Pogierob
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There is always a healthy amount of conversation on this site about "column a or column b " situations.
Lay it down and let's have it out!!!!
Lay it down and let's have it out!!!!
What came first? The brewer or the fermentation?
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Airgead
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That's an easy one. Yeast evolved around 2.5 billion years ago. Bacteria (bacteria ferment as well) evolved maybe 4 billion years ago. Brewers evolved maybe 1 million years ago (if you think that homo erectus brewed... i suspect they did... otherwise maybe 100K years ago).
Next!
Next!
Pogierob
Well-Known Member
Ok pint or pot?
.
Airgead
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We've been drinking fermented beverages for probably longer than human history. Its easy to see how a smart ape like thing would have taken advantage of any spontaneous fermentations around. Its only a short step from there to deliberately leaving a honey and water mix (or fruit or grain porridge) out for a day or two and letting the gods (or whatever) turn it fizzy...spryzie said:
Early fermentations would have been opportunistic (found a big bee hive and can't eat all the honey) or seasonal, probably associated with seasonal gluts of fruit. These seasonal gluts may well have grown into religious practices and might explain alcohol's close connection to religion even today. From there its a small step to the magic leather bag that always produces the best fizzy stuff (has a good yeast culture in it).
Not quite what we would call brewing but its still a deliberate act to turn stuff into something alcoholic.
If you think about it, yeast may actually be our oldest domesticated crop.
Airgead
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Both together.
At the big bang there was one fundamental force (not sure what but it wasn't electricity) and the universe was a wierd energy soup. There was no electricity and nothing that would conduct it (because you can't talk about a conductor for a force that doesn't exist).
A few umpteenths of a second (10^-15) after we had the electroweak symetry breaking where the strong force separated from the electroweak. This enabled some fundamental particles to congeal out of the energy soup and we had a hot quark-gluon-lepton plasma. Still no electricity as we had the electroweak force instead and you can't even talk about a conductor for a force that doesn't exist yet.
About 10^-12 seconds after the big bang the electroweak separated into the weak and electromagnetic. Particles obtained charge and we had moving charges in the particle soup - electricity and a conductive path born together.
By 10^-6 seconds the energy in the universe had fallen below the binding energy for hadrons so quarks became bound into protons and neutrons and the rest, as they say,. is history....
Physics is cool.
At the big bang there was one fundamental force (not sure what but it wasn't electricity) and the universe was a wierd energy soup. There was no electricity and nothing that would conduct it (because you can't talk about a conductor for a force that doesn't exist).
A few umpteenths of a second (10^-15) after we had the electroweak symetry breaking where the strong force separated from the electroweak. This enabled some fundamental particles to congeal out of the energy soup and we had a hot quark-gluon-lepton plasma. Still no electricity as we had the electroweak force instead and you can't even talk about a conductor for a force that doesn't exist yet.
About 10^-12 seconds after the big bang the electroweak separated into the weak and electromagnetic. Particles obtained charge and we had moving charges in the particle soup - electricity and a conductive path born together.
By 10^-6 seconds the energy in the universe had fallen below the binding energy for hadrons so quarks became bound into protons and neutrons and the rest, as they say,. is history....
Physics is cool.
