Brewing travels west

The Egyptians passed on their brewing techniques to the Greeks, though wine was the preferred drink for that empire and also for the Romans. Greek tradition says that Dionysus ed from Mesopotamia in disgust owing to its people being addicted to beer (Tannahill 1973). Beer was the mainstay of more northern cultures and the Germanic and Celtic races. In the rst century AD the Britons and Hiberni (Irish) were making kourmi from barley, a crop that had probably been cultivated in England since 3000 BC
(Dunn 1979). One member of St Patrick's (373-464) household was a brewer, a priest named Mecan (King 1947).
One of the earliest references to beer in England is perhaps not as complimentary as one might wish:

Kourmi, made from barley and often drunk instead of wine, produces headaches, is a compound of bad juices and does harm to the muscles.

However, this was penned by a Greek (Dioscorides ca. 1st century AD), presumably biased in favour of wine!
The history of beer has always been entwined with the church. St Brigid brewed ale at Eastertide to supply to all churches in her neighbourhood (King 1947). Later, the monasteries spawned the rst breweries in the British Isles. The word 'ale' comes from the Old English ealu, and we suppose that the malted grain was a cheaper option than the honey used in making mead.
The Danes and Anglo-Saxons drank ale because their homelands were too cold to cultivate grapes successfully. The Anglo-Saxons used ale for coughs, shortness of breath and curing hiccups (Fleming 1975). They rubbed it on to the knees to ease aches and pains. Beer was a drink for heroes and Norse seafarers were brave in battle believing that, should they perish, it would be to go to drink ale in Valhalla (Savage 1866). The Vikings sang about drinking well before putting out to sea, hence the phrase 'three sheets to the wind'. The Scandinavian word bjor became beer in the Anglo-Saxon. The foods enjoyed in Northern European countries were (and still are) heavy in carbohydrate and fat, needing to be washed down with large volumes of liquid (Tannahill 1973). Thus beer is highly suitable.