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The best article I've seen on deep brewing history is "Beer and its Drinkers: An Ancient Near Eastern Love Story" by Michael Homan, Near Eastern Archaeology, vol 67 no 2 (June 2004), pp 84-95. http://www.jstor.org/pss/4132364
The Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh describes how the wild man Enkidu becomes civilized and enters human society, with drinking beer as one of the defining moments:
Enkidu does not know of eating food; of beer [šikaram] to drink he has not been taught. The prostitute opened her mouth. She said to Enkidu, "Eat the food, Enkidu, it is the luster of life. Drink the beer as is done in this land." Enkidu ate the food until he was sated; of the beer he drank seven cups. His soul became free and cheerful, his heart rejoiced, his face glowed. he rubbed his hairy body. He anointed himself with oil. He became human.
The Sumerian Hymn to Ninkasi dates from 1800 BCE:
There has been some efforts to re-create Sumerian beer. The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago reported on this in 1991. That led to an article in Archaeology magazine, July/August 1991, pp 24-33, by Solomon Katz and Fritz Maytag, president of Anchor Brewing Company, and Anchor's report on their project What may be a transcription of this article is available. Another article on this project is "Whatever Happened to Sumerian Beer?".
Then there is Midas Touch, from Dogfish Head, a re-creation of a beer from the era of the historical Midas, from Phyrgia in central Turkey around 730 BC. They worked with archeaological chemist Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania to re-create a beverage based on honey, barley, grapes, and saffron. They have also made Theobroma, or The Food of the Gods, based on Mayan and Aztec ceremonial drinks using data from residues of the earliest known fermented cacao beverage from 1400-1000 BC. For details, see the New Yorker article, 24 Nov 2008, pp 86-99.
The scientific details are in "A funerary feast fit for King Midas", Patrick E. McGovern et al, Nature, vol 402, 23/30 December 1999, pp 863-864. It includes:
We also identified a mixed fermented beverage of
grape wine, barley beer, and honey mead in the
most comprehensive Iron Age drinking set ever
found, comprising numerous bronze mixing and
serving vessels and more than 100 bowls.
[....]
The major constituents of the mixed fermentation beverage
are tartaric acid and its salts (occurring naturally in
large amounts only in grape and its products, including
wine4), calcium oxalate ('beerstone', the
main precipitate of barley beer4) and
beeswax (a group of marker compounds that are not
easily filtered out from mead).
[....]
4: McGovern, P.E, Glusker, D.L., Exner, L.J. &
Voigt, M.M. Nature 381, 480-481 (1996).
They also mention Homer's mention in his Iliad and Odyssey of a mixed fermented beverage called kykeon, similar to what was found in Midas' tomb. A beverage like this but with apple and cranberry in place of grapes had long been a traditional beverage in Europe, suggesting that the Phrygians may have been European, maybe from northern Greece or the Balkans.
Also see "Symposium: Did Man Once Live By Beer Alone?", Robert J. Braidwood, Jonathan D. Sauer, Hans Helbaek, Paul C. Mangelsdorf, Hugh C. Cutler, Carleton S. Coon, Ralph Linton, Julian Steward and A. Leo Oppenheim, American Anthropologist, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Oct., 1953), pp. 515-526. http://www.jstor.org/pss/663781
Much more recently, "Did The Ancient Israelites Drink Beer?", Michael M. Homan, Biblical Archaeology Review, Sep/Oct 2010, pp 49-56, 78. Homan says that beer is under-reported for three reasons: (1) a confusion about the meaning of the Hebrew word שכר or shekhar, (2) "snobbery in academia causing scholars to scorn beer drinking while celebrating wine culture", and (3) challenges in finding beer remains in the material record.
The Hebrew word שכר or shekhar is derived from the Akkadian šikaru, which means "barley beer" as used in all major Akkadian archives.
Biblical references to beer include the following, where "strong wine" and "strong drink" were used for "beer" in the King James translation:
The Barbarian's Beverage has information on the history of beer in the Near East, Egypt, and the Greek and Roman empires. http://www.ancientbeer.com/
Smithsonian magazine had an article "Dig, Drink and be Merry" in their July-August 2011 issue (pp 38-48) about Patrick McGovern and Dogfish Head's re-creations of some ancient recipes. "The Beer Archaeologist", a version of that article, is available here.
The Economist ran an article "Uncorking The Past" discussing the history of brewing on 20 Dec 2001.
Archaeobotanist Hans-Peter Stika, of the University of Hohenheim, has derived a 500 B.C. recipe for Celtic beer:
A recipe for gruit ale, pre-hop-era European ale, is available: http://www.fortunecity.com/boozers/brewerytap/555/gruit.htm
Brewery.org has a technical library including historical recipes: http://brewery.org/brewery/Library.html
Some fragmentary information on medieval brewing techniques is available: http://brewery.org/brewery/library/PeriodRen.html
For more general comments on medieval brewing see: http://brewery.org/brewery/library/MedievalFH.html
The U.S. Library of Congress has largely reconstructed Thomas Jefferson's personal library. Jefferson had the largest personal collection of books in the United States in 1814, when the British burned the U.S. Capitol and the Library of Congress. The Congress purchased Jefferson's collection of 6,487 volumes for $23,950 in 1815. This included The Philosophical principles of the science of brewing; containing Theoretic hints on improved practice of brewing malt liquors; and Statistical estimates of the materials for brewing, John Richardson, 1790, LOC call number TP 569 Js. Jefferson also owned Smith's Distillery. Both are awfully rare today. However, Google Books offers, among others, full PDF downloads of:
My page showing how to brew mead also has a collection of links to mead history.
BeerInfo.com has a very useful list of homebrew supply shops in the U.S.
Everyone needs a jet-powered beer cooler: http://www.asciimation.co.nz/beer/
Have another round:
"I have made an important discovery: that alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, produces all the effects of intoxication."
— Oscar Wilde
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