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Whs And Beer
Wiki’s History of Beer learns us that beer is one of the oldest drinks humans have produced: “The earliest chemically confirmed barley beer to date was discovered at Godin Tepe in Iran, where fragments of a jug, from between 5,400 and 5,000 years ago was found to be coated with beerstone, a by-product of the brewing process”. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the teetotal Islamic Republic of Iran will put a site linked to alcoholic drinks forward as a WH nomination. So far we already have identified a connection for Breweries (including the Brewery museum at the Grand Place of Brussels, first photo below). But are there more groups of at least 3 WHS that we can connect to beer-related subjects?
Paid in Beer
There are at least 3 WHS that I can link to “Paid in Beer”. They all have provided records that workers at the site have been paid in beer. Some 5,000 years ago, that was the case in Uruk (part of the Ahwar of Southern Iraq WHS). A tablet has been discovered that describes beer production at the Inanna Temple in Uruk and beer given to workers as part of their daily rations. At the Frontiers of the Roman Empire near Hadrian's Wall, the Vindolanda tablets include “a polite request for beer to be sent to the garrison (which had entirely consumed its previous stock of beer)”. And during the construction of the Great Pyramids in Giza, Egypt, each worker got a daily ration of four to five liters of beer ( source ).
WHS depicted on beer cans & bottles
Another new connection is the more trivial “WHS depicted on beer cans & bottles”. Discovering them has been a running gag among the WH Travellers Community. Using ‘ Beer and breweries by region ’ and leaving out the microbreweries, I came up with the following beer brands that have the same name as WHS:
- Argentina: Igúazu *
- Brazil: Bamberg Rauchbier *
- Bulgaria: Pirinsko – Pirin *
- Cambodia: Angkor *
- China: Lhasa * (“the highest brewery in the world”)
- England: Thornbridge Jaipur , Thornbridge Saint-Petersburg
- Ethiopia: Harar *
- Finland: Kvarken , Suomenlinnan Panimo *
- Jordan: Petra *
- Rwanda: Virunga
- St. Lucia: Piton *
- Spain: Alhambra *
- Tanzania: Serengeti , Kilimanjaro *
- Turkey: Efes
- Vietnam: Hue Beer *
- USA: Grand Canyon *
- Zambia: Mosi Lager *, named after the indigenous name for Victoria Falls (Mosi Oa Tunya).
The ones above marked with an asterisk (*) also display an image of the WHS on their cans and/or bottles. Sometimes just in stylized versions that need some imagination to be recognized as parts of the WHS, as in the case of Suomenlinna (a lighthouse), Alhambra (2 lions that may be part of the Lion's Court), Harar (a gate), and Hué (a temple).
I flicked through ' Beer cans by country ' to find some more WHS on display, where the brand is named differently:
- Forst Premium from Italy: the can shows the Dolomites
- Kenya: White Cap Lager depicts the snow-capped peak of Mount Kenya.
- Zambezi beer in Zimbabwe shows Vic Falls
Do you know more beer brands that we can connect? Do you have a collection of WH-related beer cans or bottles, either in digital or physical form?
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