A little bit of history…. The fine art of brewing is as old as civilisation. The earliest recorded beer drinking was in 6000BC in Ancient Iraq but it is likely that prehistoric nomads made ale from grain and water even before they learnt to make bread. Beer was somewhat different in those days - a sludgy, rancid concoction rather like oatmeal, sort of liquid bread! Today 280 billion pints of the stuff is sold each year, some good, some bad and some ugly (cue Ennio Morricone)and each pint owes its existence to some very canny Sumerians over 8000 years ago! Half Pint History… The first recipe for ale was written by the Babylonians 3800 years ago as a hymn to the Goddess, Ninkasi. Priestesses used the hymn to make ale. Women have long been associated with the brewing of ale. In the middle ages it was the role of the ale-wife: since the purity of water was questionable ale was widely drunk, even by children, so she was kept very busy. Ale and beer brewing were for many years kept separate. Hopped ale, known as beer, was, in the middle ages, considered an inferior drink, favoured only by the Dutch. The first documented use of hops in beer (beer was the name for ale embittered with hops) was in the 11th Century, but it wasn't until the 16th Century that they were used in British ale, in fact in 1519 hops were condemned as a wicked and pernicious weed.' Alongside the ale-wives monasteries and abbeys made ale to sell to visiting pilgrims and for use in religious ceremonies. It was the monks who made refinements to the brewing process. The Industrial Revolution brought new malts, equipment and mass production to the beer business. However, prohibition halted the growth of beer in the US, with an Act in 1920 which continued as law until 1933, to ban the sale of alcohol, leaving Europe to forge ahead as the world leaders on the brewery stage. So, as you sip your pint, take a moment to reflect on the fact that for well over 6000 years people have been doing exactly that - what a shame Plain ales wasn't around for them!