Which Came First: Wine or Beer?
Whether you’re enjoying a glass of cabernet with a meal or downing IPAs with friends, you’re taking part in the multifaceted, multicultural act of alcohol consumption that dates back many thousands of years.
Indeed, although the dangers of excessive drinking are well known, and even small amounts of alcohol are now believed to come with health risks, imbibing has been part of the fabric of human existence since the dawn of recorded time. Some anthropologists argue that alcohol featured prominently in social customs that facilitated the rise and progression of civilizations. Others suggest that civilization itself was formed as a result of people settling in one area to domesticate crops for the production of alcohol.
Because spirits such as whiskey or vodka involve a more complex distillation process, beer and wine (and wine’s less-prominent cousin, mead) are the earliest forms of alcohol, left over from a time before any of humanity’s famous names, wars, or inventions etched themselves into history. Which sets up the ultimate bar debate: Which of these two ancient libations is older?
Early Humans Likely Discovered Alcohol by Accident
To let some of the air out of the suspense, we’ll note that it’s difficult to pinpoint when people first began drinking wine or beer, since proto-versions of both drinks can be formed with little to no human intervention.
Ethanol, or drinking alcohol, is created through the fermentation process that takes place when sugar meets yeast. In the case of beer, that occurs when a grain such as barley is exposed to moisture and its starches are converted into sugar, priming this component for catalyzation by deliberately introduced or naturally appearing yeast. Similarly, crushed or even overripe fruits with high sugar content including grapes or figs will naturally begin to ferment, creating the basis for wine.
It’s likely that early humans (or even animals) stumbled upon the intoxicating effects of fermented grains and fruits, and maybe even figured out how to replicate the experience by leaving their collected wares out in the elements for too long. We can only speculate on the concoctions that may have been experimentally produced by pre-Neolithic people, although they were almost certainly different from the beers and wines that emerged under more controlled conditions in later epochs.
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Mesopotamians and Egyptians Enjoyed Beer and Wine
Unsurprisingly, such conditions were well established by the civilizations that introduced writing and other major advancements in math and science: the ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians.
Along with the 5,000-year-old remnants of barley beer discovered at the Godin Tepe ruins in modern-day Iran, evidence of a Sumerian drinking culture has surfaced in the cuneiform receipts of beer sales as well as in the “Hymn to Ninkasi,” an ode to the Sumerian beer goddess, which includes a recipe for brewing. Grain-rich beer provided nutritional benefits for Bronze Age drinkers, and may have been safer to consume than the water from rivers, which could be contaminated with animal waste.
Beer also figured prominently into the lives of Egyptians around the same time; it’s believed that workers on the pyramid of Giza received more than 10 pints per day in rations, while even children consumed low-alcohol varieties.
Meanwhile, non-native wine grapes were grown in both areas, although wine was typically reserved for the palates of royalty and priests. The Egyptians were the first known culture to document their winemaking, and left behind records of the process to go with jars of their handiwork in the burial chambers of rulers and other prominent figures.
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A 9,000-Year-Old Wine-Beer Hybrid Was Found in China
Of course, humans lived in settlements for thousands of years before these celebrated civilizations emerged, and alcohol played a part in many such early cultures.
Thanks to the discovery of drinking vessels in prehistoric Andean sites, archaeologists believe that the popular South American maize-based beer known as chicha may have been around since 5000 BCE. Going back even further, the detection of wine residue in jars and grape pollen in the soil around two sites near Tbilisi, Georgia, dating to around 6000 BCE showed that the residents of these former villages were among the earliest known wine producers.
To date, the earliest confirmed chemical evidence of an alcoholic concoction is neither specifically beer or wine, but something of a combination of the two: As detailed in a 2004 paper, an examination of 9,000-year-old pottery jars from the Jiahu Neolithic site in northern China revealed the residue of a fermented beverage of rice, honey, and fruit.
New Evidence Continues To Emerge
Meanwhile, ongoing discoveries continue to push the beginnings of boozy beverages even further and further into the past.
While it was once thought that humans domesticated grapevines no earlier than 8,000 years ago, a 2023 study of the DNA of more than 3,500 vine samples showed that wine grapes were domesticated in the Caucasus region of Western Asia and Eastern Europe as far back as 11,000 years ago. Table grapes were also domesticated in the Middle East around that same time, and it was these crops that were crossbred with wild versions to launch the wine varieties that became popular throughout the continent.
The idea of an 11,000-year-old wine is certainly impressive, but the archaeological record suggests the possibility of an even older brew: In 2018, a Stanford University research team found the 13,000-year-old remains of starch and plant particles called phytolith, which result from wheat and barley beer production, at a Natufian gravesite near modern-day Haifa, Israel. Although critics believe the evidence points to breadmaking, the Stanford team contends that both bread and a thick, grog-type beer were created at this site.
For now, we’ll give the edge in this battle of seniority bragging rights to beer. But with more discoveries sure to pop up in the coming years, it’s likely this debate will be revived — and continue past many a closing hour.
