We brewed an ancient Graeco-Roman beer and here’s how it tastes

Ancient Origins

Matt Gibbs /The Conversation

Beer is the most consumed alcoholic beverage in the world; it is also the most popular drink after water and tea . In the modern world, however, little consideration is typically given to how beer developed with respect to taste. Even less is given to why beer is thought of in the way that it is.

But today, Canada is in the middle of a beer renaissance. A relative explosion of craft breweries has led to a renewed interest in different methods of brewing and in different types of beer recipes.

In turn, this has driven interest into historical methods of brewing. It is a rather romantic idea: That very old brewing processes are somehow superior to those of the modern world. While almost all of the beer on the market today is quantitatively and qualitatively better than that produced in the ancient world, attempts made by both historians and breweries recently have had some good results.

For example, the collaboration between University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Patrick McGovern and Dogfish Head Brewery that resulted in their “Midas Touch”, based on the sediment found in vessels discovered in the Tomb of Midas in central Turkey, and the Sleepy Giant Brewing Company’s ancient beers created as part of Lakehead University’s Research and Innovation Week.

Beer made an old-fashioned way is shown at Barn Hammer Brewing Company in Winnipeg in March 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/David Lipnowski

Why re-create ancient beer and mead?
From an academic point of view, researchers have realized eating and drinking are important social, economic and even political activities. In the ancient world, food, drink and their consumption were important indicators of culture, ethnicity and class. Romans were set apart from non-Romans in several ways: Those living in cities versus those who didn’t, those who farmed in one place versus those who moved around, and so on.

One of the other ways in which this distinction was made was in the different foods people ate and in the liquids they drank. This is clear in the ancient Graeco-Roman debate surrounding those who drank wine and those who drank beer.

Although the saying “you are what you eat” is a fact in terms of physiology, the Romans also believed that “you are what you drink.” So Romans drank wine, non-Romans drank beer.

These indicators (real or not) even exist today: The English drink tea, Americans drink coffee; Canadians drink rye, the Scottish drink scotch.

So the re-creation of ancient beer and mead (an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey and other liquids) allows us to examine many things. Among them are these cultural and ethnic considerations, but there are other important and interesting questions that can be answered. How has the brewing process transformed? How have our palates changed?

Mead beaker. Matt Gibbs, Author provided (No reuse)

The “Roman” recipes and their recreation
The Romans left us a variety of different recipes for food and drink. Two of them form the basis of an ongoing research project between the co-owners of Barn Hammer Brewing Company — Tyler Birch and Brian Westcott — and myself that attempts to answer some of these questions.

 The first is a recipe for beer that dates to the fourth century Common Era (CE). It appears in the work of Zosimus, an alchemist, who lived in Panopolis, Egypt, when it was part of the Roman empire. The second is a recipe for a mead probably from Italy and dating to the first century CE, written by a Roman senator called Columella.

Beer mash. Matt Gibbs, Author provided (No reuse)

Both recipes are quite clear concerning ingredients, with the exception of yeast. Yeast, or more appropriately a yeast culture, was often made from dough saved from a day’s baking. Alternatively, one could simply leave mixtures out in the open. But the processes and measurements in them are more difficult to recreate.

The brewing of the beer, for instance, required the use of barley bread made with a sourdough culture: Basically a lump of sourdough bread left uncovered. To keep the culture alive while being baked required a long, slow baking process at a low temperature for 18 hours.

Zosimus never specified how much water or bread was needed for a single batch; this was left open to the brewers’ interpretation. A mix of three parts water to one part bread was brewed and left to ferment for nearly three weeks.

The brewing of the mead was a much easier process. Closely following Columella’s recipe, we mixed honey and wine must . The recipe in this case provided some measurements, and from there we were able to extrapolate a workable mix of roughly three parts must to one part honey.

We then added wine yeast and sealed the containers. These were placed in Barn Hammer’s furnace room for 31 days in an attempt to imitate the conditions of a Roman loft.

What did we learn?
First of all, it’s worth noting that the principles of brewing have not changed significantly; fundamentally, the process of brewing both beer and mead is arguably the same now as it was 2,000 years ago. But as true as that may be, even now the production of Zosimus’ beer — particularly the baking of the bread — was labour-intensive.

