Ninkasi and the Beer Laws

The Sumerians worshipped Ninkasi, the goddess of beer, and even composed a hymn to her that doubled as the world's oldest brewing recipe. A few centuries later, the Code of Hammurabi took beer even more seriously, so seriously that bartenders who watered it down were executed. The laws also forbade selling beer for money; it could only be traded for barley, and those who disobeyed faced death by drowning.

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