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How beer ruled ancient times
Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers / The Daily Beast / Photos GettyImagine digs up an old burial site and runs across a brewery. This is exactly what happened last month when the Egyptian government announced that a team of Egyptian and American archaeologists had discovered what is possibly the oldest known beer factory in the world. Pyramids, pharaohs and now delicious adult drinks – ancient Egypt had it all. The factory was excavated in Abydos, 280 miles south of Cairo and west of the Nile. Abydos is best known for its temples and burial practices. A number of monuments honor Osiris, the god of the dead. Mostafa Waziri, General Secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, noted that the discovery was made on the site of an ancient burial site and that the beer factory dates from the reign of King Narmer, who lived and ruled at the beginning of the First Dynasty more than 5,000 years ago .Dr. Matthew Adams of the New York University Institute of Fine Arts and one of the mission’s directors (along with Dr. Deborah Vischak of Princeton University) said the factory was built to supply beer for royal rituals. The brewery itself was divided into eight large sections, each containing 40 clay pots for mixing grain and water. Adams added that in its prime, the brewery may have produced up to 22,400 liters of beer at a time. Beer was an important part of the ancient Egyptian diet and was drunk by everyone from pharaohs to farmers, and workers were sometimes even paid in beer. How Sesame Street Was Inspired by Beer Advertising As old as the Abydos Factory is, it wasn’t. t the first place that beer was made. The oldest alcoholic drink in the world likely originated in China, but beer likely originated in the Middle East. The factory coincides with ceramic vessels that are still covered in sticky remains of beer that were found in ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerian “Hymn to Ninkasi” (approx. 1800 BC), which was sung in honor of the goddess of beer, contains a recipe made by priestesses. For the ancient Sumerians, beer was a staple food as it was healthier than drinking water from streams, which was often contaminated with animal waste. The ancient Egyptian beer was flavored with mandrakes, olive oil and dates, which was responsible for the sweetness. It was only with the rise of beer among medieval monks that hops were thrown into the mix. Although hops are the basis of the most popular form of beer today, there were rivals in the Middle Ages. As early as the 8th century AD, brewers were using fruit (a combination of plant substances that, like hops, prevent the growth of bacteria in the liquid) in their preparation. In his book Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Richard Unger argues that fruit was the most popular form of beer in the 12th century. For many brewers, flavor additives were a necessity. For example, Bavarian summer beers were fermented in open barrels that were exposed to bacteria and could therefore easily “come off”. To cover up the taste of these summer beers, the brewers added other ingredients, including legumes, salt, chalk, soot, and even ox bile and chicken blood. Beer has to taste pretty bad so you can add bile to improve the taste. The popularity of beer almost inevitably led to regulation. In 1156 the city of Augsburg issued a decree insisting that bad beer be “destroyed for free or distributed among the poor”. The city of Munich had appointed beer inspectors until 1336, and in 1516 the Bavarian Duke Wilhelm IV issued the Purity Law, which stipulated that only barley, hops and water may be used in Bavarian beer. The decree, which came into force for all of Germany in 1906, is the oldest food safety ordinance in the world. However, the Bavarians were not the first to try to regulate beer by law. Cleopatra introduced a beer tax, which the ancient Egyptians preferred to wine to finance their wars with Rome. As Jason Lambrecht put it, “It was so outrageous to Egypt that it would now be compared to a water tax.” As unpopular as Cleopatra’s tax has been, other governments have tried with varying degrees of success. In the 13th century, the French city of Aix-la-Chapelle decreed that brewers who did not pay their taxes would have their right hands cut off. When the British raised taxes on beer in the 17th century, they accidentally made gin the cheapest alcoholic beverage in the country. The resulting widespread consumption of gin led to significant alcohol problems in the UK, with the death rate exceeding the birth rate during this period. However, if this baboon skull is an indication of the taxation of the lost kingdom of PuntBeer in Egypt, it is not always a bad thing. When the 27-year-old Arthur Guinness started his brewery in 1752, he opted for a dark beer with unmalted roasted barley because it enabled him to lower the taxes he would otherwise have paid on malt and extra coal. Britain’s imposition of tariffs on beer (and wine) in 1764 was one of the many tax crimes that contributed to the American Revolution. After independence was achieved, beer circulated widely and tax-free until Abraham Lincoln and Congress, like Cleopatra before, introduced a $ 1 per barrel tax in 1862 to help fund the Civil War. You could say that when you drink beer you support freedom. Today, beer remains America’s most popular alcoholic beverage. Historically, this always seems to have been the case. Sixteenth-century colonists who adapted a recipe developed by Native Americans used corn instead of malt in their recipes. It is revealing that one of the first job advertisements for residents of Jamestown, Virginia, England was for “two brewers” to join them and make beer. Like the Americans, the ancient Egyptians loved their beer. It was only when the Romans, who were very fond of wine and bread, made Egypt the bread basket of the Roman Empire that breweries were replaced by granaries. With that, the Egyptian beer recipes were lost – but perhaps this new discovery will help unlock the secrets of the ancient beer industry. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories to your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside delves deeper into the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
