*Millenia (in Europe)
And its consumption has been permissable, encouraged even, by the church throughout most of that time. The oldest brewery in the world was started by the Catholic church. The connection between abstaining from alcohol and moral purity didn't really become popular until the Temperance movement of the 19th century. Nothing but respect for anyone who chooses not to drink though.
Like any good Midwesterner, I always took pride in my beer drinking. Then, in my mid-twenties, I spent a weekend in Kholer, Wisconsin and proceeded to get out drank by soccer moms, who in doing so, barely broke a sweat or slurred a word. It was then I realized that in the pantheon of beer drinkers, it is Wisconsin and then it is the rest of us mortals.
However, the PNW may well have the Midwest beat in cannabis consumption (although Paducah might have something to say about that) and they certainly have us beat in the category of serial killers per capita.