Solomon Katz
Thanks to Greg Goodman for supplying the correct reference for
the article below. Apparently it, which Greg tells me "may be
one of the most-reproduced articles in the online homebrew com-
munity", appeared originally as
1991 Katz, Solomon H. Katz, and Fritz Maytag,
"Brewing an Ancient Beer", *Archaeology*
44:4 (July/August 1991), pages 24-33
I leave the header from Jake unchanged for scholarly completeness.
===========================================================================
Since the attribution was deleted on the copy I received, I have
no idea where or when this was published. Reproduced without
permission!
Jake. [gal2@kimbark.uchicago.edu]
* * * * * * * * * *
Brewing an Ancient Beer
Did beer come before bread? To answer the question scholars helped
concoct a Mesopotamian brew from a 3,800-year-old recipe etched in
clay. By Solomon H. Katz and Fritz Maytag.
In the 1950s, Robert Braidwood of the University of Chicago published
an article in Scientific American suggesting a cause-effect
relationship between breadmaking and the domestication of cereal
grains. He cited evidence from his excavations at Jarmo in the Taurus
Mountains of modern Iraq. However, Jonathan D. Sauer, a well-known
botanist from the University of Wisconsin, responded to Braidwood's
article by asking if the earliest utilization of the domesticated
cereals may have been for beer rather than bread. This query prompted
Braidwood to organize a unique "symposium" for the journal American
Anthropologiest titled "Did man once live by beer alone?"
(Photo, no caption (full page) picture of a capped Anchor-style bottle
labelled "Ninkasi" (along with some presumably Sumerian script)
Sumerian Beer.)
It was not an idle question. We now believe that barley was
domesticated about 10,000 years ago in the highland region of the
southern Levant. But it seems likely that wild grains were gathered
long before then. What prompted the shift from hunting and gathering to
agriculture? Many scholars have suggested that overexploitation of
wild resources and climate change in the region are behind the
transition. But barley can ferment naturally, as we shall explain,
and the discovery of beer at an early date may well have been a
significant motivation factor in hunter-gatherers settling down believe
that the bread was twice-baked in
antiquity. However, until we have evidence of this technique in the
Ancient texts, we will avoid further speculation. The bread, which
had a consistency like granola, was delicious. However, it should be
noted that our bread was not as nutritious as Sumerian bread since our
probably contained less yeast.
We conservatively mixed one-third bappir and two-thirds malt in the
mash tank, to insure that all of the starch would convert to sugar.
We were initially concerned that the heavy amount of suspended
particles from the bappir would foul the modern lautering equipment
used to filter the mash, and produce a major plumbing problem in the
Anchor brewing vats. Our fears turned out to be unfounded,
fortunately, and the lautering processes went just fine.
We allowed the wort to cool naturally instead of using modern
artificial techniques. The mixture was wonderfully sweet and
fragrant, just as the Hymn mentions - the aroma of toasted barley and
the scent of dates. We brewed using only a standard brewing yeast in
lieu of the gestin mentioned in the Hymn. We wanted to prevent any
foreign yeast from infecting the tanks, and to keep the product within
controllable standards of purity. In modern beer making, hops are
used to provide aromatic flavor and to preserve the beer. Since we
could not identify an Ancient plant additive that would have served as
a hop-like preservative, the beer was flash-pasteurized to assure
preservation. The final product yielded an alcohol concentration very
similar to modern beers of 3.5% by weight. We were ready for the
final test. How did it taste?
To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Anchor Brewing Company at its
present location, we served the Ninkasi brew to members of the
American Association of Micro Brewers, who were having their annual
meeting in San Francisco. The beer was consumed in proper Sumerian
fashion: sipped from large jugs using long drinking straws fashioned
to resemble the gold and lapis-lazuli straws found in the mid-third
millenium tomb of Lady Pu-abi at Ur.
Seven months later, a second group, convening at the University Museum
to discuss our work, sampled our Ancient brew. Not all of the beer
had survived, even with refrigeration. However, those bottles that
were still good had aged, much like fine wine - the beer had a dry
flavor lacking in bitterness. Aged Ninkasi beer tasted similar to a
hard apple cider but retained the fragrance of dates. According to
the Museum's Patrick McGovern, the beer "had the smoothness and
effervescence of champagne and a slight aroma of dates." We had
reproduced the beer that made Ninkasi famous! We do not claim to be
correct in all of the details, but we have made a sincere effort to
bring the art of the modern brewer to bear on the mystery of how
Ancient beer might have been made four millennia ago.
(Caption: Facing page: Brewers begin by baking bappir loaves, while
scholars consult the Ancient text. The bappir is then mixed with malt
to form the mash. Left: the mash, or wort, is allowed to ferment
after filtering and cooling. THe final product is sampled and
bottled.)
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