Fullers Brewery Dray

The Art of Brewing

We might a drink a lot of it, but we did not invent it. Beer dates back between 5000 & 4000 years to the Sumerian civilisation and may go back further. Alcohol and bread have pretty much sustained mankind for thousands of years and provided a more complex diet than just meat. It was fire that changed the life of primitive mankind. Micronised food is easier to digest and releases more nutrients.

Barley, an early cultivated grain, is responsible for helping to create this drink, as its sugar rich grains may well have fermented by mistake in the kerns that were used to grind it. Monastic foundations grew both barley and had vineyards and so the monks perfected a range of drinks from beer to meade, (made with honey and herbs). The Romans brought vines to England, and wine originated in Persia, (Iran).

The beer industry took off in the country during the industrial revolution, although it is said that Oliver Cromwell’s father was a brewer, and owned a public house, or Inn. They also say his father was a blacksmith? Take your pick. Farmhouses often sold beer made on the farm, and as the houses were often right on roads, they became places of rest and procurement. Passers by would stop and quench their thirst and hence the Inn was born. As it is possible that pottery was a mistake, a clay pot which ended up in the fire and was then found to be hardened; so beer may well have been the result of leaving boiled or heated barley to ferment and then drinking the liquid and finding it rather pleasant. As with cider, juice left will ferment and the result of the delicacies of inebriation encouraged someone to repeat the performance.

Fuller’s history can be found on their website. It is worth a look. Fullers Brewery https://www.fullersbrewer