Egyptian Beer

Legend teaches that Osiris taught humans to brew beer. In keeping with this idea the Egyptians often used beer in religious ceremonies and as the meal-time beverage. Because of the prevalence of beer in the Egyptian life, many Egyptologists have studied beer residue from Egyptian vessels. For a very long time it was thought that the Egyptians made a crude beer by crumbling lightly baked, well-leavened bread into water. They then strained it out with a sieve into a vat and the water was allowed to ferment because of the yeast from the bread. It has been thought that the Egyptians flavored the beer with date juice or honey, because the straining method would not give much flavor.

Recently, these traditional views have been challenged through the use of microscopic evidence. In 1996 Delwen Samuel from the University of Cambridge found that the Egyptians seem to have used barley to make malt and a type of wheat, emmer, instead of hops. They heated the mixture then added yeast and uncooked malt to the cooked malt. After adding the second batch of malt the mixture was allowed to ferment. In the analysis Samuel did she found no traces of flavorings.

Samuel and her colleagues tried brewing the beer using the recipe derived by the analysis. They brewed it at a modern brewery and found the beer to be fruity and sweet because it lacked the bitterness of hops.

References:

Menon, Shanti "King Tut's Tipple" Discover Jan.1997, v18, n1, p13

Samuel, Delwen "Investigation of Ancient Egytian Baking and Brewing Methods by Correlative Microscopy" Science July 1996, v273, n5274, p488

Author: Dena Connors-Millard