Mead decanting. (Author provided)

This led to another question: Did the link between baking and brewing depicted so clearly in ancient Egyptian material culture and archaeology persist even centuries later?

 Second, we recreated beer and mead from the Roman Empire as faithfully as we were able. The data all suggest that the beer is a beer, and the mead is a mead, right down to the pH level: The beer, for instance, stands at pH 4.3 which is what one would expect from a beer after fermentation.

Third, as the photos here make clear, the mead looked like red wine, the beer was quite pale but cloudy. Neither case was particularly surprising, but what was interesting was the difference between the first tasting of the beer and the second 10 days later.

In the former, the beer looked like a sourdough milkshake; in the latter, the beer looked like a pale craft ale, and one that would not be out of place in the modern craft beer market.

Fourth, with respect to taste, the beer was sour but quite smooth, and had a relatively low ABV - Alcohol By Volume: the measurement that tells you what percentage of beer or mead is alcohol — around three to four per cent. The sour taste resulted in diverse opinions: Some people liked it; others hated it. The mead was incredibly sweet; it smelled like a fortified wine due to presence of Fusel alcohols , and had an ABV upwards of 12 per cent.

While general tastes may have changed, there are modern palates that appreciate ancient beer and mead. Is this a physiological question? Perhaps, but what seems clear is that ancient indicators based on what people drank are likely more indicative not only of the Romans’ beliefs and opinions about non-Romans, but also their prejudices against them.

Ultimately, what the project suggests so far is that while the brewing process may not have changed that much, in some ways neither have we.

Top image: Left to right- Barn Hammer Brewing Company Head Brewer Brian Westcott, Matt Gibbs of the University of Winnipeg and Barn Hammer owner Tyler Birch teamed up to re-create an ancient beer. THE CANADIAN PRESS/David Lipnowski/ The Conversation

 The article ‘ We brewed an ancient Graeco-Roman beer and here’s how it tastes ’ by Matt Gibbs was originally published on The Conversation and has been republished under a Creative Commons license.

Beer Over Wine? New Find Indicates Bronze Age Greeks Imbibed Both Beverages!

Ancient Origins

Wine wasn’t the only drink popular with ancient Greeks, according to a new report. The discovery of two Bronze Age breweries suggests that beer was a popular choice for alcohol too.

 Researcher Tania Valamoti, an associate professor of archaeology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, expressed her surprise to Live Science, stating, “It is an unexpected find for Greece, because until now all evidence pointed to wine.” However, according to Greek Reporter, beer making may have reached Greece through their contact with people living in the eastern Mediterranean – where brewing was already widespread.

Wine boy at a Greek symposium. ( Public Domain )

Archondiko and Agrissa are the two locations were indications of buildings used for ancient beer brewing have been found. Both locations have markings of fire damage, but Valamoti said that this event helped in preservation. Approximately 100 individual sprouted cereal grains were unearthed at Archondiko as well as a two-roomed structure which may have been used to control temperatures in preparing mash and wort during the brewing process. 30 strange cups were also found near the sprouted grains, which may have been used with a straw to sip prepared beer.

About 3,500 sprouted cereal grains were found at Agrissa. These have been dated to the middle Bronze Age, unlike the Archondiko sprouted grains which are from the early Bronze Age. 45 cups, which may have been used to drink the beer, were also found near the sprouted grains at the Agrissa site.

The sprouted grains found at the sites may have been created during the malting process of beer making. The grains would then be roasted, coarsely ground and mixed with water to make wort, and finally fermented. Researchers say that the condition of the grains at Archondiko are also consistent with the effects of malting and charring.

A blend of milled malted barley for beer brewing. ( CC BY SA 3.0 )

 Valamoti feels confident that the archaeological remains suggest beer brewing was taking place at the Bronze Age sites, she said, “I'm 95 percent sure that they were making some form of beer. Not the beer we know today, but some form of beer.”

 However, it is worth noting that beer was not seen on the same level as wine in ancient Greece, as Valamoti also wrote in the study, as published in the journal Vegetation History and Archaeobotany:

“Textual evidence from historic periods in Greece clearly shows that beer was considered an alcoholic drink of foreign people, and barley wine a drink consumed by the Egyptians, Thracians, Phrygians and Armenians, in most cases drunk with the aid of a straw.”

