Brewing: Prehistoric & Historic Development / Significance

[James_H]

Andrew Boorde on Cornish Ale, 1540 (quoted from one of the pages I linked above)

Ich am a Cornishman, ale I can brew
It will make one cacke, also to spew.
It is thick and smokey and also it is thin
It is like wash as pigs had wrestled there in

 

[ramonmercado]

Andrew Boorde on Cornish Ale, 1540 (quoted from one of the pages I linked above)

Sounds like Rynner.

 

[James_H]

Brewing Viking beer — with stones

When archaeologist Geir Grønnesby dug test pits at 24 different farms in central Norway, he nearly always found thick layers of fire-cracked stones dating from the Viking Age and earlier. Long ago, Norwegians brewed beer using stones.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Norwegians brewed beer using stones.

Steinbier seems to have survived into the early 20th Century!

I'm sure I have read of attempts at reviving the method, probably in connection with smoked beers. But now it's time for bed!

 

[James_H]

I'm sure I have read of attempts at reviving the method, probably in connection with smoked beers. But now it's time for bed!

Smoked beer is making a comeback, but for most of brewing history almost all beer was smoked, as malt was dried over flame instead of in kilns. The smoky flavour was not seen as desirable, and people were glad to see the back of it when the new technology arrived. O tempora, o mores.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Steinbier seems to have survived into the early 20th Century!

I'm sure I have read of attempts at reviving the method, probably in connection with smoked beers. But now it's time for bed!

Bed? At 6 am?
You're a night owl, sir. I can see why you eat a meal at midnight.

 

[Kingsize Wombat]

Steinbier seems to have survived into the early 20th Century!

I'm sure I have read of attempts at reviving the method, probably in connection with smoked beers. But now it's time for bed!

It's always been on sale in Southern Germany and parts of Scandinavia. I'm not really sure why anyone would be surprised by the Vikings making it - and it certainly is't pre-historic at all!

The main argument of this thread is the theory that brewing preceded farming and bread making - not any old piss up by the ancestors.

 

[Mythopoeika]

The main argument of this thread is the theory that brewing preceded farming and bread making - not any old piss up by the ancestors.

It may be what provided the incentive to do farming.

 

[Coal]

It may be what provided the incentive to do farming.

You might make the argument that a reliance on beer for drinking would have decreased the chances of dying from water borne pathogens and in this way folk who brewed and liked beer gained a small survival advantage over those that didn't. Say 2000 years at 20 years a generation, call it 200 generations. That's enough to breed out the proper beer haters.

 

[Kingsize Wombat]

Say 2000 years at 20 years a generation, call it 200 generations. That's enough to breed out the proper beer haters.

Or most of the hopeless Alcoholics. Which would explain why Alcoholism is so rife in indigenous populations which didn't have the time yet to go through that process.

 

[James_H]

You might make the argument that a reliance of beer for drinking would have decreased the chances of dying from water borne pathogens and in this way folk who brewed and liked beer gained a small survival advantage over those that didn't. Say 2000 years at 20 years a generation, call it 200 generations. That's enough to breed out the proper beer haters.

As I mentioned upthread, it appears to be a myth that historical populations like that in mediaeval Europe had no access to clean water.

 

[ramonmercado]

But was it real ale?

Road workers have uncovered what is thought to be the earliest evidence of beer being brewed in the UK, dating back more than 2,000 years.

Experts found "tell-tale signs of the Iron Age brew" during work on improvements to the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon. It is believed the find could date back as far as 400 BC. Archaeobotanist Lara Gonzalez said it was "incredibly exciting to identify remains of this significance".Highways England said the find was uncovered in fragments of charred residue from the beer-making process.

Ms Gonzalez added: "I knew when I looked at these tiny fragments under the microscope that I had something special. The microstructure of these remains had clearly changed through the fermentation process and air bubbles typical of those formed in the boiling and mashing process of brewing."

