Beer - The Supplement:
Unlike wine; beer is generally regarded as a drink for nourishment and sustenance than it is seen as an intoxicant. Consequently, the Sogad gives beer far less cultural weight behind it than they do to wine. That is not to say that beer production is primitive or rudimentary, just that it is consumed in a more mundane and domestic context than wine.
Two varieties of beer that are most popular in the fertile shores of Lower Sogad are Boveza and Doveza - the former being a thick low-alcoholic beverage made of barley and wheat that is drunk as a substitute for meals, and the latter being its more alcoholic counterpart that is much more bitter and has a thicker consistency. These drinks are commonly given out as rations and payment to soldiers and labourers in Lower Sogad, to the point that the consumption of such drinks is seen as the mark of a professional. Amongst the nobility, the consumption of such beverages signals a modest and rustic character to the individual.
Meanwhile, in Upper Sogad, a drink that serves roughly the same function as the porridge-beers of Lower Sogad is the Xshyon. It is a drink made of palm wine mixed with barley meal boiled in goats milk and topped with honey and dates to flavour. Unlike its Lower Sogad counterpart, Xshyon is significantly less important in the societies of Upper Sogad, regarded only for its nourishment and nothing more beyond that.
It should be noted that the divide between Upper and Lower Sogad in their preference for either Boveza or Xshyon is not merely due to the different climate and landscape of the two, but a divide that is also cultural.
The more mountainous and pastoral Upper Sogad favours the cultivation of trees and animal husbandry far more than agriculture, hence the use of palm wine and goats milk in their beverage. Upper Sogad is also primarily inhabited by Sogad-speaking peoples, whose culture, religious practices, and social preferences greatly favour wine over any other alcoholic beverages. Lower Sogad meanwhile, with its more temperate climate, is much more suitable for the growing of grains and is primarily inhabited by the descendants of Moharid-speaking peoples that socially reveres a more simple and spartan lifestyle when compared to the more flamboyant and sybaritic Sogad.
