Overall, the OECD’s recent report on Ireland’s environmental performance, part of their Economic Survey of Ireland 2009 which was published yesterday (available online as a pdf here), presents a reasonably positive review of the achievements here over the past few years. Indeed the report highlights the fact that ‘Ireland generally has good air and water quality’ and that ‘Energy intensity, or energy use per unit of GDP, is the lowest among OECD countries’.
However, there are a significant number of challenges to be faced, and water quality and efficiency of distribution is not the least of these challenges, as our Galway readers will be only too well aware.
With reported water loss due to leakage in Galway City at almost 50% and the county faring almost as badly, compounded by recent water quality crises in the city and county, it’s clear that water quality and conservation are two of the major challenges facing the region over the coming years. Galway City’s cryptosporidium outbreaks of 2002 and 2007, as well as elevated lead levels in the water supply (Old Mervue) are specifically mentioned in the review. In this context, the OECD report recommends incentives for more efficient use of water resources by introducing charges to households. It seems to me that, given the fact that development levy finance has entirely dried up, and other local authority revenue streams have collapsed, the only way for our local authorities to ensure a safe and efficient water supply in the coming decade is to charge householders this levy. As it is, Ireland is the only OECD country that does not do so.
It will not be easy for our political representatives to convince the public of the need for charges and any charges that may be introduced will have to be carefully priced. Launching the report, Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General, had this to say about charges:
‘Coming from Mexico I am very aware of the social concerns that exist about charging people, especially poor people, for their use of water. But there are ways to target support to poorer households to ensure that they have adequate access to water services. Based on past OECD work, countries have used a variety of means for this purpose, including income support, vouchers to cover the cost of a certain amount of water consumption, or volumetric charging where the initial amounts are free or low-cost. Not charging for water use is effectively a subsidy for richer households. It undermines the financial viability of water utilities, and results in inefficient use of this increasingly scarce resource.’
Let’s hope that the Government doesn’t consider privatisation….
Via the IAI:
Tara – From the Past to the Future hosted by the UCD School of Archaeology will take place this weekend in the John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies. Featuring forty papers by an international group of scholars, the symposium promises to be the most extensive review of the archaeology of Tara undertaken to date. It focuses on the data from the two excavation volumes but extends to a wider consideration of research undertaken at Tara over the past twenty years.
Late registrations will be accepted at the launch on Friday and on each day of the symposium. The cost, which includes lunch and snacks is
€140 – weekend
€70 – weekend student
€50 – day rate
€25 – day rate student
The symposium will be streamed live via the web and facilities are available for listeners to ask question via the symposium email address tara.symposium@ucd.ie. As the programme is compact, only a small proportion of questions will be relayed to the symposium auditorium.
More Info at
http://www.ucd.ie/archaeology/tarasymposium2009/
Part four of Dining and Dwelling publication (Part one here, part two here and part three here)
CONCLUSION
So, what is the evidence for brewing? First, the experiment worked. Fermentation caused by wind-blown yeast even occurred in the leftover mash in the trough within a few hours. Secondly, a number of quern-stones have been found in association with fulachta fiadh (e.g. Hegarty 2005)—indicating that grain processing was taking place nearby. Furthermore the fact that hot-rock brewing was carried out to an industrial level until the early part of the last century testifies to the efficiency of the process.
But what of the physical evidence, should not excavated fulachta fiadh contain archaeobotanical remains indicative of malted barley? It is our contention that the spent grain even after mashing had its uses and would not have been dumped, rather it was treated as a valuable resource and may have been recycled to make bread or as brewers do to the present day, given to animals as fodder.
The grain normally found on archaeological sites is usually charred and survives due to its carbonised state making it less susceptible to decay. Charred grain has no nutritional value and certainly has no place in brewing as it would spoil a beer mash.
