Who drank the first beer? Getting buzzed definitely has very deep historical roots. The earliest evidence of any fermented beverage is fruit-based, aka wine, and comes from the Jiahu site in China and dates back to around 7,000 BCE (9,000 years ago). In addition to fermented beverage residue in China, we have grain-based, aka beer/ale, residue in pottery going back to 5000 BCE in the Middle East, 4000 BCE in Europe, but it’s the Sumerians that wrote down the earliest known beer recipe in 1800 BCE. Go Sumerians! Before all this, it’s a mystery awaiting discovery, but we know chimpanzees pick up rotting fermented fruit on the jungle floor to get drunk, pushing potential roots back 7.5 million years to our common ancestor.