For many people, a cold beer on a warm evening is a favorite summer indulgence. But if you look back far enough in history, beer wasn’t an indulgence; it was part of a healthy diet. There are written records of beer brewing from as early as 5,000 years ago.
Before reliable sanitation systems, beer was safer to drink than water; in addition to the antiseptic properties of alcohol, brewing beer requires boiling the water. Beer was also considered a source of nourishing starches. Like bread, it is made from grains and yeast.
In fact, beer is sometimes called “Liquid Bread,” as seen on this Anheuser-Busch bottle from about 1890. It isn’t just any malt drink; the label states that “Combining the most palatable qualities of a refreshing drink with the invigorating and wholesome properties of the finest malt tonics, thus presenting a desirable beverage, suitable alike to invalids and persons in perfect health.”
David Nicholson, a St. Louis physician, created Liquid Bread to be bottled by Anheuser-Busch. It had a very low alcohol content, 1.9%, making it, at least at the time, appropriate for “nursing mothers,” “children naturally feeble,” “convalescents suffering from malnutrition,” and even “ladies of the most fastidious palates,” according to advertisements.
Today, the nutritional value of the drink pales in comparison to the collectible, not to mention the monetary value of its cobalt blue bottle. This one, with its label intact, sold for $1,440 at Potter & Potter Auctions, more than quadrupling its high estimate of $300.
