What did the ancient Egyptians drink? A question you might not ask yourself on a daily basis but one that greatly interested Dylan McDonnell, a homebrewer and nonprofit manager. By combining an almost 3,000-year-old strain of yeast and an over 3,500-year-old recipe, he brewed a beer that is very likely to have once been enjoyed by the ancient Egyptians.
McDonnell, who lives in a town called Millcreek, in the American state of Utah, got interested in the subject when he read about a man baking sourdough bread using a 4,500-year-old yeast strain. With a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies and a keen interest in homebrewing, he had all the knowledge he needed to find out whether or not the same would be possible with beer brewing.
To get started, McDonnell read the 20-metre long Ebers Papyrus. The Egyptian text dates back to around 1,550 BC and contains hundreds of medicinal recipes, 75 of which reference beers. The homebrewer put all the ingredients in those recipes in a spreadsheet and finally decided on using the eight most common ones for his experiment. Egyptian balsam fruit (desert dates), Yemeni Sidr honey, sycamore figs, black cumin, juniper berries, Israeli golden raisins, carob fruit and frankincense made for an interesting starting point.
Then, he went looking for the yeast. As it turned out, a German company called Primer’s Yeast specialised in the matter. By bringing together archaeologists, microbiologists and other experts, they resurrect ancient yeast strains. The one used by McDonnell was taken from a piece of pottery in Israel and dated back to approximately 850 BC, when the Philistines used it to make their own beer.
Once he collected all his ingredients, McDonnell started brewing the beer. In order to make around 40 litres, he paid 1,000 dollars, which makes the ancient brew around five times pricier than other home brews. However, it was totally worth the expense according to the history fanatic, who named the concoction Sinai Sour.
“It’s cool”, McDonnell said in an interview with KTVX’s Jonathan May. “Three thousand years ago, there was some guy in Egypt that was likely putting the same ingredients into a pot and boiling it with the hope of making the same thing.”
In case you’re wondering what such a special beer would taste like, Chris Detrick, a brewer at Salt Lake City’s Level Crossing Brewing Company got the chance to taste it. “It’s a little bit rustic, maybe a little bit farmhouse-y, but it’s still bright and citrusy. But that sourness, it’s not too much of a sour lactic acidity that you take one sip and you’re done; it’s really refreshing, and I want another sip after that”, he told local newspaper the Salt Lake Tribune. Overall, the beer has a slightly salty taste quite similar to German Gose beer. It doesn’t contain any hops, contains around 5 percent alcohol and presents floral taste notes.