Ordinary malted grain after mashing is reduced to a non-starchy material consisting of a cellulose pulp comprising the hull and pericarp (the tissue around the seeds). This pulp still contains sugar residues and given its de-natured state and its high water content is more vulnerable to microbiological decay if left exposed to the elements. In the archaeological record, given the time frame, this evidence would be entirely ephemeral. Indeed, our own experience in dumping spent grain in Billy’s backyard, although hardly scientific, was telling—within a matter of three months the dumped grain (approximately 125 kg) had disappeared and it was practically impossible to determine the exact dumping spot. The spent grain was eaten by animals, birds or vermin or simply decayed.
In conclusion, beer at its most basic is fermented liquid bread and is a highly nutritious beverage. Our ancestors would have consumed ale on a daily basis as a healthy, uncontaminated, comfort drink. But this does not preclude the fact that in the long Bronze Age evenings and nights, family groups likely sat around a blazing fire telling tales, interacting socially and enjoying the wellbeing and genial companionship that ale enhances. We suggest that the fulacht fiadh was possibly multifunctional, the kitchen sink of the Bronze Age, with many conceivable uses but for us, however, a primary use seems clear—these sites were Bronze Age micro-breweries.
Enjoying the fruits of our labour
REFERENCES
Barclay, G.J & Russell White, C.J. 1993 Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Vol 123, 1993, p. 42.
Brown, P 2003 Man Walks into a Pub. Macmillan, London.
Civil, M 1964 ‘A Hymn to the Beer Goddess and a Drinking Song’, Studies Presented to A. Leo Oppenheim, June 7, 1964. The Oriental institute of the University of Chicago, 1964
Cotter,C. Western Stone Fort Project, Discovery Programme Reports Vol. 1, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, P.13.
Dineley, M 2004 Barley, Malt and Ale in the Neolithic. Archaeopress, Oxford.
Dudley, R 2004 ‘Ethanol, fruit ripening, and the historical origins of human alcoholism in primate frugivory’, Integrative and Comparative Biology, Vol. 44, No. 4, 315–323.
Dudley, R & Stephens, D 2004 ‘The drunken monkey hypothesis: the study of fruit-eating animals could lead to an evolutionary understanding of human alcohol abuse’, Natural History, December 2004.
Griffiths, I 2007 Beer and cider in Ireland. Liberties Press, Dublin.
Haggarty, A 1991 Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Vol 121, 1991, p. 51.
Hegarty, L 2005 ‘A saddle quern discovered on Site 43, in Balyduff East, on the route of the N25 Waterford City Bypass’, in J O’Suliivan & M Stanley (eds), Recent Archaeological Discoveries on National Road Schemes 2004, 45–50. Archaeology and the National Roads Authority Monograph Series No. 2. National Roads Authority, Dublin.
Connellan O, 1846 Annála ríoghachta Éireann. The Annals of Ireland, translated from the original Irish of the four masters, with annotations by P. MacDermott, M.D. (Dublin: Published by Bryan Geraghty 1846) [copy presented by J. L. Richardson, 1963 in Marsh’s Library.
Hornsey, I 2003 ‘A History of Beer and Brewing’ RSC Paperbacks, Cambridge, P.194.
McGovern et al, 2004 ‘Fermented Beverages of Pre- and Proto-Historic China’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. USA, 2004.
Michel, R.H., McGovern, P.E. & Badler, V.R. 1992 Nature, Vol 24, 360.
Nelson, M 2005 The Barbarian’s Beverage: a history of beer in ancient Europe. Routledge, New York.
O’Kelly, M J 1954 ‘Excavations and experiments in ancient Irish cooking places’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 84, 105–55.
Ó Néill, J 2004 ‘Lapidibus in igne calefactis coquebatur: the historical burnt mound tradition‘, The Journal of Irish Archaeology, Vols 12 & 13, 2003–4, 79–85.
Quinn, B & Moore, D 2007 ‘Ale brewing and fulachta fiadh’, Archaeology Ireland, Vol. 21, No. 3, 8–17.
Sparrow, J 2005 Wild Brews: beer beyond the influence of brewer’s yeast. Brewers Publications, Boulder.
INTERNET RESOURCES
St. Brigid and the Bathwater.