She said the fragments were similar to bread, but showed "evidence of fermentation and contains larger pieces of cracked grains and bran, but no fine flour".

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-47042127

 

[Jim]

As I mentioned upthread, it appears to be a myth that historical populations like that in mediaeval Europe had no access to clean water.

Clean water is deceiving however. It can look taste "clean" yet still contain dangerous microbes or chemicals. In artic Canada my partner insisted on drinking water from the "seemingly" pristine waters. He got violently ill for a long time.

 

[Kingsize Wombat]

The Atlantic has a nice piece on the current thinking on the subject - perhaps the first drink was free, and then...

Prehistoric Happy Hour
A very short book excerpt

Anthropologists have long debated the causes of the Neolithic Transition, the piecemeal process of domesticating plants and animals that began more than 11,000 years ago. One theory posits that humans first cultivated cereal crops less for processing into food than for making beer, a beverage at once nutritious, intoxicating, and germ-free. DNA analysis shows that domesticated yeast strains are at least as old as domesticated grain, and agriculture may have been the only way to ensure a year-round supply for brewing.


The beer-before-bread hypothesis is complemented by another: competitive feasting. According to this theory, would-be chieftains used alcohol to attract people to feasts that reinforced hierarchies, strengthened social bonds, and, not least, introduced new foods and technologies. Equal parts political rally, fraternity bash, and product launch, the best feasts required immense preparation. As agricultural societies grew more unequal, elites found another use for alcohol: as compensation for peasant labor. Alcohol fostered a craving for repeated use that induced peasants to keep producing surpluses, which fueled emergent civilizations and gave rulers the means to stay on top.
—Adapted from The Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits Became Big Business, by David T. Courtwright, published by Harvard University Press

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/did-our-ancestors-drink-beer/585118/

 

[James_H]

Why the Stone Age could be when the Brits first Brewed Ale (BBC)

An interesting overview of the history of beer in Britain.

This article in VICE says that the beer residue found at Skara Brae contained henbane, hemlock and deadly nightshade – unambiguously a witches' flying potion.

 

[Mythopoeika]

So it was more accurately 'the stoned age'?

 

[ramonmercado]

Why the Stone Age could be when the Brits first Brewed Ale (BBC)

An interesting overview of the history of beer in Britain.

This article in VICE says that the beer residue found at Skara Brae contained henbane, hemlock and deadly nightshade – unambiguously a witches' flying potion.

Henbane beer may have been drunk in Midsommar!

 

[Cochise]

Yet a lot of the enlightenment stuff seems to have coincided with people drinking in coffee houses instead of bars.

The national museum I mentioned is the one in Copenhagen.

Terrible stuff coffee. Full of caffeine

Are we having an outbreak of puritanism? I suspect people made booze because it was fun. In a pre monetary economy they wouldn't have been able to over indulge because they would run out of stuff to barter.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I suspect people made booze because it was fun.

That and the fact that beer and wine are cleaner than water.

 

[ramonmercado]

That and the fact that beer and wine are cleaner than water.

Very important point!

 

[ramonmercado]

Microscopic signatures of malting could help reveal which prehistoric people had a taste for beer.

Ancient beer is difficult to trace, because many of beer’s chemical ingredients, like alcohol, don’t preserve well (SN: 9/28/04). But a new analysis of modern and ancient malted grain indicates that malting’s effects on grain cell structure can last millennia. This microscopic evidence could help fill in the archaeological record of beer consumption, providing insight into the social, ritual and dietary roles this drink played in prehistoric cultures, researchers report online May 7 in PLOS ONE.

Malting, the first step in brewing beer, erodes cell walls in an outer layer of a grain seed, called its aleurone layer. To find out whether that cell wall thinning would still be visible in grains malted thousands of years ago, Andreas Heiss, an archaeobotanist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, and colleagues simulated archaeological preservation by baking malted barley in a furnace. Using a scanning electron microscope, the researchers observed thinned aleurone cell walls in the resulting malt residue. Heiss’s team found a similar pattern of thinning in residues from 5,000- to 6,000-year-old containers at two Egyptian breweries.