Egyptian wooden model of beer making in ancient Egypt. ( CC BY 2.5 )

Although the Bronze Age beer brewing practices in Greece are an interesting prospect, they are certainly not the oldest example of beer making in the world. Ancient Origins has reported on several examples of beer drinking from well before the Bronze Age. Many beer recipes from hundreds or thousands of years ago have even been recreated. For example, recovered Sumerian, Chinese, and French recipes have all been tried by modern palates.

The oldest depiction of beer-drinking shows people sipping from a communal vessel through reed straws (Brauerstern)

Archaeological evidence of beer drinking has been found in civilizations throughout the ages and all over the world: an analysis of mummy hair shows ancient Peruvians enjoyed the alcoholic beverage with their seafood, Stone Age people seemed to prefer beer over bread, Medieval monks drank more beer than you can imagine, and corn beer was a popular choice in Mexico. Cheers!

Top Image: A glass of beer. Source: Public Domain

By Alicia McDermott

Archaeologists in Search of Beer End Up Discovering Valuable Viking Trove

Ancient Origins

A team of archaeologists searching to find beer and other brewing materials, ended up discovering something way more valuable; a trove of amazing Viking artifacts, including an out of place Celtic fitting from a book.

Surprising Discovery Shocks Archaeologists
This was supposed to be another day at work for the team of archaeologists exploring the Byneset Cemetery, adjacent to the medieval Steine Church in Trondheim, Norway. However, they ended up discovering something way more valuable than the beer brewing stones from the Viking Age they were looking for. The team of archaeologists from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) University Museum discovered a trove of valuable Viking artifacts. “We started the project with slightly lower hopes for what we might find than what's recently emerged,” Museum’s director Reidar Andersen, who was present at the site when the trove was unearthed, said as Phys Org reports.

 Jo Sindre Pålsson Eidshaug and Øyunn Wathne Sæther, research assistants at the NTNU University Museum, also expressed their surprise when they discovered the trove during their excavations.

Excavation site was adjacent to the Steine Church, Trondheim, Norway. (Image: Raymond Sauvage, NTNU University Museum.

Viking Trove Includes an “Imported” Irish Object Coincidentally, the director of communications for the museum, Tove Eivindsen, happened to be there at the moment of the discovery and was particularly surprised by a find that appears to be of Irish origin,

“The find is probably a gold-plated, silver fitting from a book. It appears to be Celtic in origin, and might have come from a religious book brought here during the Viking Age that disappeared several centuries ago, and that hasn't been seen by anyone since then – but for now everything is speculation,” he said as Phys Org reports.

Mr. Andersen added, “Someone very politely called this an Irish import, but that's just a nice way of saying that someone was in Ireland and picked up an interesting item."

Raymond Sauvage from NTNU's Department of Archaeology and Cultural History, and the project’s director for these excavations, agreed with Mr. Andersen, as he’s not quite sure if the foreign item ended up being part of the Viking trove in a peaceful manner, “Yes, that's right. We know that the Vikings went out on raids. They went to Ireland and brought things back. But how peacefully it all transpired, I won't venture to say," he said according to Phys Org. He also added that the discovery is really rare and you won’t find it everywhere in Scandinavia, as there are only a few areas where people had the resources to go out on such voyages.

The item which is deemed a "Viking import" from Ireland. Image: NTNU University Museum

Archaeologists, however, used the scientific term for a foreign find as this one and referred to it as an “imported object.” They explained that it doesn’t necessarily mean that it was bought or traded for, taking into consideration, of course, the well-known tactics of the Vikings.

 Site Holds Great Promise for the Future
According to the archaeologists the site will probably offer more finds in the near future. The team also unearthed a belt buckle, a key and a knife blade, so they hope now to uncover even more precious artifacts in future digs. As Phys Org reports, the church dates from the 1140s and used to be connected to a large, old farm estate from the time of the Vikings, "Steine Church was built in the 1140s," Sauvage said, explaining that the archaeologists also found a link to Nidaros Cathedral.

Ultimately, Sauvage mentioned that the archaeological mission was originally planning to do a sampling of layers containing brewing stones, but the site proved to hide below way more significant and valuable items than they believed before the excavation works began. For that reason the dig was significantly expanded, and now artifacts dating as far back as 700 AD have been unearthed. The excavation works were funded by Trondheim’s municipality and lasted for five weeks during the summer of 2017, while the cemetery expansion started on 16 October.

