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Zen like Beer Argument

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digdan

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2005
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Location
Pasadena, CA
After a night of heavy drinking my wife turned to me and said ...


What has beer done for the history of man?

I'm sure she was fishing for a wife beating story (a new one perhaps ;) )

I personally told her to shut up and drink her IPA. But I thought it would be grand fun to leave it to you gentle folk to tell me the answer.

What has beer done for man kind? Seriously?

Life without beer = ...
Life with beer = life as we know it
 
Reading radical brewing, and apparently there are a few scholars who surmise that bread alone wasn't enough to convince some wandering tribes to settle down (have a bad crop with no concept of insurance and see how awesome your farm looks), but beer, that could have been the deal maker.
 
Beer was one very effective way for early civilizations to store their grain for future use.

Think about it. My last beer had 500 calories per half liter. And it would surely last 6 months under decent conditions. What's more, most early civilizations had religion and an interest in altered states of reality. So throw in a little bit of alcohol-induced weirdness and what's not to like?


There have been 4 great inventions/discoveries in the history of mankind that have truly changed the world. The wheel; Mead/Wine/Beer; the printing press, coffee, and the computer.

Seriously.
 
During the Dark and Medieval ages much town/city and village water was not safe to drink. Beer was, it was also a much needed and valued nutritional food source, Men women and children used to rely on it for the health and well being And much merriment was had.:mug:
 
Gentlemen,

My hat is off to the homebrew forum as a place, a 'forum',
where ideas may be freely exchanged, and such good ones.
The orginal question about:
"What has beer done for the history of man?"
Caught my eye as 'Zen' has always been an interest of mine.
In fact an hour before I read the orginal, and the following posts,
I was in the den, 5:00am holding a knife I had made,
thinking how it feel so good in my hand, and how it is designed to be
'a natural 'Zenistic' extention of my arm-hand.
A spirit-mind-body-arm-hand-knife, sort of thing
and when I saw the post with the word 'Zen' in it
it caught my attention.

What has beer done for the history of man?
Is a good question, but I was stunned by the answers.
A good question and good answers!
'Now shut up and drink your damn beer'!

'Aseelye' brought up, the original forming of settlements,
and the raising of food rather than the hunting for it.
And brought up the problem of primitive hunter gathers having to haul a years supply of grain, beer, or anything around with them, making settlements a practical means of life.


'Toot' added the brilliant observation of the storage of grain in the form of beer 'for future consumption', being essential for life,
as beer would 'keep' longer than grain or almost anything.

And 'Orfy' added the equally profound fact that water was not sanitary unless boiled or made into beer.

The sun is just coming up and I am reading as interesting of a discourse on the question:
'What has beer done form the history of man.'
as I have ever seen.


I think I'll go get me a beer!

Good work men!


J. Winters Knife
Published Poet
Expert marksman
 
Its been discovered that the workers who built the pyramids of Egypt drank beer for breakfast.
 
I used to have a poster that said "Beer, helping ugly people get laid since....". It's definately helped me a few times. Some might view that as good for mankind, some might not. Personally, I liked it a lot.
 
digdan said:
After a night of heavy drinking my wife turned to me and said ...


What has beer done for the history of man?

I'm sure she was fishing for a wife beating story (a new one perhaps ;) )

I personally told her to shut up and drink her IPA. But I thought it would be grand fun to leave it to you gentle folk to tell me the answer.

What has beer done for man kind? Seriously?

Life without beer = ...
Life with beer = life as we know it
Amen brother! :mug:
 
JacktheKnife said:
Gentlemen,

My hat is off to the homebrew forum as a place, a 'forum',
where ideas may be freely exchanged, and such good ones.
The orginal question about:
"What has beer done for the history of man?"
Caught my eye as 'Zen' has always been an interest of mine.
In fact an hour before I read the orginal, and the following posts,
I was in the den, 5:00am holding a knife I had made,
thinking how it feel so good in my hand, and how it is designed to be
'a natural 'Zenistic' extention of my arm-hand.
A spirit-mind-body-arm-hand-knife, sort of thing
and when I saw the post with the word 'Zen' in it
it caught my attention.

What has beer done for the history of man?
Is a good question, but I was stunned by the answers.
A good question and good answers!
'Now shut up and drink your damn beer'!

