A history of beer must much more than simply an account of the nature of the product itself and the technology surrounding its production. Eating and drinking, and even more particularly, the consumption of alcohol are usually very strongly in socio-cultural ideologies since they tend in most societies not to be activities but social ones performed in a social context.
Even in the rare societies in which alcohol is known but abstained , it still remains a societal concern and is never altogether ignored. Anthropological work has also revealed that there is a great diversity in the various cultural ideologies concerning the consumption of alcohol. any person or group of people can be readily categorized as a follower of such an ideology or as a deviant, drinking becomes a marker of identity and alterity (or 'otherness'), establishing boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, within a culture as well as between cultures. In this way cultures are not simply objectively identifiable groups of individuals, but self-identified groups which impose themselves markers of identity and alterity.