Top image: A fitting, probably from a book. The style is typical of Celtic and Irish areas and dates from the 800s. Silver with traces of gilding. Image Credit: Åge Hojem, NTNU University Museum

By Theodoros Karasavvas

Sam’s historical recipe corner: Buttered beere

History Extra

Buttered beere: a sweet drink enjoyed in the Tudor period. (Credit: Sam Nott)

 In every issue of BBC History Magazine, picture editor Sam Nott brings you a recipe from the past. In this article, Sam recreates buttered beere - a sweet, slightly alcoholic drink that warmed the cockles in Tudor times.

 This is an authentic Tudor recipe from 1588, taken from The Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin. It’s similar to a caudle, a drink of warm wine or ale with sugar, eggs and spices, renowned for its medicinal properties and popular at the same period.

 I love mulled wines and ciders, so the idea of this drink really appealed to me. The smells wafting through my kitchen while I was making it were delicious, though the drink itself was a bit, well, ‘robust’ – great when you’ve just come inside on a cold winter’s day, but for ordinary drinking a bit too heavy for me. My partner loved it, though – he drank the lot!

 Ingredients
1,500ml (3 bottles) of good-quality ale
¼ tsp ground ginger
 ½ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground nutmeg
200g demerara or other natural brown sugar
 5 egg yolks
 100g unsalted butter, chopped into small lumps

 Method
Pour the ale gently into a large saucepan and stir in the ginger, cloves and nutmeg. Bring slowly to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for a few minutes until the ale clears.

 While the ale is simmering, whisk the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until the mixture is light and creamy. Remove the spiced ale from the hob, add the egg yolk and sugar mixture, and stir until all ingredients are well blended.

 Return to a low heat until the liquid starts to thicken, taking care not to overheat.

 Simmer for five minutes, add the chopped butter and heat until it has melted. Hand-whisk the liquid until it becomes frothy.

 Continue to heat for 10 minutes, then allow to cool to a drinkable temperature. Give the mixture another whisk, serve into a jug or small glasses (or tankards!) and drink while still warm.

 Difficulty: 2/10
 Time: 25 mins

 Recipe from recipewise.co.uk This article was first published in the May 2014 issue of BBC History Magazine.

Would You Drink a Lumpy Beer? People Living in China 5000 Years Ago Did!

Ancient Origins

Researchers have discovered a 5,000-year-old beer recipe by studying the residue on the inner walls of pottery vessels found in an excavated site in northeast China. It’s the earliest evidence of beer production in China so far.

 On a recent afternoon, a small group of students gathered around a large table in one of the rooms at the Stanford Archaeology Center.

 Li Liu, a professor in Chinese archaeology at Stanford University and coauthor of the study on the beer recipe published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, recently stood before students and a collection of plastic-covered glass beakers and water bottles filled with yellow, foamy liquid. “Archaeology is not just about reading books and analyzing artifacts,” says Liu.

“Trying to imitate ancient behavior and make things with the ancient method helps students really put themselves into the past and understand why people did what they did.”

So That’s Why Barley Went to China
The ancient Chinese made beer mainly with cereal grains, including millet and barley, as well as with Job’s tears, a type of grass from Asia, according to the research. Traces of yam and lily root parts also appeared in the concoction.

Liu says she was particularly surprised to find barley—which is used to make beer today—in the recipe because the earliest evidence to date of barley seeds in China dates to 4,000 years ago. This suggests why barley, which was first domesticated in western Asia, spread to China.

A blend of milled malted barley for beer brewing. (CC BY SA 3.0)

“Our results suggest the purpose of barley’s introduction in China could have been related to making alcohol rather than as a staple food,” Liu says.

The ancient Chinese beer looked more like porridge and likely tasted sweeter and fruitier than the clear, bitter beers of today. The ingredients used for fermentation were not filtered out, and straws were commonly used for drinking, Liu says.

Mashing or Spitting At the end of Liu’s class, each student tried to imitate the ancient Chinese beer using either wheat, millet, or barley seeds.

“People looked at me weird when they saw the ‘spit beer’ I was making for class.”

