Iron Age Beer

[Greg.L]

BBC science

"Dr Bouby and his colleagues have now analysed the "macrobotanical" remains found at three sites during those digs: a paved floor near an oven and hearth of a home dated to the 5th Century BC, and a ceramic vessel and a pit that were near storage containers.

Ninety percent of the barley grains that were recovered from these locations had been induced to sprout.

The malted grains and the arrangement of the finds led the team to surmise a "home-brew" scenario, which they note requires no specialised equipment.

"All that is needed is an amount of grain, some water, containers (commonly pottery vessels) in which to soak the grain, a flat paved area - possibly the floor - to spread out and turn the grain during germination, an oven to dry it in order to stop germination, domestic grindstones to grind the malted grain, hearths and again containers for fermentation and storage," they wrote.

"Evidence for all of these sorts of equipment is reported from the Roquepertuse dwelling."

 

[Bribie G]

Phil, what's happening in Trench 2?

Aarr well I reckon we got a remaaarkable Bronze age ceramic thingo looks like a clear bottle, blimey real advanced for the era - oi reckon it's almost loike a modern beer bottle in design... Oi think Carenza may be onto something as well.

Let's go over to Trench 3 ... Carenza, what have you found, Phil is really excited...

In the layer below the chalk there's clear evidence of discarded vegetable matter and here we see some obvious lime slices. The occurrence of limes in Bronze Age Britain is not unusual due to the trade between the Godelaic Brythonic cultures of the time who would have travelled huge distances to trade in ore and bring curious items such as Mediterranean limes with them as trade items...

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[RdeVjun]

Massive LOL BribieG! :lol:
Time Team often seem to be their most creative and interesting when they adjourn to the pub for a few pints. Someone always has to have an OJ though, I guess they're the nominated Landrover driver to run the team back to the digs. Never Phil though, I bet its in his contract!
From TFA:

Prior studies suggest that a variant of the barley plant known as six-row barley was the primary cultivated plant in the region at the time; the authors of the study now suggest that beer production may have been one of the principal reasons for this.

Interesting that about six row barley. I had thought six row was a comparatively modern barley, how wrong I was...