8 Beer Facts About The World's Most Famous Drink

Beer - there’s a reason it’s one of the most popular drinks in the entire world. This bubbly beverage is one of the rare things that has impregnated virtually every culture in almost every country across the globe. There are very few occasions that don’t include beer, whether it’s with a meal, a sporting event, an evening with friends, birthday and holiday celebrations, cold evenings by the fire or as an after-work drink to wind down after a hard day on the job. You’d be hard-pressed to find an alcoholic beverage that better compliments day-to-day life or events.

Humans have celebrated with beer throughout recorded history. Archeologists tracing the origins of civilization found that communities were centered around alcohol production and consumption, even before the written word recorded its importance within societies. For example, archeologists found evidence at the Göbekli Tepe site in southeastern Turkey (which dates back more than 10,000 years) that beer was brewed at sites where festivities were held.

Today, beer is as popular as ever, as seen by the explosion of craft beer breweries that have emerged on the scene the past few decades. You can brew beer at home with friends, find outstanding local brews in pubs around the world, and even buy craft beer online.

While you’re unlikely to find anyone on the planet unfamiliar with beer, there are a lot of interesting facts about beer that you probably don’t know. Below we’ve listed 8 fun facts about the world’s most popular beverage.

1. The most expensive beer in the world costs $503,300
You read that right! The most expensive beer in the world to date is Allsopp’s Arctic Ale which retails for $503,300. Brewed for an expedition to Antarctica in 1875, the long steeping time has rendered the beer undrinkable, but it is still a highly sought-after collector’s item. When it was listed on Ebay, more than 50 bidders grappled for it.

2. The Amsterdam government offers alcoholics beer as an incentive to work.
The government in Amsterdam gives locals who suffer from alcoholism a beer for cleaning the streets. A full day’s work earns them 11 Euros, five cans of beer, and cigarettes. It was a plan devised by the government to keep those struggling with alcohol ways to be productive and help their country in small ways.

3. The Czech Republic has popular beer spas.
One example of this is a spa in the Czech Republic that charges a fee for a 20 minute soak in a bath of ingredients used for brewing beer. They claim that doing this improves blood circulation, infuses the body with minerals and vitamins, and softens the skin.

4. Eight people were killed by a 15ft tidal wave of beer in London.
A freak disaster occurred in 1814 when the neighborhood of St. Giles Rookery was flooded with barrels of porter. The industrial accident was the result of a 22ft tall wooden vat fermenting porter bursting. The pressure resulted in the destruction of another vessel releasing somewhere between 130,000 to 320,000 gallons of imperial beer into the streets.

5. Beer can reduce the risk of kidney stones.

Drinking extreme amounts of alcohol can put anyone at a higher risk for kidney stones, but drinking beer in moderation has shown just the opposite...that beer can potentially prevent kidney stones from ever developing. A study conducted by the American Addiction Centers found that drinking beer in moderation can reduce the risk by up to 40%.