The researchers then inspected grain-based remains from similarly aged settlements in Germany and in Switzerland. These sites didn’t contain any tools specifically associated with beer-making. But grain-based residues from inside containers at the settlements did show thin aleurone cell walls, like those in the Egyptian remains — offering the oldest evidence of malting in central Europe, the researchers say.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-beer-brewing-malt-grains-europe

 

[James_H]

Interesting overview of the use of hallucinogenic fruits in historical beers
https://oct.co/essays/history-hallucinogenic-beers-magic-mushrooms-henbane

 

[ramonmercado]

On the booze, away with the pharaohs.

American and Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed what could be the oldest known beer factory at one of the most prominent historic sites of ancient Egypt.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt’s supreme council of antiquities, said the factory was found in Abydos, an ancient burial ground located in the desert west of the Nile River, more than 280 miles south of Cairo. He said the factory apparently dates back to the region of King Narmer, who is widely known for his unification of ancient Egypt at the beginning of the First Dynastic Period (3150 BC-2613 BC).

Archaeologists found eight huge units – each about 65ft long and 8ft wide. Each unit includes some 40 pottery basins in two rows, which had been used to heat up a mixture of grains and water to produce beer, Mr Waziri said.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40226495.html

 

[EnolaGaia]

There is more evidence now that brewing preceded farming: ...
https://popular-archaeology.com/article/a-prehistoric-thirst-for-craft-beer/

This recent Q&A column answer from Smithsonian magazine indicates this northern Israel site (Raqefet Cave) remains the earliest archaeological evidence for beer brewing.

Which came first: beer or wine?
The earliest evidence leans toward beer, says Theresa McCulla, a curator at the National Museum of American History. Archaeologists found traces of cereal grains on mortars near Haifa, Israel, dated at around 13,000 years old. The previous record belonged to a drink discovered in China dating back 9,000 years; it resembled a mix between beer and grape-based wine. Beer and wine were both relatively straightforward to make, since the sugars in mashed grains or grapes naturally start to ferment when exposed to wild yeasts at the proper temperature. Distilled spirits such as vodka and whiskey involved a more complicated understanding of chemistry and likely did not appear until the Middle Ages.

SOURCE: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smit...me-first-beer-wine-ask-smithsonian-180978371/

 

[EnolaGaia]

Archaeologists in China have discovered evidence of beer and brewing dating back some 9,000 years.

Remains of 9,000-Year-Old Beer Found in China

Archaeologists in southeastern China have discovered the residue of beer drunk 9,000 years ago. The vessels containing the ancient dregs were located near two human skeletons, suggesting that mourners may have consumed the brew in honor of the dead ...

The researchers found the Neolithic artifacts at the Qiaotou archaeological site, a circular settlement with a mound in the center located in Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province. They recently published their findings in the journal PLOS One. ...

Several long-necked hu pots discovered in pits at the site contained starches, fossilized plant residue and the remains of mold and yeast, indicating that they once held a fermented alcoholic beverage. Hu pots were used for drinking alcoholic beverages in later periods.

“Our results revealed that the pottery vessels were used to hold beer, in its most general sense—a fermented beverage made of rice, a grain called Job’s tears and unidentified tubers,” the study’s lead author, Jiajing Wang, an archaeologist at Dartmouth College, says in a statement. “This ancient beer though would not have been like the IPA that we have today. Instead, it was likely a slightly fermented and sweet beverage, which was probably cloudy in color.” ...

FULL STORY: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/remains-9000-year-old-beer-found-china-180978563/

 

[EnolaGaia]

Here are the bibliographic details and abstract for the published research report. The full report can be accessed and / or downloaded at the link below.