Some of the students’ creations. (Youtube Screenshot)

The students first covered their grain with water and let it sprout, in a process called malting. After the grain sprouted, the students crushed the seeds and put them in water again. The container with the mixture was then placed in the oven and heated to 65º degrees Celsius (149º F) for an hour, in a process called mashing. Afterward, the students sealed the container with plastic and let it stand at room temperature for about a week to ferment.

Alongside that experiment, the students tried to replicate making beer with a vegetable root called manioc. That type of beer-making, which is indigenous to many cultures in South America where the brew is referred to as “chicha,” involves chewing and spitting manioc, then boiling and fermenting the mixture.

Madeleine Ota, an undergraduate student in Liu’s course, says she knew nothing about the process of making beer before taking the class and was skeptical that her experiments would work. The mastication part of the experiment was especially foreign to her, she says.

“It was a strange process,” Ota says. “People looked at me weird when they saw the ‘spit beer’ I was making for class. I remember thinking, ‘How could this possibly turn into something alcoholic?’ But it was really rewarding to see that both experiments actually yielded results.”

Ota used red wheat for brewing her ancient Chinese beer. Despite the mold, the mixture had a pleasant fruity smell and a citrus taste, similar to a cider, Ota says. Her manioc beer, however, smelled like funky cheese, and Ota had no desire to check how it tasted.

 The results of the students’ experiments are going to be used in further research on ancient alcohol-making that Liu and Wang are working on.

 “The beer that students made and analyzed will be incorporated into our final research findings,” Wang says. “In that way, the class gives students an opportunity to not only experience what the daily work of some archaeologists looks like but also contribute to our ongoing research.”

The “beer-making toolkit” from the site Liu and Wang are studying: (A) Pit H82 illustration in top and cross-section views, (B) funnel 1, (C) pot 6 in reconstructed form, (D) pot 3 in reconstructed form, and (E) pottery stove. (Wang et al.)

What Caused a Revolution?
For decades, archeologists have yearned to understand the origin of agriculture and what actions may have sparked humans to transition from hunting and gathering to settling and farming, a period historians call the Neolithic Revolution.

Studying the evolution of alcohol and food production provides a window into understanding ancient human behavior, says Liu.

Late Neolithic Period (ca. 2500 - 2000 BC) large gray mug of the Henan Longshan Culture. (CC BY SA 2.5)

But it can be difficult to figure out precisely how the ancient people made alcohol and food from just examining artifacts because organic molecules easily break down with time. That’s why experiential archaeology is so important, Liu says.

“We are still trying to understand what kind of things were used back then,” Liu says.

Top Image: A more modern beer – without the lumps. Source: Public Domain

The article, originally titled ‘Ancient Chinese recipe makes lumpy, tasty beer’ by Stanford University was originally published on Futurity and has been republished under a Creative Commons license.

Drinking in the Past: Centuries Old Evidence for Consumption of Corn Beer Found in Mexico

Ancient Origin

By analyzing calculus on the teeth of the remains of people who died in an influential Mexican city hundreds of years ago, researchers are getting clues about their diet. One finding was that the people drank corn beer.
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The ruins of the city of Casas Grandes are in Chihuahua State about 80 miles (130 kilometers) from the New Mexico border. The city, which numbered about 3,000 people at its peak in the 1300s, is also known as Paquimé. The Casas Grandes culture stretched across several river valleys in northern Mexico.
The town was probably a hub of culture and trade between central Mexico and the Southwestern United States.

Map showing the location of the Casas Grandes culture. (Beloit College map)

The stuff trapped in the teeth as tartar, which fossilizes to become calculus, is probably from the last few weeks of their lives, says an article in Western Digs.
“The results of this study offer some of the first hard evidence for the production of corn beer, consumption of corn smut, and food processing methods,” lead researcher Daniel King, a graduate student in anthropology at Brigham Young University, told Western Digs. “It is a step forward in understanding Casas Grandes human-plant interactions, especially diet.”

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Anne Katzenberg of the University of Calgary is analyzing the remains of people excavated at Casas Grandes in the 1950s and ‘60s. Some of the bodies were buried, others dismembered and put in urns, and others were just exposed to the elements.
King and his team are doing the teeth analysis of 110 people buried in and around Casas Grandes between 700 and 1450 AD.

