Food - Drink
How The French Brewed Some Of The First Beer In History
By JOHN TOLLEY
Historian William Bostwick once said, "Humankind was built on beer." Beer actually only dates back about 5,000 years, but this is no small number, and one French town — the Celtic village of La Roquepertuse — was making steps in beer production far before wine became the beverage of choice.
Evidence suggests that in the early Iron Age and possibly the Bronze Age, villagers of La Roquepertuse malted both barley and emmer, an early form of wheat. An essential part of the beer brewing process, this form of ancient malting involved steeping the grains to coax them into germinating, then drying them in an oven.
Today, wine reigns supreme among French alcoholic beverages, but beer still has its place in French history. In fact, it was the progenitor of France, Emperor Charlemagne (747-814), who handed down some of the first regulations governing the production of beer and how it was to be taxed and sold.