Internet resource, accessed March 2008.
http://zythophile.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/st-brigid-and-the-bathwater/
Odin’s glass of Nectar
Internet resource, accessed April 2007
www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-000103.html
Sahti – A remnant of Finland’s Rustic Past, Ilkka Sysila.
Internet resource, accessed April 2007
www.brewingtechniques.com/library/styles/6_4style.html
St Patrick and Mescan
Internet resource, accessed April 2007
www.mohurley.blogspot.com/2009/03/from-annals-of-4-masters-st-patrick.html
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We acknowledge the assistance and advice of Merryn and Graham Dineley, Max Nelson, The Hooker Brewing Company, Pete Brown, Libby Best and Maree Daffy, Moore Group and everyone else who helped.
Part three of Dining and Dwelling publication (Part one here, and part two here)
Our first brewing experiment was carried out at Billy’s home in Headford, Co. Galway, in August 2007. In an effort to make the experiment authentic the equipment had to be basic. For the mash tun we used an old, leaky, wooden cattle trough that measured 1.7 m in length, 0.7 m in width with a depth of 0.65 m (roughly consistent with the average trough dimensions from excavated fulachta fiadh). To make the trough watertight the seams were caulked with moss, a technique used by Bronze Age boat builders. The trough was then lowered into a ready-made pit and the edges backfilled. Water was then added. Despite some initial leakage the water in the trough eventually reached a natural level by simply flooding the immediate area. When filled to a depth of 0.55 m, the trough held 350 litres.
In choosing the stones for heating we consciously avoided limestone, as most fulachta fiadh are made up of non-limestone material. As O’Kelly (1954,122) observed, heated limestone on contact with water turns to calcium hydroxide, known as ‘milk of lime’, and is dangerous to ingest. Interestingly, during the excavations at Dún Aenghus on the Aran Islands, which geologically is a natural extension of the Burren, a trough was discovered with burnt granite cobbles scattered roundabout (Cotter 1993, P.13). Given the lack of granite on the island these ancient people obviously went to a lot of trouble to source this stone either by breaking up glacial erratics or travelling by boat to south Connemara. For the purposes of our experiment we used a mix of granite and sandstone from Clonbur, Co. Galway.
For our Bronze Age brewer stage one in the process after harvesting and winnowing the barley crop, would have involved artificially promoting growth by placing the grain in a textile bag or perforated leather container within a stream, allowing the grains to saturate and swell. This would result in the growth of a sprout or ‘acrospire’, visible as a rootlet at the base of the grain. At this point the grain is stunted by drying and rolling the grain in hot stones to make a starch-rich, roasted malted barley. The malt is then ready for grinding. In prehistoric times this would have been done with a saddle or rotary quern (grain which has been malted is far more suitable for grinding than unmalted grain that would still have a water content). Our malted barley (50 kg) was provided by Aidan Murphy, a master brewer with the Galway Hooker Brewing Company. The barley arrived unmilled and for reasons of convenience and expediency we crushed it using an electrical food processor. Aidan also supplied us with wet yeast from his brewery. If time permitted we could have made a simple yeast by kneading a hole in some dough adding water and leaving it exposed resulting in the formation of a yeast cake. However, yeast is notoriously volatile and we were content to use a known species.
Hot Stones
These ancient ‘wild’ beers would have been spontaneously fermented by particular combinations of local wild yeasts and micro-organisms as well as local plant and herb flavourings. In all likelihood they may have been somewhat tart, sour and acidic in taste, more like the Lambic beers of Belgium or contemporary Flanders red brown ales (Sparrow 2005, 5).
Echoing the role of air borne yeast the Norse sagas have it that Odin (the chief god in Norse paganism), disguised himself as an eagle and spilled the secret of beer from the sky. Furthermore, in Scandinavia and the Orkneys there is a tradition that early brewers realising that by reusing a stick they had stirred previous brews with, they could activate fermentation in subsequent worts, such sticks became valued items and it was not uncommon for them to be willed from one generation to the next. One can imagine that in prehistoric times these ‘wands’ impregnated with living yeast cells would have been invested with a spiritual potency. Indeed, a shaman or druid using the transformative powers of these ‘wands’ could be likened to Christ at Cana changing the water into wine.
