Brewing Mesopotamian Beer, from 4,000 years ago

[Feldon]

I found the recipe analysis and historical content in this quite interesting.

A lighthearted, even chintzy, presentation of a complex subject - funny too in parts. And very informative (despite the embedded ad).

 

[TwoCrows]

Great content. Cheer Feldon.

It is amazing what derived and flourished from the crucible of mankind. Greeks and Romans, truly amazing what influence they added to this region

I do enjoy Iranian Dates, and who doesn't enjoy beer. I need to look at the gravity of Dates as an adjunct.
No mention of hops. I bet they had none, so no preservative in this beer.
Will need a low AA% hop to help stabilize this when kegged.

 

[djebel]

Smallish batches and drink them fast.

 

[Feldon]

^ Yes, drink it fast, but as the Ancient Greeks learned that can cause issues at home.

And cheers to you too, @TwoCrows

 

[MHB]

The date syrup you can get at supermarkets is around 60% sugars, which should make your gravity calculation pretty easy. Nutrient panels on the packaging make life easy.

The first record of hops was around the ninth century.
"The first documented hop cultivation was in 736, in the Hallertau region of present-day Germany, although the first mention of the use of hops in brewing in that country was 1079 (AD). Snip from Wikipedia.
Archaeologists have tried to reconstruct several historic beers; one from Scotland (Bronze Age) used Bracken fern stems to bitter. Then there is the whole Gruit thing, lots of fun to be had there.
Probably the last of the un-hoped beers still in production is Shati from Finland, actually quite a lot in common with the 4000 year old beer above.
Mark

 

[Dave70]

From the mouths of Stein, Bourdain, even Floyd, Ramsey and Zimmern , I've seen enough to know what 'interesting' means.
I'd bet the farm old mate won't be brewing Mesopotamian beer again any time soon.

 

[dmtaylor]

I made the Ninkasi beer once about 15 years ago or so. I used smoked malt in mine (tastes like bacon.) I made date wine a few days ahead, literally just sanitized my hands then poured water over some pitted dates, crushed them up with my hands to a fine pulp, then let this spontaneously ferment using the yeast on the dates themselves. Also baked some bappir bread made of smoked malt flour, chopped dates, honey, and water. Finally on brew day, "mashed" the bappir bread with some fresh smoked malt, ran off the wort and pitched it using the date wine as the source of yeast. It fermented well and produced some sulfur that aged out. Final result in my own words: "sour fruity bacon". It did in fact go sour after a few weeks. I bottled it and it carbonated normally. I submitted to competition in old BJCP Specialty Category 23 and it scored a gold medal for historical accuracy and for being "interesting" or whatever. I was not a fan and probably will not brew it again. But it was an intriguing experimental brew.