Posts tagged beer

"The Sumerians were so serious about their beer that they had their own deity devoted to the beverage named Ninkasi. Ninkasi…

beer, history, Sumeria, Ninkasi, hymn, recipe

“The Sumerians were so serious about their beer that they had their own deity devoted to the beverage named Ninkasi. Ninkasi was the goddess of beer and alcohol, who brewed the beverage daily to to “satisfy the desire” and “sate the heart.” One of the earliest known devotions to Ninkasi was a hymn written on clay tablets dating to 1,800 BC. Called “The Hymn to Ninkasi” it was more than just a devotional script or prayer, it was a detailed recipe and procedure for making beer”

Reinheitsgebot

Reinheitsgebot, beer, brewing, fermentation, preservatives, history, law, regulation

Medieval brewers had used many problematic ingredients to preserve beers, including, for example soot and fly agaric mushrooms. More commonly, other “gruit” herbs had been used, such as stinging nettle and henbane. Indeed, the German name of the latter, Bilsenkraut, may originally mean “Plzeň herb”, indicating that this region was a major centre of beer brewing long before the invention of (Reinheitsgebot-compliant) Pilsener.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot

The Archaeology of Beer

fermentation, archeology, beer, wine, mead, grog, kvasir, ancient beverages

“We always start with infrared spectrometry,” he says. “That gives us an idea of what organic materials are preserved.” From there, it’s on to tandem liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry, sometimes coupled with ion cyclotron resonance, and solid-phase micro-extraction gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. The end result? A beer recipe.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/01/the-archaeology-of-beer/355732/