Timeline

800 BCE, ca. – Hubbard Amphora (Cyprus), enthroned man drinking liquid from a straw

650 BCE, ca. – [680-645 BCE] Scythians and Phrygians drinking beer with a straw
-earliest direct reference to beer, brutos, in Greek literature (Archilochus, Fr.42)

480 BCE, ca. – [ca. 550-479 BCE] Egyptians grind barley into a drink (Hecataeus, Ath. Deip 10.12-3)
-Paeonians drink barley beer and millet-and-fleabane beer (Hecataeus, Ath. Deip 10.67)

468 BCE – “Brutos” is still used as a word to describe a foreign barley beer. Its use in tragedy suggests the widespread understanding of its meaning (Sophocles, Triptolemus fr. 610)

463 BCE – The Egyptians are equated with beer-drinking, a sign of effeminacy and “otherness” (Aeschylus, Suppliants ll. 952-953)

460 BCE, ca. – [ca. 525-455 BCE] Thracians are drinking beer. The beer could be “diminished with time.” (Aeschylus, Ath. Deip 10.67)

440 BCE, ca. – [ca. 5th c. BCE] Thracians are still drinking barley beer. Another group is drinking root- or rye-beer (Hellanicus, Ath. Deip 10.67)

430 BCE, ca. – [ca. 484-425 BCE] Egyptians are drinking “wine from barley” (Herodotus, 2.77)

380 BCE, ca. – [430-354 BCE] Description of Armenian beer
– First use of “οινος κριθινος” (Xenophon, Anabasis 4.5.25-26)
-Armenian drinking traditions, straw-use? (Xenophon, Anabasis 4.5.31-32)

330 BCE, ca – We learn about the differences in intoxication between beer and wine (Aristotle in Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 1.61)

300 BCE, ca. – [350-287 BCE] First use of the word “zythos” (Theophrastus, de causis plantarum 6.11.2)
-Tiger nuts used to sweeten beer in Egypt (Theophrastus, Historia Plantarum 4.8.12)

150 BCE, ca.  – [2nd-first c. BCE] Beer in the Septuagint – a mistranslation of the Hebrew (Isaiah 19.9-10)

130 BCE, ca.- Iberian kings drank beer out of gold and silver kraters (Polybius, Histories 34.9)

80 BCE, ca. – [135-51 BCE] Description of Celtic eating habits
– First recorded use of the word “κόρμα” (Poseidonius in Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 4.36)

48 BCE, ca – [49-48 BCE] Earliest Roman reference to barrels. They are filled with pitch by the inhabitants of Massalia and used as projectiles against Caesar’s forces (Caesar, de Bello Civili 2.11]

29 BCE – The Scythians drink beer with sour berries added (Virgil, Georgics 3.380)

15 CE, ca. – The Iberians drink beer, especially at parties (Strabo, Geography 3.3.7.12)
-In Alexandria (Egypt), the residents drink bad wine and beer (Strabo, Geography 17.1.14.7)
-Beer made with millet and barley in Ethiopia (Strabo, Geography 17.2.2)
-Strabo’s description of grains in Gaul (Strabo, Geography 4.1.2)
-The Ligurians drink beer (Strabo, Geography 4.6.2)

30 CE, ca – Under Trajan, beer can be bequeathed in wills if the head of the household stipulates (Sabinus in Justinian 33.6.9)

40 CE, ca. – For the Romans, beer is the “strongest” drink and should not be given to the ill (Celsus, de Medicina 2.18.11-12)

60 CE, ca. – [35-70 CE] Egyptian beer snacks; skirret and lupines (Columella, De Re Rustica 10.1.1.116)

65 CE, ca. – Beer causes headaches, bad humors, and muscle pain. It is also commonly found in Britain and Iberia (Dioscorides, Materia Medica 2.70)

79 CE, ca. – Records the different names of beer used by various Celtic tribes; beer is used by women as a restorative beauty treatment (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 22.81)
– First recorded use of “cerevisia” (Pliny the Elder)
-Possible description of hops (not in beer) (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 21.50)
-Germinated millet and millet stalks soaked in must for 7 months (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 14.19)
-Beer is used to tame elephants (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 8.8-9)
–Fermentum is used to describe yeast activity in bread, but not necessarily beer (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 18.42)
-Descriptions of the grains harvested in Gaul and Spain (Pliny the Elder, Natural History Book 18)
-Spanish age their beers (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 14.51)
-The Egyptians are beer drinkers and drunks (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 14.51)
-Mineral/Chemical water treatments in wine (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 14.44)
-In Gaul and Spain, krausen is used to leaven bread (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 18.12)

98 CE, ca. – Germans drink much beer (corruptus, not fermentus with yeast) that resembles wine in color (Tacitus, de origine et situ Germanorum 23.1)

100 CE, ca. – The Alexandrine crowds at the chariot races are drunken on wine and beer (Dio Chrysostum, Orationes 32.82)

105 CE, ca. – Roman soldiers stationed in Britain drink and request beer (Vindolanda III.628)
-A brewer (possibly Belgian?) is living at Vindolanda with the Roman army (Vindolanda II.182)
-Grain, brace, is being sold at/near Vindolanda (Vindolanda 87.728)

110 CE, ca. – Beer is used to work ivory (Plutarch, An vitiositas . . . 4)

115 CE, ca. – The Spaniards drink beer and half-raw meat at their funerary celebrations . . . or at least Florus says they did (Florus, Epitome Bellorum Omnium Annorum 1.34)

200 CE, ca. – beer cannot be bequeathed in wills. Beer also appears in tax law (Ulpian, Ad Sabinum XXIII)
-beer was considered the drink of the lower classes in Egypt (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 1.61)

220 CE, ca. – the Pannonians drank millet and barley beers (Cassius Dio, Historiae Romanae 49.36)

338 CE, ca. – the reconstructed capacity of the breweries in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt is estimated at 18.5 barrels (Oxyrhynchus Papyri 85)

360 CE, ca. – possibly a Celtic oat beer?; Celts still drink beer (Julian the Apostate, Epigram 1)

380 CE, ca. – The Illyricum poor drink a beverage made from barley and other grains; “beer” is used as an insult (Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum Gestarum 26.8.2)
-The Gauls get drunk on wine and wine-like (i.e. beer) beverages (Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum Gestarum 15.12.4)

410, CE, ca. – Sabaiaum (beer) is still drunk in Illyricum by the poor; it is comparable to Egyptian zythos (Hieronymus, Commentary on Isaiah 7.19.5-11)

540 CE, ca. – Again, beer cannot be bequeathed in wills. Beer also appears in tax law (Justinian, 33.6.9 and following)