BRADY TWP — Colonial Americans had a strong thirst for many things: including freedom, adventure — and beer.

Slippery Rock University professors on Saturday presented a class at the Old Stone House on taverns and beers in early America.

“Beer was an important part of life,” said William Bergmann, a history professor.

And the drink went beyond colonials looking for a way to relax during the struggles of early American life.

Bergmann spoke on how early colonials used the alcoholic brews for sanitation purposes.

“Early Americans didn’t have the best water supplies,” he said, adding human waste was often dumped into drinking water sources. “They weren’t all that hygienic because they didn’t really know how germs work.”

But the alcohol in the beer provided a clean drink, even if it didn’t look like it.

“Most beers at the time were murky,” Bergmann said. “But there was a lot of nutrients in them. They had a lot of yeast.”

The beers looked far different from how they appear now. A heady beer meant the yeast in the beer went bad.

There also was virtually no carbonation.

“They had a very different visual experience with beers,” Bergmann said.

How colonial Americans made beer also was vastly different from modern brews.

Early settlers would use whatever was native to the area to make brews, including corn stock, maple sap and hay.

Hops would be substituted with ginger, ground ivy and spruce shoots. But the concoctions wouldn’t always work out well.

“Beers turned out bad a lot,” Bergmann said. “That gave rise to the mixed drinks.”

Beers at the time were often mixed with liquors or various spices to hide their less than appetizing taste.

Regardless of how smooth the drink went down, beer was an important part of life.

When Harvard University was founded, it had three breweries on campus in Cambridge, Mass. Supply ships coming from Europe would carry hundreds of gallons of beer and brewing supplies in addition to needed items like livestock and food.

Spectators on Saturday didn’t just learn about old brews, they got to taste modern variations based on colonial recipes.

Sean Macmillan, an art professor at SRU, brew an Indian pale ale and a porter using what colonial Americans would have had available.

“We did a lot of research into what types of beer they drank,” Macmillan said. “There was certainly an American twist on the English drinks.”

Spruce was the main ingredient in the brews that separated them from modern drinks.

While the drink wasn’t exactly what is found at distributors now, it was far more advanced than ancient beers.

“It’s a lot more modern than we give it credit,” Macmillan said.

In March SRU sponsored a lecture at the Old Stone House on ancient beers. Macmillan said the brews made then were far more primitive. One included throwing hot rocks into the mix.

Aaron Cowan, the curator at the Old Stone House and a professor at SRU, said the classes on alcohol are a unique experience that attracts an interested audience.

“We hope to do three of these per year,” he said, adding the next class in the fall may focus on medieval or Asian brews.

There are no shortage of possibilities when dealing with the beverage.

“Beer is a universal touching point for all cultures around the world,” Cowan said.

Bergmann said the classes are a great way to get people to see the past through a common source.

“Anytime an event can bring people in to think about the past and connect them to the past, it’s a good thing,” he said.