Like every first Friday in August since 2007, International Beer Day is also celebrated this year.
How to celebrate International Beer Day ? In company of course! Call your group of friends, organize an evening dedicated to beers, taste even the more particular ones, the craft ones and not just those on the market. It will be a memorable evening!
It is known that beer is considered one of the alcoholic beverages that goes best with festive and convivial moments with friends. In Italy, according to Assobirra data , almost 32 liters of beer are consumed every year. precisely in our country, beer is part of the consumption habits and the local one is much appreciated abroad; exports reach 2.7 million hectoliters.
Why is Germany always associated with beer?
If you think International Beer Day was invented by the Germans, we can guarantee you that's not the case at all. Germany is associated with this drink because Oktoberfest is celebrated there, a festival totally centered on beer. Here, producing a high quality beer is a must: the law in 1516 requires master brewers to use only water, barley malt and hops (as well as yeast) for a perfect beer.
Curiosity about beer
The culture of beer has very distant roots, other than Oktoberfest… we even talk about Ancient Egypt! There they consumed about 4 liters a day, with the belief that it was simply "liquid bread".
The history of beer has so many curiosities that discovering them was amazing for us too. Let's discover them together!
- The first beer was made in Mesopotamia about 7,000 years ago . Ironically, in its place is now Iran, where Muslim law prohibits alcohol;
- Where does its name come from? The word beer comes from the Latin bibere , meaning to drink (while the Spanish word, cerveza, derives from Ceres, the Greek goddess of agriculture). That's why the Ceres brand has chosen this name;
- The first professional brewmasters were women: would you have ever guessed that? If this trend has been lost over the years, it now seems to be back in vogue;
- There is a real phobia of finding an empty mug: it is "cenosillicaphobia" or "cenosillicaphobia" and causes real panic attacks. A piece of advice: never leave the mug empty, you never know;
- The Czech Republic is the country where the largest quantity of beer is consumed: about 160 liters per person every year (while the record for beer drinkers goes to China, with 350 million hectoliters drunk in a year );
- There are around 400 different types of beer in the world, mostly from Belgium. Did you know that beer has recently become a World Heritage Site right here?
- Most expensive beer? La Vielle Bon Securs , priced at $1,000 a bottle , at London's Bierdrome ;
- The oldest brewery in the world is, however, near Munich : the Bayerische Staatsbrauerie Weihenstephan , which dates back to 1040 ;
- There is a "brewery" in Gelsenkirchen. It is a beer tanker connected to a 5 km long pipe system which carries beer to the bars near the local stadium. An example to imitate? Many are trying;
- In the 1800s London was overwhelmed by beer : on 16 October 1814 one of the cisterns of the Meux brewery broke and the city was invaded by about 1,470,000 liters of beer (the event is known as " London Beer Flood").
- The first IPA in history was born by pure chance, when Great Britain sent its pale ales to the settlers of India. By adding more alcohol and hops for better preservation, a bitter and alcoholic beer was obtained which was called Indian Pale Ales.
Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 emergency, all the initiatives have been cancelled, but as previously mentioned, no one forbids us to celebrate with our friends in some trusted brewery. Just think that from 1996 to 2017 the local breweries went from 8 to 833 . Most of it is located in Northern Italy, but the most significant thing is that our country is the only one in the world to have a law that defines craft beer.
What to do then? Let's celebrate this International Beer Day with a loud toast, hoping that next year we will be able to celebrate with events and initiatives dedicated to one of the world's most beloved beverages!
