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> Sugar, historically, has not been available or even cheap. Sugars are commonplace. If you can make bread, you can make beer.

• romwell 5y ago
  Making bread required agricultural advances, and it's a complex, labor-intensive, multi-step process (as is anything that has to do with grains). Making alcohol by fermenting fruits is comparatively much easier, but then again, cultivating and harvesting fruits is a pretty laborious process. Then actually brewing beer is not that simple. Even today, with availability of source materials and technology, homebrewing is a rather involved hobby. Same with producing wine that's drinkable. On the other side, we have literally a weed that needs very little to grow, and requires nearly zero processing. I really see no comparison here. The theory that we started making alcohol for food safety/nutrition reasons makes the most sense to me.