Is beer the worlds oldest and most popular alcoholic beverage?
This article (http://www.crystalinks.com/earlyalcohol.html) about the earliest known alcohol shows a 7000 year old beverage made from honey, rice, and fruit; it could be classified as a mead (fermented honey), beer (fermented grain), or wine (fermented fruit). Sub-classifications of mead that could be applied would be braggot (mead-ale/beer hybrid) and melomel (mead made with fruit). Honey was probably being fermented on its own before the process of beermaking was developed.