Part of the Paquimé (Casas Grandes) site, Mexico. (HJPD/CC BY SA 3.0)

Of the samples, teeth from 63 bodies provided microscopic traces, the most common of which were starch granules, corn mostly. They also found tiny mineral fragments from squash and grasses.
About 10 percent of the bodies had corn smut traces. Corn smut is a nutritious fungus that grows on corn. Even today it is a delicacy called by its Aztec name huitlacoche.

Granules of corn found in the tooth calculus of people buried at Casas Grandes show signs of swelling and fragmentation that are typical of fermentation, researchers say. (King et al.)

“Given the nature of calculus, any microremains recovered are going to be from the last days or weeks of the person’s life, maybe a month or two, but not longer,” King said. “So reconstructing diet, in the long term sense, doesn’t work with calculus. However, identifying specific foodstuffs — like corn beer, fish, chile, et cetera — is useful, as many of them can’t be seen in the results of other studies.”

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King told Western Digs that the most interesting aspect of the tooth analysis was the presence of corn alcohol. Three people’s teeth showed maize remains that apparently had been fermented. The swollen, fragmented grain particles apparently resulted from the brewing of chicha, which has been made in Central and South American for about 5,000 years.

Chicha de jora. Huancayo, Perú. (Public Domain)

But this may be the first evidence of corn beer that far north, King said. The corn fragments date to the period of 1200 to 1450. And the researchers don’t know when it may have been introduced from more southerly communities in Peru or Mesoamerica.
A Beloit College website says the Casas Grandes culture, which extends from Sonora to Chihuahua up into present-day New Mexico, was more closely related to Mesoamerican cultures to the south than to the Hohokam or Mogollon peoples to the north.

A Casas Grandes culture figurine. (Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts)

Like people to the south, the Casas Grandes people had platform mounds and ball courts, apparently used in rituals. They lived along river drainages and had irrigation systems. Paquimé was a major center of trade, through which macaws, pottery, shells, and copper were shipped from Central America into Arizona and New Mexico.
The people had shallow pit houses arranged around a large community house. The homes were made of jacal, a wattle-and-daub type of construction. As time went on, a plaza design became more prevalent, and, Beloit College says that people probably lived in the houses with common ancestors. Later they developed poured adobe walls.

A partially reconstructed residential building in Paquimé, Chihuahua, Mexico. (HJPD/ CC BY 3.0)

Featured Image: Examples of variegated maize ears (Sam Fentress/ CC BY SA 2.0) and a figurine from the Casas Grandes culture c. 1200 - 1450. (Public Domain)
By Mark Miller

Beer Before Wine: Research Shows that Spain was a Beer Country First

Ancient Origins

A Colorado State University professor says he wants to write a book on caelia—an ancient Spanish beer that was replaced by wine after the Roman Empire invaded Iberia. He also may collaborate with a brewery or the university’s prominent fermentation program to produce a batch of the old brew, which he calls “beer juice.”
But if you’re curious and you’re visiting Spain, some Spanish breweries have already resurrected the beverage, the origins of which date back at least 5,000 years.
Jonathan Carlyon, professor of languages and culture, has been studying the prehistoric Spanish beverage. His specialty at the university is early Hispanic literary culture. He knows a lot about Spanish history and its people’s reliance on caelia and beer until the Romans began making incursions in Hispania beginning around 218 BC and introduced wine, says a press release from Colorado State.
Some Spanish brewers already make caelia, but Professor Carlyon is considering asking a Fort Smith, Colorado, brewery or the university’s fermentation program to brew up a batch too. Apart from writing a paper or a book about the beverage, he expressed his interest in perhaps providing a class on the drink for the university’s fermentation students.

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“Now beer is worthy of serious academic scholarship,” he is quoted in the press release. “We’re always trying to recruit students to take our courses and get our minor. The Languages, Literatures and Cultures lens can be used in almost any field.”

