In respect to this apostle, there occurs a primary question about

The words with which Jesus greeted Nathanael, even before he

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stantial village of clustered mud-brick houses and open courtyards.