Here are 10 amazing facts about beer…
1. The city of Amsterdam in The Netherlands pays local drinks in beer to clean the streets. As well as getting 10 Euros and some rolling tobacco, the street cleaners also get 5 beer for their hard work.
2. The world record for the quickest consumption of beer goes to the Steven Petrosino from Pennsylvania in the United States. The record goes back to 1977 when he drank an astonishing 33 ounces of beer in a mind-boggling 1.33 seconds.
3. If you’ve ever dreamed of swimming in beer then you should have been alive in 1814. When a vat in central London burst, 400,000 gallons flooded onto the streets in the West End around St Giles close to Trafalgar Square.
4. The advent of craft beer has seen the alcohol percentage in some beers increase. Beers up to 7 or 8% are now common. However, the world’s most alcoholic beer is quite a bit stronger than that and is a staggering 68.5%. The beer is known as ‘Snake’s Venom’ and rightly markets itself as the world’s strongest beer.
5. While we might think of beer as a modern trope, evidence shows that this is not the case. In fact, according to researcher Patrick McGovern, many of the ancient pyramids were built under the influence of alcohol – specific
ally beer. It is said that each worker got up to 4 liters of beer each day for their hard work.
6. It is forbidden to show people drinking on American television. If you watch a beer commercial closely, you might see people with a beer in their hands but they won’t actually be doing any drinking.
7. The Czech Republic is the country in the world which consumes the most beer. They seriously eclipse most other countries with a staggering consumption of over 40 gallons per capita each year.
8. According to research, there are around 400 ber brands in the world – through this doesn’t include those craft beers which are produced locally, this would take the number into the thousands. The country with the most beers in the world? Despite its small size, the honor goes to Belgium.
9. While you might think that modern-day hipsters take their beer seriously but it is nothing when compared to the ancient Babylonians. They took their craft so seriously that is someone produced a bad batch, they would drown the person responsible in the beer before throwing it, and them, away.
10. While wine gets better with age, this is not always the case with beer. However, in 2010, the oldest beer in the world was discovered in a shipwreck off the coast of Finland. It dates back to the 19th century and was said to taste ‘very old’.