Colorado State University Professor Jonathan Carlyon with a bottle of caelia from a Spanish microbrewery (CSU photo)

“The name Caelia, derived from the Latin verb for heating, ‘calefacere,’ was inspired by the heat used in the brewing process,” the release stated. “Carlyon has tracked the consumption of Caelia back about 5,000 years, to a time in Spain when women brewed the lightly carbonated drink as part of their daily routine, using a fermentation process similar to the one they used to make bread. ‘It was like a beer juice, compared to the beer made today,’ he says.”
The Roman Empire’s military was unable to conquer the ancient Spanish city of Numancia, between Madrid and Barcelona. Carlyon says before every battle the soldiers of Numancia got drunk on caelia
“contributing to the Romans’ view of them as fierce, wild fighters who successfully held off the invaders until the Romans wearied of the losses and reverted to building a wall around the fortified city in a siege. Finally, the Romans stopped fighting, closed them in and starved them, but it took two years.”

A pitcher from ancient Numancia. ( Ecelan/CC BY SA 4.0 )

The Romans replaced the native beer culture with viniculture, but what goes around comes around. In 1550, when the Spanish began their incursions into the Americas they listed grapevines as a valuable commodity, not hops or barley, CSU says.
“The fact that they chose that reflected the culture of the time. In 1550, it had been more than 1,000 years since beer had been prevalent,” Carlyon said.

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Proto-cuneiform recording the allocation of beer, probably from southern Iraq, Late Prehistoric period, about 3100-3000 BC ( Takomabibelot/ CC BY 2.0 )

Other academics have been resurrecting ancient libations.
An archaeologist working with a brewery is recreating ancient beers from around the world, including Turkey, Egypt, Italy, Denmark, Honduras and China, Ancient Origins reported in 2015. Alcohol archaeologist Patrick McGovern thinks he may even be able to recreate a drink from Egypt that is 16,000 years old.
Professor McGovern, of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, has been working with Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton, Delaware. The professor is using modern technology to detect traces of ingredients. In addition, Dogfish Head Brewery has produced beer using African, South American, and Finnish recipes from centuries ago. For a list of the brews, see dogfish.com/ancientales.
It’s not just beer that archaeologists are trying to recreate. Ancient-Origins.net reported in 2013 that Italian archaeologists planted a vineyard near Catania in Sicily with the aim of making wine using techniques from classical Rome described in ancient texts. The team expected its first vintage within four years.
These attempts at drinking the spirits of ancestors go back quite a few years. There is a reference at thekeep.org about a 1996 attempt by Newcastle Breweries in Melbourne to brew an ancient Egyptian beer too.

The Herald-Sun reported that 'Tutankhamon Ale' will be based on sediment from jars found in a brewery housed in the Sun Temple of Nefertiti, and the team involved has gathered enough of the correct raw materials to produce just 1000 bottles of the ale,” Caroline Seawright wrote at thekeep.org. That beer was 5 to 6 percent alcohol and was sold at Harrods for £50 (about $100) a bottle. The profit was to go toward further research into Egyptian beer making.
Featured image: A glass of beer atop old barrels ( public domain ).
By Mark Miller

History Trivia - Mary, Queen of Scots, abdicates

July 24

1411 Battle of Harlaw, Highland and Lowland Scots clashed at Red Harlaw, which was one of the bloodiest battles of Scottish history.

1487 Citizens of Leeuwarden, Netherlands held a strike against a ban on foreign beer.

1567 Mary, Queen of Scots, was forced to abdicate and was replaced by her one-year-old son James VI.

Ancient Monastery Recreates Beer Based on Historic Recipe by British Soldiers

Ancient Origins

The Strahov Monastery in Prague, Czech Republic, has created a popular new beer based on a historic recipe. The Times of India report that they call it the Sv Norbert India Pale Ale and it is based on a recipe that British soldiers brewed for their travels to India when it was under British rule.
Brewing beer is not a new area for the ancient Strahov Monastery. The monastery was founded in 1142 by King Vladislav II. It started production in its brewery in the 1400s. The current location of the Strahov Monastic Brewery is the site chosen by Abbot Kaspar Questenberg in 1628. In the beginning, the Strahov brewery only produced the necessary amount for the monks and the deputies of the monastery, now it is one of the most popular breweries for tourists and locals in Prague.

The Strahov monastery, Prague, Czech Republic (Wikimedia Commons)

Monastic breweries were a common practice during the middle ages (5^th – 15^th Century). Monks and nuns were expected to live by their own labor and not accept charity (The Rule of Saint Benedict, and monasteries were known to be safe places for travelers in search of food and shelter. Thus, brewing beer and wine also served as a source of finances for monasteries such as Strahov.