To begin brewing our prehistoric beer, stones were heated in a wood fire for roughly two hours until superheated before being transferred into the water trough. After 15–20 minutes we achieved our optimum temperature of 60–70°C. This temperature can be identified by observing the surface of the water. As the water heats it becomes thinner and gently steams becoming glassy and mirror still. The ideal temperature is when the reflection is clearest. At this point we half submerged a wicker basket in the trough and began adding our barley and stirring it vigorously. Over a period of 45 minutes, maintaining a fairly constant temperature with the addition of occasional heated stones, our water transformed into a sweet smelling, syrupy wort. Even at this stage the nutritional value of the beverage was obvious. If we had decided to add milk, the resultant concoction would be similar to modern-day Horlicks or could have been served as gruel.
Heating the water
After completing the conversion of starches to sugar, ascertained by tasting the wort, we brought the mixture to a boil and then decanted it into fermentation vessels. We used plastic containers with a total capacity of 75 litres. In later experiments we used two Bronze Age replica urn-style pottery vessels, each with a capacity of 30 litres. The containers were then cooled in a bath of cold water before we added 350 ml of wet yeast. To counter the sweetness of the wort and lend the beer a more recognisable bitter taste we added seasonal flavourings sourced near Billy’s house. These included sprigs of bog myrtle, juniper berries and yarrow wrapped in muslin and suspended into the wort. Within eight to nine hours after cooling, the wort audibly began to bubble. Fermentation took place over the course of a week before the beer was ready for bottling. The end result was a relatively clear, copper-coloured brew with a sharp, yet sweet , taste. The hot rocks had imparted a slightly smoky caramelised flavour making it eminently drinkable. Friends and family likened it to wheat beer and compared it favourably to home kit brews.
Optimum temperature
Our beer could best be described as a gruit ale, an old-fashioned herb mixture used for bittering and flavoring beer, popular before the extensive use of hops.
We discovered that the process of brewing beer in a fulacht fiadh using hot-rock technology was entirely feasible. The production took only a few hours, followed by a week allowing for fermentation. Three hundred litres of water was transformed into a very palatable 110 litres of ale with minimal effort. The spent grain provided the ingredients for a dozen malt loaves and the rest was used as cattle fodder. Other than the shattered stone and the remains of the fire, there was little detritus.
NEXT POST: CONCLUSION AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
Part two of Dining and Dwelling publication (Part one here)
THE GREAT MYSTERY OF PREHISTORIC BREWING.
In prehistoric times until the late Iron Age, metallurgy was limited to small hand tools and high-status items. Throughout prehistoric Europe one of the main challenges for the brewer (in the absence of suitable metal containers) was heating large volumes of water to make a wort (see below). Indeed, given that brewing until the modern era was a home-based industry, sufficiently large metal mash tuns (watertight containers) were uneconomical. So how could people brew without the application of direct heat? Hot rocks are the most logical means.
A simple web search gave us some quick answers. Today the only commercial hot-rock brewery in the world (as far as we know) is Boscos Brewery in Nashville. Here the master brewer uses Colorado Pink Granite to heat the mash. The stones are heated in a brick oven and added to the mash – in a process known as decoction, whereby the temperature is gradually raised over a period of time. Further evidence of hot rock brewing comes from Finland where Sahti, a vernacular unhopped ale is still served at rural feasts. Again the ale is prepared by immersing hot rocks into a wooden mash tun; the resulting wort is then flavoured by filtering it through juniper branches. The brewing of Sahti has been traced back over 500 years. Although Sahti is specifically linked to Finland, ales using similar brewing methods were brewed throughout the Baltic States and as far south as Ossetia in modern Georgia.
Boscos Head Brewer and Founding Partner Chuck Skypeck brews Stone Beer
With so many comparative ancient and contemporary processes involving pits in the ground or wooden troughs and hot-rock brewing technology, the not unreasonable conclusion we reached was that fulachta fiadh would make ideal micro-breweries.
