If you like lager beer, you have Christopher Columbus to thank for it. The long-standing mystery of where the yeast that makes cold-temperature lager beer fermentation possible has been solved, in the beech forests of Patagonia in Argentina.

Humans have been making beer for a very long time. The first actual evidence we have is barley beer 6,000 years ago in Sumeria, which was probably somewhat like a thin, fermented, drinkable gruel. In Europe, the same yeast types used to make bread and wine were used to make ale-type beers, a process that was well-established by the Middle Ages. Elizabeth Weise/USA Today.

Image by Bernt Rostad via Flickr.