Wang J, Jiang L, Sun H (2021)
Early evidence for beer drinking in a 9000-year-old platform mound in southern China.
PLoS ONE 16(8): e0255833.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255833

Abstract
Alcoholic beverages played an essential role in rituals in ancient societies. Here we report the first evidence for beer drinking in the context of burial ritual in early Holocene southern China. Recent archaeological investigations at Qiaotou (9,000–8,700 cal. BP) have revealed a platform mound containing human burials and high concentrations of painted pottery, encircled by a human-made ditch. By applying microfossil (starch, phytolith, and fungi) residue analysis on the pottery vessels, we found that some of the pots held beer made of rice (Oryza sp.), Job’s tears (Coix lacryma-jobi), and USOs. We also discovered the earliest evidence for using mold saccharification-fermentation starter in beer making, predating written records by 8,000 years. The beer at Qiaotou was likely served in rituals to commemorate the burial of the dead. Ritualized drinking probably played an integrative role in maintaining social relationships, paving the way for the rise of complex farming societies four millennia later.

SOURCE & FULL REPORT: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0255833

 

[Nosmo King]

"The vessels containing the ancient dregs were located near two human skeletons, suggesting that mourners may have consumed the brew in honor of the dead"

Or they died after drinking it

 

[ramonmercado]

Sláinte!

In 1516, the duchy of Bavaria in Germany imposed a law on its beer brewers meant to reserve ingredients like wheat and rye for the baking of bread.

The decree restricted brewers to using only barley, hops, water and yeast to make their libations, and set the prices for beer depending on the time of year. The law inadvertently limited brewing to the winter, which favored a cold-tolerant yeast called Saccharomyces pastorianus, which brews lager, over the more common S. cerevisiae, which brews ale.

S. pastorianus is a hybrid, produced from the mating of S. cerevisiae with another yeast called S. eubayanus. Despite lager’s European origins, S. eubayanus hadn’t actually been found there and was only first discovered in 2011, in the Patagonia region of South America (SN: 8/23/11). Now, thanks to a research project carried out by undergraduate students, S. eubayanus has been found living in European soil — fittingly, in the beer-loving nation of Ireland.

“Since the discovery of S. eubayanus [more than] 10 years ago, it’s been a fun puzzle putting together where the species is actually found,” says Quinn Langdon, a biologist at Stanford University, who was not involved with the study.

A leading theory is that S. eubayanus originated in Patagonia and then spread around the world, eventually mating with S. cerevisiae in European breweries to make S. pastorianus.

Geraldine Butler, a geneticist at University College Dublin and leader of the project, always thought that teaching genome-sequencing techniques by having students scour soils for yeast could turn up S. eubayanus. Still, she says, she couldn’t contain her excitement when she saw the first hint of the microbe. “I was sitting by the sequencer waiting for the results to come out,” she says.

One of Butler’s students, Stephen Allen, found two local strains of S. eubayanus hiding in plain sight on the Belfield campus of University College Dublin. The team has since gone back and found the yeast again, Butler says, suggesting that there is a stable population of the yeast living in the Irish soil. ...

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/brewing-yeast-ancestor-ireland-beer

 

[Kondoru]

Isnt Modern Archaeology wonderful?

 

[Victory]

Smoked beer is making a comeback, but for most of brewing history almost all beer was smoked, as malt was dried over flame instead of in kilns. The smoky flavour was not seen as desirable, and people were glad to see the back of it when the new technology arrived. O tempora, o mores.

But was the flavour of all ale smokey?

I knew that ale was made before Hops were used in it, and the TV show I saw about it described it as being darker, cloudy and sweet.

It traditionally had wild herbs added, known as Gruit.

Has anyone tried one of these type of ales?

https://www.craftbeer.com/craft-beer-muses/gruit-ales-beer-before-hops


P.S. The article notes that in 15th century England, Ale had herbs added, Beer had Hops added.