Oldest beer

Written references to beer have been found dating from as far back as c. 5000 BC, as part of the daily wages of workers at the Temple of Erech in Mesopotamia. Physical evidence of beer dating from c. 3500 BC has been detected in remains of a jug found at Godin Tepe, Iran in 1973 during a Royal Ontario Museum expedition. It was only in 1991 that analysis of the remains was carried out, which established that residues in deep grooves in the jug were calcium oxalate, also known as beerstone and still created in barley-based beers.