Fact of the Day: beer
Beer is a low-alcohol beverage (usually a maximum of five percent alcohol by weight) brewed from malted barley and other cereals (such as corn or rye) mixed with cultured yeast for fermentation and hops for flavoring. Since about nine-tenths of beer's volume is water, the quality of the water is extremely important; beers from different regions of America and other countries take their unique character from the water used in brewing. Before 6000 BC, beer was made from barley in Sumeria and Babylonia. Reliefs in Egyptian tombs dating from 2400 BC show that barley or partly germinated barley was crushed, mixed with water, and dried into cakes. When broken up and mixed with water, the cakes yielded an extract that was fermented by microorganisms accumulating on the surfaces of the vessels used for fermentation.
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