br br 10 Delicious Facts about Beerbr br Did you know that the Sumerians had a goddess of beer? Or that the ancient Egyptians used it as currency? Our facts about beer will leave you a bit tipsy.br br 1. Beer is the third-most popular drink in the world, after water and tea. In 2016, people worldwide consumed 50 billion gallons of beer.br br 2. The brewing and consumption of beer predate written language.br Photo Credit: Wellcome Images Wikimedia Commonsbr br 3. Rogue Ales, an Oregon brewery, created a "Beard Beer" using yeast grown in their brewmaster's beard.br br 4. When Danish physicist Niels Bohr won the Nobel Prize, the Carlsberg brewing company gave him a house with a direct pipeline to the brewery and free beer for life.br br 5. A government-funded organization in Amsterdam, the Rainbow Group, hires alcoholics to clean litter from city streets and pays them with beer.br Photo Credit: nwbob Getty Imagesbr br 7. Ancient Egyptians drank beer constantly, as it was safer than Nile water. They also used beer as an enema and douche.br br 8. In 2001, some Belgian elementary schools began serving low-alcohol beer to schoolchildren at lunch as a healthier alternative to soda.br br 9. In 1983, there were 49 licensed breweries in the United States. By the end of 2017, there were 8,863.br br 10. In Medieval Europe, some Catholic monks would undergo "beer fasts" during the forty days of Lent, imbibing only water and beer, which they called "liquid bread."br br Check out more interesting beer facts here: br FactRetriever is a leading producer of the most interesting facts, online video content, and a plethora of fascinating topics.