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Human beings like us have been around for about 100,000 years. For the first 90,000 we achieved absolutely nothing at all. All accomplishments have been made in the last ten thousand years. So what exactly happened that that put an end to primitivism and kick-started the age of creativity and invention? The answer is beer.

Beer happened, and it changed the world forever. It sounds almost too bizarre to be true, but many anthropologists and archaeologists now believe that it was a taste for beer, not bread, that started people farming barley in around 9000BC.

Known as the agricultural revolution, it ended hunter-gathering and led to the world's first ever civilisation - Mesopotamia. The drive to grow more barley in order to make more beer, led to a cascade of inventions. The plough, the wheel, irrigation, mathematics and even writing, all of these world-changing innovations were dreamed up to help with the production and distribution of beer.

As Egypt took over from Mesopotamia, in the Land of the Pharaohs beer was the national currency, a dietary staple and even an important medicine. Put simply, without beer, we wouldn't have the pyramids. Even in more recent times, beer's hidden hand has been behind some of history's most remarkable breakthroughs, from the discovery of germ theory and modern medicine, to the invention of refrigeration, the birth of the factory and the end of child labour. Beer didn't just change the world, it saved it!

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But how did the odd tipple change the face of Britain? Find out more here...