Alotta Monkey Business

How Beer Influenced America

Written for "Invalid Item"  for November 14, make-up entry.

In deciding what would be a good beverage to serve with Thanksgiving Dinner I stumbled upon something I did not know.

I learned from a history teacher that the Puritans liked beer and had barrels of beer on the ships they sailed to settle in the New World. But, I didn't know that our first settlers drank beer for breakfast, including the children, or how important beer was to the early colonials. Most of us know a bit about the Boston Tea Party, but after understanding more about the colonist's love of beer, it only makes sense they would dump tea in the harbor, but would not waste a precious drop of their favorite brewed beverage.

Most of this can be found relatively easily if one searches the history of beer in the United States. But what I found most interesting is that the Pilgrims may never had stopped at Plymouth Rock if it wasn't for beer.

Originally they had planned on choosing a settlement that would provide rich farmland and a temperate climate, but instead settled on rocky land subject to brutal winters. Why? Because they were almost out of beer!

This is taken from a passenger from the Mayflower, "We could not now take time for further search... our victuals being much spent, especially our beer..."

There's more but I think this is enough to show how much beer influenced history.

https://absolutebeer.com/beer101/a-brief-history-of-beer-in-colonial-america/

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