26 Historical and Hilarious Facts About Beer

There is quite a lot to know about beer, besides the fact that it is one of our favorite beverages on this planet. If you’re a beer expert yourself, be sure to know that you’re officially known as a cerevisaphile (a word derived from the Latin name of the Roman goddess of agriculture, Ceres, and vis, meaning strength).

We’ve scoured the Internet and racked our brains to deliver to you some of our favorite facts about beer, including gems from its rich historical roots sprinkled with comical tidbits along the way. You’ll want to show off all you know about beer to your friends when October 27^th arrives, which, by the way, is National American Beer Day. Cheers!

Beer Facts from the Past

1. Beer is one of the world’s oldest prepared beverages, possibly dating back to the early Neolithic or 9500 BC.
2. The first culture to brew beer were the Ancient Babylonians. They were so serious about their craft that one bad batch of the brew was punishable by drowning to death, in the beer!
3. The Code of Hammurabi decreed that bartenders who watered down beer would be executed.
4. The first professional brewers were all women called brewsters. Only very beautiful women were able to become brewsters.
5. Old Vikings believed that in their heaven called Valhalla, there is a giant goat whose udders provided unlimited supply of beer.
6. The Great Pyramid of Giza was built under the influence. Workers were paid with a daily ration of beer – about four liters a day – since it was safer to consume than water.
7. George Washington insisted his continental army be permitted a quart of beer as part of their daily rations.
8. President Washington also had his own brew house on the grounds of Mount Vernon.
9. Coined in the early 1900s, the word “alcoholiday” means leisure time spent drinking. Every day is a holiday.
10. In the 1980s, a beer-drinking goat was elected mayor of Lajitas, TX.
11. At the Wife Carrying World Championships, held annually in Sonkajärvi, Finland since 1992, first prize is the wife’s weight in beer.
12. Thomas Jefferson wrote parts of the Declaration of Independence in a Philadelphia tavern.
13. Andre the Giant could drink 119 beers in six hours (for most of us, quite an impossible feat, but for this 7’4”, 529 lb goliath of a man, just another day at the office).
14. The world’s longest hangover lasted four weeks after a Scotsman consumed 60 pints of beer. This is only hilarious because it didn’t happen to you!
15. Beer soup was a common breakfast in medieval Europe.
16. The pilgrims had originally planned to stop at the Hudson River, until the beer ran out. Traveling overseas, beer was preferred to water as a reliable source of hydration.
17. Prohibition lasted 13 years, 10 months, 19 days, 17 hours, and 32 1/2 minutes; FDR ended it by saying “What America needs now is a drink.”
18. Beer is partly responsible for the discovery of oxygen. Joseph Priestly began experiments when he noticed gases rising from the big vats of beer at a brewery.
19. After he won the Nobel Prize, Niels Bohr was given a perpetual supply of beer piped into his house. Now there’s an incentive to do good.
20. Oktoberfest, the world’s largest beer festival, originally started as a festival celebrating the 1810 marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig.
21. In the 1990s, the Beer Lovers Party ran candidates in Belarus and Russia.
22. J.K. Rowling invented Quidditch in a pub.
23. The speed record for beer drinking was once set by Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke (2.5 pints in 11 seconds).
24. “Rule of thumb” came from beer brewers, who would stick their thumbs into the mix to find out if the temperature was right for adding yeast.
25. “Mind your p’s and q’s” comes from when people would get rowdy at a bar, and the host would tell them to mind their pints and quarts.
26. The world’s longest hangover lasted four weeks after a Scotsman consumed 60 pints of beer. This is only hilarious because it didn’t happen to you!

Here’s an infographic highlighting 29 things you should know about beer, in case we missed any. Oh, and here’s another beer infographic, just to cover all the bases.

As the world’s most widely consumed alcoholic beverage, and the third most popular drink, it’s safe to say that we all have a little cenosillicaphobia (fear of an empty glass). We just love beer. Even slugs like beer.

If you love beer so much that you have a draft beer system installed in your restaurant or bar, the fact is that Clean Beer is the brewery-approved line cleaning service in Massachusetts. You might as well have a professional draft beer system in your home if you love beer that much.