SO HOW DO YOU BREW A PREHISTORIC BEER?
Beer at its simplest requires the following ingredients : milled, malted grain (preferably barley but wheat will do), copious amounts of reasonably clean water, yeast to aid fermentation and herbal flavouring. The latter ingredient is not an essential component in brewing but traditionally bitter tasting, dried leaves were added to counter the sweetness of the brew and increase palatability. At the processing stage the conditions and equipment required are a preparation area for malting (an aired, indoor floor space where the saturated grain can be dried and lightly roasted), firewood for heating stones, a large, watertight wooden container or mash tun, a paddle for stirring and some earthenware fermentation vessels.
The fundamentals of brewing necessitate converting the starch in the malted grains into soluble sugars. This is achieved by adding the milled, malted grain into a container of hot water heated to a temperature of approximately 67°C. This mix is then mashed or agitated using a paddle producing a glucose-rich syrupy solution known as a wort. The wort is then transferred into storage vessels where the yeast and flavourings are added and allowed to stand for several days where fermentation will naturally occur. During this stage the brew begins to fizz and froth as the active yeast devours the sugars and excretes alcohol. When the fizzing subsides the fermentation is complete and the end product is unhopped ale.
Hot-rock technology has been used by primitive communities throughout the world and involves heating fist-sized stones in a fire, removing them with a tongs or a fork and then dropping them into a water vessel. In a brewing context this process became known in Germany as ‘stein beer’ (stone beer). Indeed up until recently Rauchenfels Brewery in Marktoberdorf, Bavaria, revived this tradition by using heated Graywacke to make their own distinctive beer. This dark sandstone resists shattering under the stress of super heating and is quick to cool—ideal for brewing. A beer reviewer had this to say about their product:
‘The use of stones imparts wonderfully smoky, toffeeish notes to Steinbrau. When the hot rocks are added to the brew kettle (which is made from metal these days), some of the malt sugars will be caramelized right onto the stone surface. The stones, heated in a beechwood fire, will impart their own smokiness to the beer.’
NEXT POST: OUR BREW
Last year Billy and Declan gave a presentation at the National Roads Authority’s annual archaeology seminar about the fulacht beer theory. You can see a video of the presentation here. The resultant monograph Dining and Dwelling has just been published by the NRA and is available through bookshops or directly from Wordwell Book Sales, Wordwell Limited, Media House, South County Business Park, Leopardstown, Dublin 18 (tel: +353 1 2947860; email: helen@wordwellbooks.com).
The publishers have kindly permited us to republish our piece here. We’ll post it in parts over the coming week or so as it’s quite big. For those who’ve been reading about the beer there’s some stuff you’ve already heard about but we have added a lot more background and detail. So here’s part one:
FULACHTA FIADH AND THE BEER EXPERIMENT
Billy Quinn and Declan Moore
Fulachta fiadh, or burnt mounds, generally date from the Bronze Age and are one of the most widespread of Irish field monuments, perhaps numbering up to 5,000. Of the 500 or so sites currently entered in the NRA Archaeological Database (http://www.nra.ie/Archaeology/NRAArchaeologicalDatabase/ last accessed 20 August 2008), 28% are fulachta fiadh (with associated features) or burnt mounds/spreads (no associated features). To date, they have been excavated on road schemes in 18 counties, in all provinces. Typically, a fulacht fiadh site is defined by a low, horseshoe-shaped mound. Upon excavation the mound consists of charcoal-enriched soil and heat-shattered stone around a central trough.
The name derives from Geoffrey Keating’s 17th-century manuscript Foras Feasa ar Éirinn and as a complete term does not appear in any early manuscripts (Ó Néill, 2004). Conventional wisdom, based largely on Professor M J O’Kelly’s 1952 experiments in Ballyvourney, Co. Cork, suggests that they were used for cooking (ibid.; O’Kelly 1954). Alternative theories that have been proposed include bathing, dyeing, fulling and tanning. It is, however, generally agreed that their primary function was to heat water by depositing fired stones into a water-filled trough. In this paper we would like to explore a further hypothesis, reported previously elsewhere (Quinn & Moore 2007); namely, were some fulachta fiadh prehistoric micro-breweries?