'Aseelye' brought up, the original forming of settlements,
and the raising of food rather than the hunting for it.
And brought up the problem of primitive hunter gathers having to haul a years supply of grain, beer, or anything around with them, making settlements a practical means of life.


'Toot' added the brilliant observation of the storage of grain in the form of beer 'for future consumption', being essential for life,
as beer would 'keep' longer than grain or almost anything.

And 'Orfy' added the equally profound fact that water was not sanitary unless boiled or made into beer.

The sun is just coming up and I am reading as interesting of a discourse on the question:
'What has beer done form the history of man.'
as I have ever seen.


I think I'll go get me a beer!

Good work men!


J. Winters Knife
Published Poet
Expert marksman


Dude, roasting and drinking don't go together...
 
beer4breakfast said:
Four out of five ain't bad. :D

So were there four great inventions/discoveries or five, or was coffee really supposed to be in there? :)


Coffee fueled the industrial revolution. How many other foods have a break named after them?

After a night of drinking, you need something to get you going and productive in the morning. In comes the venerable cup of coffee.
 
Toot said:
Coffee fueled the industrial revolution. How many other foods have a break named after them?

After a night of drinking, you need something to get you going and productive in the morning. In comes the venerable cup of coffee.

Tea break?
 
Beer Break?

You know, when you're out mowing the lawn

or doing some yard work

or you're working on you truck

or you're bottling some beer

or when you're having a boring day at work

or...

Well, there's always time for a BEER BREAK! :mug:
 
What has BEER done for mankind?

Only EVERYTHING!!!

1. It's diversified the gene pool by attracting people
2. It's given MEN a mechanism to help put up with women and vice-versa
3. It's staved off disease
4. It's helped people live longer lives due to reduced stress
5. It's the reason baseball became popular
6. It's spurred the economy numerous times in numerous ways
7. It's added pleasure to life

I could go on and on. We're better for having discovered beer.
 
Toot said:
Coffee fueled the industrial revolution. How many other foods have a break named after them?


There's "Beerthirty". That could be considered a specific time. As in, "It's beerthirty":mug:

And it's always after noon somewhere.
 
TCHDNSD said:
There's "Beerthirty". That could be considered a specific time. As in, "It's beerthirty":mug:

And it's always after noon somewhere.

Is that similar to "martini-time"?
 
"Enkidu knew nothing about eating bread for food,
and of drinking beer he had not been taught.
The harlot spoke to Enkidu, saying:
"Eat the food, Enkidu, it is the way one lives.
Drink the beer, as is the custom of the land."
Enkidu ate the food until he was sated,
he drank the beer-seven jugs!-- and became expansive and sang with joy!
He was elated and his face glowed.
He splashed his shaggy body with water,
and rubbed himself with oil, and turned into a human."

The Epic of Gilgamesh
 
"You can’t be a Real Country unless you have A BEER and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER."

Frank Zappa
 
I am not sure if this has been offered as i have had a few to many pints to care about reading, but the answer would be much shorter and easier to find when the questions is posed as this:

What hasn't beer influenced in the history of man?

The only answer i can come up with is.................. Lint. The stuff in your belly button and pockets, as near as i can tell has nothing to do with beer.
 
Now shut up and drink your damn beer!

That's actually a very zen-like answer, in the tradition of the way lessons were taught. (Such as: A student asks: Master, what is the nature of Buddha? The master hits him with his teaching-stick and knocks him into the mud. The student is enlightened).

In other words...

Do not puzzle over the virtue in beer. Drink your beer, and bring the virtue inside you.
 
Reverend JC said:
I am not sure if this has been offered as i have had a few to many pints to care about reading, but the answer would be much shorter and easier to find when the questions is posed as this:

What hasn't beer influenced in the history of man?

The only answer i can come up with is.................. Lint. The stuff in your belly button and pockets, as near as i can tell has nothing to do with beer.


Not so. Lint makes a very good absorber for the condensation from your frosty mug resting on your tum-tum.
 
TCHDNSD said:
Not so. Lint makes a very good absorber for the condensation from your frosty mug resting on your tum-tum.

An of course, a "Beer Belly" creates a larger hole for this lint to populate and multiply. If there was no crater on a beer belly, maybe there would be no lint...

WHo knows?!
 
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