A Monk Cellarer tasting wine from a barrel, Li Livres dou Santé, (13th Century manuscript), France (Wikimedia Commons)

The Sv Norbert India Pale Ale is a beer that the Strahov Monastic Brewery created based off of a recipe thought to have been lost. In 2009 they began production of the India Pale Ale, however it was not well-received in the early years. The manager of the Strahov Monastic Brewery, Marek Kocvera, explained the history of the India Pale Ale to The Times of India: "We revived the recipe in this monastery and started first serving it in 2009. However because of its strong flavour it did take a few years for people to grow a taste for it."

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The India Pale Ale is a strong-tasting beer with a 6-7% alcohol content due to the large quantity of hops it contains. "This beer was originally prepared for long distance transport, so it should stay in good conditions during the journey from England to India... Hops contain natural antibacterial matters and they help to preserve beer," Kocvera told The Times of India.
The hops also makes the Sv Norbert India Pale Ale bitter and aromatic. The aroma of the beer has been described as  very fruity and despite its strength it is believed to be a refreshing beer. The distinctive taste has made it a popular seller today, Kocvera has reported:
"Since last year, we are experiencing a big boom in its sale. We produce about 60,000 litres of India Pale Ale per year - so around 160 litres per day on average. In most days, the daily quantity finishes by late noon itself."
In the end, the historic British soldier's recipe has received an enthusiastic response from the public and continues the historic success of monastic breweries.
Featured Image: Piwo pijacy mnisi (Beer Drinking Monks), Olaf Simony Jensen (Wikimedia Commons)
By Alicia McDermott

Egyptians Brewed Beer in Tel Aviv 5,000 Years Ago

Megan Gannon
Live Science

This is a fragment of a clay basin that would have been used by the ancient Egyptians to produce beer. Credit: Yoli Shwartz, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority View full size image

Tel Aviv's reputation as a party city for expats might have started 5,000 years ago.
During the Bronze Age, Egyptians were making beer in what is today downtown Tel Aviv, new archaeological evidence suggests.
When archaeologists were conducting salvage excavations ahead of construction on new office buildings along Hamasger Street, they found 17 ancient pits that were used to store produce, according to an announcement from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).
These pits held Egyptian-style pottery that dated back to the Early Bronze Age I, a period that lasted from 3500 B.C. to 3000 B.C. [In Photos: Early Bronze Age Chariot Burial]
"On the basis of previously conducted excavations in the region, we knew there is an Early Bronze Age site here, but this excavation is the first evidence we have of an Egyptian occupation in the center of Tel Aviv at that time," Diego Barkan, an archaeologist who was conducting the excavation on behalf of the IAA, said in the statement.

A corroded, 6,000-year-old bronze dagger was also found during the urban excavation.
Credit: Yoli Shwartz, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

View full size image

Barkan and his colleagues found hundreds of pottery fragments, including broken pieces of large ceramic basins traditionally used to prepare beer — a staple of the Egyptian diet.

The clay that was used to create these basins had been mixed with straw or other organic materials as strengthening agents. This method wasn't used in the local pottery industry in Israel, but straw-tempered vessels have been found before at other Egyptian sites — notably, the Egyptian administrative building that was excavated at En Besor in southern Israel, Barkan explained.

"This is also the northernmost evidence we have of an Egyptian presence in the Early Bronze Age I," Barkan said. "Until now, we were only aware of an Egyptian presence in the northern Negev and southern coastal plain, whereby the northernmost point of Egyptian occupation occurred in Azor. Now we know that they also appreciated what the Tel Aviv region had to offer and that they too knew how to enjoy a glass of beer, just as Tel Avivians do today."

The archaeologists report that they also found 5,000-year-old bones from wild boar, sheep and goat at the site, as well as a bronze dagger and stone tools dating back 6,000 years, during the Chalcolithic period.

History Trivia - Dean of St Paul's Cathedral perfects a way to bottle beer.

July 13

 1099 The Crusaders launched their final assault on Jerusalem.

1174 William I of Scotland, a key rebel in the Revolt of 1173–1174, was captured at Alnwick by forces loyal to Henry II of England.

1568 the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral perfected a way to bottle beer.