Because of its nutritional value, beer can sometimes be a healthy drink option for horses.

This history of beer's evolution during the Middle Ages unpacks how the brewing process, which killed harmful bacteria, made beer a safe alternative to water. That fact, along with the Catholic church condoning (and, in some cases, producing) the beverage, helped it evolve into a major commodity.

Spectators have long enjoyed alcohol at sporting events, dating back at least to ancient Rome. This article unpacks how companies leveraged this history to make beer a central part of sporting events and masculine culture.

What did the people of yesterday make of beer, and how exactly did they make it? Explore the timeless beverage in this guide to ancient beers from around the world. Archaeological evidence suggests the rise of beer brewing may have coincided with humanity's shift from hunters to farmers. According to this article, beer was first enjoyed in ancient Mesopotamia, where paintings, poems, and myths glorified the porridge-like brew.

Archaeologists have managed to brew beer from yeast found inside jugs abandoned thousands of years ago. This article explores why scientists are recreating these ancient beverages and what they hope to learn. People have been drinking beer for...

This process occurs when microbes produce lactic acid, ethanol, or carbon dioxide after consuming sugars. The acid helps preserve vegetables in a brine solution during pickling and gives them a sour taste, while ethanol serves as the inebriant in alcoholic beverages. The acid and carbon dioxide give sourdough bread its taste and texture.

This helped reveal the marketing power of a horse-drawn beer wagon, so it invested in a second six-horse Clydesdale hitch. The Clydesdales soon went to New York, where they drew a crowd of thousands en route to the Empire State Building. Anheuser-Busch even gifted a case of Budweiser to New York Governor Alfred E. Smith in thanks for his help in the fight against Prohibition.

In 2018, archaeologists discovered traces of a wheat-and-barley-based alcoholic beverage near Haifa, in modern-day Israel, and believe it was produced by the Natufian people.

The animals can contract the virus via infected mosquito bites, but for horses there are four vaccines available. Though West Nile's often asymptomatic or mild in horses, the disease can sometimes be deadly, killing via severe neurological inflammation. There are no reported instances of people becoming sickened by infected horses or vice-versa.

This enabled Budweiser to achieve national distribution long before competitors, fundamentally transforming the US beer industry. It was also among the earliest large-scale adopters to use pasteurization, allowing it to be shipped long distances without going bad.

Life in the New World's English colonies was hard, so it's easy to see how these colonizers might've wanted to reach for a cold one more often than not. This article explains how beer brewing became one of the most critical skills expected in imported English wives.

Budweiser's famous Clydesdales, including the ones you see in Super Bowl commercials, live a cushy lifestyle on Warm Springs Ranch in Boonville, Missouri. The ranch is home to roughly 70 and 80 Clydesdales at any given time.

During the late 1800s when Budweiser beers hit the market, darker, all‑malt lagers dominated the US beer market. Budweiser was brewed with a single, consistent yeast strain that gave it a crisp uniform flavor, differentiating it from darker beers.

Blood's importance to humanity is best summarized this way: without it, we die. This importance naturally begets assumptions about its medicinal properties, many of which appear accessible through drinking or eating the fluid connective tissue. This article details the history of blood drinking, from ancient Roman gladiators to modern-day sanguinarians.

The Budweiser parent company also created and sold out more than 25 different nonalcoholic products during this time, including but not limited to infant formula, frozen eggs, and specialized coffees and teas.

The ancient people drank beer from communal jars with long reed straws that pierced the thick top layer of the still-fermenting drink.

This historical survey from The Beer Connoisseur explores the breweries that survived the government's ban on alcohol production. The common denominator? They all pivoted their business models.

Over the past few decades, as craft beer from smaller breweries has become more popular (as well as seltzers, light beers, and other alternatives), Budweiser’s market share has declined.

The short documentary follows Travis Rupp, a University of Colorado classics professor who also works with Avery Brewing to produce Ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Peruvian beer.

Why was the covered beer stein invented, and what led to the creation of the Vienna Lager beer style? Find out in this article about a 173-page comic book outlining the history of beer. According to creator Mike Smith, the history of beer is a...

