What drink, other than water, is lightheartedly considered to have saved humanity?

OK, maybe that statement isn’t totally true but, according to the boffins on the documentary How Beer Saved The World, the last bit very much is. “Beer changed the course of human history. Not once, not twice, but over and over again.”

They’ve found evidence that beer predates bread by as much as 3,000 years and that it was the desire to harvest barley that compelled our ancestors to settle in one place. This in turn led to the invention of many things we still rely on today from the plough, irrigation and the wheel. In fact Mesopotamia, one of the earliest civilizations, was built around the demand for beer.

It had already pulled off the same trick in Medieval Europe. Back then water was too dangerous to drink but the brewing process removed the harmful organisms.

By the 16th Century, the average annual consumption of beer in Britain was 530 pints for every man, woman and child. Monks were the original master brewers and the church became rich on the back of their skills.