It may be a surprise to you, but in ages past, beer has been considered to be food, a benefit to health, and even a proper medicine for ailments. This notion seems at odds with how we see beer today. To look further into this seeming contradiction, we must look without the scientific and ethnocentric (and entheogencentric*) disdain that many hold toward ancient practices. To put it bluntly, what we think of today as beer is not what these ancients thought of as beer.
One of the greatest changes in commercial beer production was the German so-called “Beer Purity Law”, or The Reinheitsgebot. This "purity requirement"(as translated literally), is a law that was first instituted in Bavaria in 1516. It mandated that the only ingredients to be used in beer were water, hops, and barley. It has been put forth that this law was intended to preserve wheat and rye prices at a low rate, but had many side effects for regional beers in Germany. At this time, admixtures such as cherries, nettles, and wormwood were not unheard of, and these beers became outlawed, along with any other possible combination of herbal components. These components were often added to beers to make them not only more palatable, but also for their medicinal or even entheogenic* qualities.
Another factor to consider, aside from admixtures, is the natural state of a finished beer back then, and now. By back then, I mean what is called in England Real Ale. Real Ale is served from a cask, without force carbonation, and without pasteurization. It is, in essence, a term used to affect the preservation of ancient brewing techniques. Real Ale is often considered to be heartier than its pasteurized, highly carbonated counterpart, and is even sometimes served warm. There are many recipes from the 1600s and before which call for warm beer, sometimes with toast and cinnamon on top, supporting the view of beer as food.
In his book Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers, author Stephen Buhner goes into great detail about antique recipes for tonic and medicinal beers. Many of the recipes are claimed by their authors to be cures for various types of illness, as well as to be tonics (i.e. beers that enhance general health). In the days before the germ theory became a widely held belief that inured itself in western medical practice, most folks thought of their health a little differently: tonics were sought after as a way to promote health, instead of people being frightened by the potential presence of germs. This same idea was revealed by Louis Pasteur himself as he lay on his deathbed, as he recanted his Germ theory as harmful to the practice of medicine.
Let us look at how this idea can be applied to beer. The change that comes with the process of Pasteurization is important. Before being pasteurized, beer is literally alive. Living yeast exists in the beer, an organism which has its own defenses against harmful “Germs”. These defenses are transferred to the beer, supplemented by the anti-bacterial properties of Hops, and protected by the proper kegging of the beer. All this makes the beer quite a different creature from the Pasteurized, dead ales which are dominant in the U.S. and many other countries. While the germ theory and the practice of Pasteurization help commercial interests to make money off of beer, in my opinion, these practices likely transform the beer into a less healthy beverage overall.
These are a few manners in which the essence of beer has changed over the ages. There still exists today the tradition of brewing real ale (as defined by CAMRA); ale that is more alive, and potentially healthier for you than most commercially produced ales. For more information on Medicinal Tonic Beers, you can check out the books Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers by Stephen Buhner, and for more information on the U.K.’s CAMpaign for Real Ale see their website at http://www.camra.org.uk/.
*FROM WIKIPEDIA: An entheogen, in the strictest sense, is a psychoactive substance (most often some plant matter with hallucinogenic effects) which occasions a spiritual or mystical experience. In a broader sense, the word "entheogen" refers to artificial as well as natural substances which induce alterations of consciousness similar to those documented for ritual ingestion of traditional shamanic inebriants, even if used in a secular context.