Single-fermentation beers rely on protein viscosity for foam, with lipid transfer proteins transforming into stabilizing structures during fermentation. Scientists believe foam research may result in safer lubricants for electric vehicles.

Alcohol doesn't just make you tipsy—it rewires your brain chemistry in real time. It slows your brain with GABA, spikes dopamine to make you feel unstoppable, and blocks glutamate so you can't form memories. That mix explains everything from slurred speech to blackouts … and brutal hangovers.

If you’ve ever spent too much time staring at a shelf in a wine store, you might have noticed something similar: animals, specifically, cats, pigs, or birds on the labels. So, what do these wines have in common? This interactive tool attempts to figure out what wines that include the same animal have in common.

Scientists in the late 1920s and early 1930s discovered estrogens could be extracted from human placenta, and then isolated it from the urine of pregnant women. But researchers discovered the urine of pregnant horses had similar substances and the horse product was much easier to collect in significant amounts—leading to Premarin.

Between 2011 and 2021, AB InBev and MolsonCoors (two of the leading beer parent companies in the US) experienced a combined 17% drop in US market share. Budweiser parent company AB InBev has focused on premiumization and diversifying their product offerings in recent years to combat the losses.

Legend has it that the beer style earned its name in the late 1700s and early 1800s, when one brewer realized he had to add more alcohol and hops to his beers to survive the long boat ride to India. But as this essay by one beer historian makes clear, the facts don't line up with that myth.

Alcohol is the world's most popular drug—a molecule that can calm or excite and bond communities or tear them apart. We trace alcohol's journey from ancient rituals to modern hangovers, uncover how it shaped civilizations, and dive into the neuroscience of how it affects your brain and body. With insights from leading experts, we ask: Given all that we know, why do humans continue to drink?

Americans, in 2020, drank on average almost twenty-six gallons of beer per adult aged twenty-one or over, over the course of the pandemic.

For a country famous for drinking a lot of alcohol, it might seem surprising that happy hours are banned in Ireland. But that reputation is exactly why the country banned happy hours in the first place—a 2010 report found that alcohol use in Ireland had doubled between the 1970s and the early 2000s. Read this article to learn more.

Alcoholic fermentation is the process where yeast transforms grape sugars into ethanol, creating wine. Microscopic fungi (commonly known as yeast) metabolize sugars, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide. Fermentation's speed and temperature impact wine's flavor and style: cooler temps suit fruity whites, while warmer ones enhance red's tannins. Fermentation stops when sugars are depleted or by temperature extremes, and sometimes yeast removal yields sweeter wines. Get a quick breakdown of the process with this easy explainer.

A no-nonsense, stats-based exploration of the relatively new market for nonalcoholic wine. Driven by people looking to consume less or no alcohol at all, production of nonalcoholic wine has increased dramatically over the last few years. This report details the basics of nonalcoholic winemaking, as well as the current state of the market and what to expect in the future.

Linguistic research reveals a lot about the ancient origins of alcohol. For example, studying various languages reveals that "mead," an alcoholic beverage made from honey, came even before wine.

And often chewed before brewed. From dank chicherias in small towns to gourmet big-city restaurants catering to tourists, the traditional fermented-corn beverage chicha is still being drunk throughout the Andes. Read more here.

US alcohol consumption fell 5% in 2025, with beer and wine leading the decline. Economists point to tighter budgets and less face-to-face socializing overall, while younger Americans are increasingly choosing not to drink.

Inns, taverns, and alehouses were more like bars than restaurants, though they did offer patrons (often travelers) food, it wasn't laid out on a diverse menu. Instead, the establishments offered a limited menu, often consisting of a single stew, and hungry customers could grab a bowl to go along with their alcohol.

The major distinction is that ales are typically fruitier, while lagers are cleaner and crisper. This video breaks down several more of the nuanced differences between the two styles.

Wine is the sublime product of fermentation, the process of breaking down fruit—typically grapes. As the grapes ferment, yeast consumes the natural sugars and converts them to alcohol. With the process first developed and refined thousands of years ago, wine has been a central feature of celebrations throughout modern history. Want to learn more about its origins? Check out 1440's explainer on wine.