I'm reading "Tasting Beer" by Randy Mosher, who finds it remarkable that there is no mention of beer in the Bible, while other documents from the Bronze Age speak to the importance of beer to civilization of the time.
What reason could there be that Jews mention wine numerous times throughout the centuries of authoring the Bible (also some mention of "strong drink") but not beer, which seems to have been much more common?
Well, Mr. Mosher is in for a bit of a surprise. After all, one cannot simply ctrl+f "beer" in the Bible to find such wonderful references!
How about we start with a few references and then move on to how Mr. Mosher made a pretty big oversight in his research.
Michael M. Homan, "Beer and its Drinkers: An Ancient Near Eastern Love Story," Near Eastern Archaeology 67:2 (2004) 84-95.
Philip J. King and Lawrence E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 102-3.
Beer was absolutely consumed in the ancient Near East and appears in the Bible in several places (although, it is not called "beer"--it's often translated as "strong drink" or "intoxicant" [Heb שׁכר]).
Of course, Ecclesiastes 11:1-2 calls the reader to "cast their bread upon the water," which is most likely a reference to [more or less] home brewing.
Lev 10:9 - "Wine or beer ['strong drink'] you shall not drink...when you enter the tent of meeting."
Num 6:3 - "From wine and beer he shall abstain"
Num 28:7 - "His libation shall be a quarter hin [liquid measurement] for each lamb, a libation to be poured in the sanctuary as beer for Yahweh."
Really, the word appears 38 times in the Hebrew Bible. While it likely doesn't mean "beer" in every case--this is an interpretive decision. The semantic domain for שׁכר absolutely includes the fermented, carby goodness humans have come to love.
The most salient examples for our conversation here, in my own opinion, come from Proverbs:
Prov 20:1 - "Wine is a scoffer and beer is a brawler, none who err by them shall be wise."
Prov 31:6 - "Give beer to one who is perishing and wine to one bitter of spirit."
Homan ("Beer and its Drinkers," 93) points out:
Yet, the fact that ancient Israel produced, consumed and cherished wine by no means precludes beer production. Though often mistranslated as “strong drink” or “wine,” linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that biblical šēkar is best translated as beer. Šēkar, or beer, played a large role in Israelite religion and society. It was libated to Yahweh twice daily (Num 28:7–10), and Israelites drank it at sacrificial meals (Deut 14:26). While people who consumed beer in excess were condemned (Isa 5:11; 28:7; Prov 20:1; 31:4), its absence signified a melancholy occasion (Isa 24:9), and it was prescribed to the forlorn to temporarily erase their tribulations (Prov 31:6). Ancient Israel, like its neighbors, produced and consumed massive quantities of beer.
So there you have it.
Genuine follow-up question: is beer the most ancient fermented beverage of the near east? Or is it mead? I always thought fermented honey was the first real "alcoholic beverage"?