Back in my College Days...

Back in 1998, I was a good academic student with good grades. Not straight A's. But plenty of A's and B's. But one one thing I did not miss out on, was the good times. Babes...booze... and plenty great company like in the picture above ;)

I enjoyed every moment of the SCARFIE LIFE at the University of Otago.... Waaaaaaayy down at the bottom of the world in Dunedin New Zealand (give a shout out if you have ever been there).

My major was microbiology and my minor was FOOD CHEMISTRY. And one of the more popular topics was the ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES. For this, we were invited on an excursion to the great SPEIGHTS BREWERY... The makers of the greatest beer in the Southern Hemisphere. Speights... Pride of the south for over a hundred years.

I still remember one of the greatest TV ads in the 90's about speights... ANYWHERE NORTH OF HERE IS NOWHERE.... Goodness I have not seen this in like 20 years.

The presenter of the brewery tour sat us down in a small lecture theater and prepared his introduction. Our young heart sunk as we all thought he was going to take us down a boring journey of history and grainy slide shows of the beginning...

BUT NO!!!!! He told us the best story that took us back the the Cro Magnon Era 40000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic of Europe. LIfe back then was organised. Human beings were at a stage where they in groups and delegated tasks . Their strength in numbers and improving technology in hunting, cooking, shelter, and harvesting of vegetation helped them thrive in many places around the world. They became less nomadic and more settled as their numbers grew and they were less able to move around with the seasons.

For about 30000 years different versions of these thriving people lived in different places of this planet and endured all their hardships against each other and nature and shaped the world and created technological marvels(for their time) for their descendants improve on.

Then he said. "If the invention of alcohol never happened... there would be no white people today".

We were like:

He said "REALLY"... He goes onto tell us a great story while he taught us the basic steps of how beer is made.

You see the caucasian people of today are direct descendents of the Cro Magnon people who lived in Europe and there is evidence that the people at the time lived in an area where water became stagnant. And when water is not moving, microorganisms like bacteria and algae thrive and cause diseases and death to the people who used that water. At that time they did not have water purification processes. So they drink what they can get.

What these people did during the warmer months of the year was to hunt and gather. They used all parts of the animal for all purposes, and a mixture of grains. Mainly early versions of barley were harvested. Grains were removed from the stalk and stored away for winter rationing.

These grains are stored in caves so that through the harsh and lean months the women would take this grain and grind it into a powder with stone tools and cook a porridge like food in clay pots for food.

Then one day during a storm all these barley grain storage caves got flooded and soaked all the grains. And as upset as they were, the men knew it was all going to go rotten. So they had to shovel it all out and dry it in the sun in order to restore it and get people through the winter.

They noticed something strange as they were laying these grains out to dry. They all had little sprouts on them.

You see they had accidentally STEEPED the grains. When water was present, these seeds thought it was time to come to life and grow into a plant. So enzymes from within the seed became to turn the starch into sugar so it can be used as an energy source to begin growing into a stalk.

But they dried them in the sun, the stalks dried up and fell off. And they thought nothing of it and put all back into the cave when it was dry. In a modern brewery, steeped grains are then dried with dried heat before they are milled into a powder.

So these cave people got on with it and they did not eat any of this stored grain until they were in the bitter heart of winter. The cave women would go and grind these dried grains into a powder and cook it with water into a paste as a warming meal for the shivering men and children. What was odd was it tasted different. It was nothing they ever expected. It was like...

It tasted sweet, it was lovely, the children were buzzing. And they all rejoiced at this delicious food which was normally bland and boring. Now remember the water steeped these grains and the starch turned into sugar. Next important point was that back in those days kitchen hygiene was not high on the list, especially in a cave with no running water in the middle of winter. Many clay pots were made during the warmer months and used pots with leftover food in them were just put aside to be washed when it was warm enough to go outside.

Eventually the sun comes out and it was time to get out and about again. The unpleasant job of the cavewomen was to go and get all these dirty pots and clean them. Now something odd happened... Normally these pots would be thick in hairy blue mould from the rotten porridge and it was a disgusting task to clean them.

But no... there was no mould. What was left of this sweet porridge shrunk down to almost nothing and the pots had a pale liquid in them. It smelled a little sharp, a little sweet, and yeasty. You see. The sugary porridge that was left in the pots to rot attracted wild yeasts that were ubiquitous. And there was enough moisture in the porridge for the yeast to grow and FERMENT the sugar in the porridge. And this lead to FERMENTATION OF SUGAR INTO ALCOHOL.

The cave wife showed the caveman and he was surprised. He smelled it, this is new and not too bad smelling. He tasted it, and it had a refreshing bitterness. And a bit if a bite. To quench his thirst he drank the rest and noticed a rather nice feeling. Hmmmm

He showed his friends and through some trial and error they worked out what they did accidentally and was able to recreate this process. And they loved it... Since the cave days, plenty of good times were had.

But it is not all about that. Let's go back to the part of the story where the sources of drinking water were contaminated with pathogens and people were getting sick and dying. Now... the clans that drank this very dilute alcohol lived on while others died out. And these people were the direct ancestors of the caucasian people.

So in a way ALCOHOLIC beverages are heroes of their time and deserve to be rewarded. And it often is ;)

I have never forgotten this story. And I am not sure how much truth is in it. But it makes perfect sense, and I'd like to think it was true.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you found some joy in this please resteem it and share the joy. And a follow and upvote would be most rewarding for bringing this to you.

Come have a chat in the comment section.

Cheers everyone

MAY THE STEEM BE WITH YOU.