The dawn of beer remains elusive in archaeological record

This line got my attention:

The various lines of evidence indicate that beer may well be as old as cooking itself, which began at least 250,000 years ago. "When people started harnessing fire and cooking, they probably started making beer," Hastorf said.

So Neanderthals, and even possibly Homo erectus, may have been the first brewers! Works for me. Read the whole article at Scientific American.