Beer archaeologists are peering back millennia to recreate brews from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome using ancient methods and ingredients.
"...so-called "rebrews" of age-old ales were once savoured in places ranging from Ancient Egypt and Greece to Celtic and Viking Europe. Their drinkers liked a choice too, with 5,000-year-old Babylonian-carved stone tablets depicting recipes for nearly 20 different barley-based beers...
...Another key pioneer of is Patrick McGovern, author of Ancient Brews Rediscovered and Re-Created and a professor at University of Pennsylvania Penn Museum, though he is commonly known to brewers simply as "Dr Pat", as well as the "Indiana Jones of Ancient Ales". In the early 1990s, McGovern oversaw the first hi-tech molecular analysis of yellow residues found in bronze drinking vessels during a 1950s excavation of an ancient Turkish tomb dating back 2,700 years – and claimed to possibly be that of the legendary King Midas.
Whomever the tomb belonged to, the drink sipped at his funeral feast turned out to be a barley beer blended with honey mead and grape wine, and possibly spices like saffron. Intrigued, McGovern teamed up with US brewer Dogfish Head in 1999 to create a highly popular rebrew christened Midas Touch.
He then collaborated further with Dogfish to create a diverse line of ancient ales culminating most recently with 2022's Tree Thieves. This was an ancient Celtic ale style known as
gruit, using botanicals for flavouring to more accurately mirror the ancient brewing process before hops were used. "It was bittered with mugwort and carrot seeds," explains McGovern...
This clay Mesopotamian writing tablet shows an example of how beer was allocated in ancient times (Credit: PHAS/Getty Images)