SO WHERE DOES BEER COME INTO IT?
In order to answer this we have to look into the natural history and archaeology of intoxication. The inebriation of animals has been documented anecdotally (Dudley 2004), but has received little scientific attention. There is evidence from around the world of animals experiencing drunkenness as a result of consuming overripe fruit containing yeast (producing ethanol) resulting, unsurprisingly, in inebriation.
Indeed, what may have been drunken behaviour by Howler Monkey’s in Panama’s Barro Colorado Island was observed by Dustin Stephens, leading Stephens and Robert Dudley of the University of California, Berkeley, to the preliminary conclusion that ‘preference for and excessive consumption of alcohol by modern humans might accordingly result from pre-existing sensory biases associating ethanol with nutritional reward’ (Dudley & Stephens 2004, 318). Put simply, the so-called Drunken Monkey Hypothesis suggests that natural selection favoured primates with a heightened sense of smell for psychoactive ethanol, indicative of ripe fruit, who would thus have been more successful in obtaining nutritious fruit!
Early hunter-gatherers had an intimate knowledge of the environment around them and the effects of naturally occurring intoxicants, but the discovery of fermentation may simply have been a happy accident involving overripe fruit. However, as agriculture took root, barley and wheat became plentiful, which in turn provided good substrates for beer or ale.
There’s no argument that people were drinking beer throughout the world in prehistory. As Pete Brown says in Man Walks into a Pub (2003), ‘even elephants eat fermenting berries deliberately to get p*****d and we are much more cleverer than them [sic]’.
Recent chemical analyses of residues in pottery jars from a Neolithic village in Northern China revealed evidence of a mixed fermented beverage from as early as 9,000 years ago (McGovern et al, 2004). Clear chemical evidence for brewing in Sumeria at Godin Tepe (in modern day Iran) comes from fermentation vessels where there were pits in the ground noted by the excavators (Michel et al, 1992). In the Hymn to Ninkasi (Civil, 1964) by a Sumerian poet (dated 1800 BC) and found written on a clay tablet is one of the most ancient recipes for brewing beer using pits in the ground:
‘You are the one who handles the dough,
[and] with a big shovel,
Mixing in a pit, the bappir with sweet aromatics’
In north-western Europe there is evidence of Neolithic brewing at Balbirnie in Scotland and at Machrie Moor, Arran where organic residue impregnated in sherds of Grooved Ware pottery were described as ‘perhaps the residues of either mead or ale’ (Hornsey,2003, 194). . Based on the highly decorated, beaker-shaped pottery vessels characteristic of the Bronze Age Beaker Culture it has even been suggested that Beaker people traded in some sort of alcoholic beverage and that the beakers may have been high-status drinking vessels.
Regarding Ireland, the first known reference to beer is in 1 AD (Griffiths 2007, 11), when Dioscorides (a Greek Medical writer) refers to ‘kourmi’ (a plain beer, probably made from barley) although Max Nelson relates this as a reference to Britain (Nelson 2005, 51, 64). Much later, Saint Patrick appears with ‘the priest Mescan . . . his friend and his brewer’. Perhaps unsurprisingly Patrick considers his friend and brewer to be ‘without evil’ (Annal M448.2).
As Zythophile points out in his post ‘St. Brigid and the Bathwater’ in the blog ‘Zythophile’, ale was an important part of Irish society. He notes that the Crith-Gablach (a 7th Century legal poem), for example, declared that the ‘seven occupations in the law of a king’ were:
‘Sunday, at ale drinking, for he is not a lawful flaith [lord] who does not distribute ale every Sunday; Monday, at legislation, for the government of the tribe; Tuesday, at fidchell [a popular early medieval board game]; Wednesday, seeing greyhounds coursing; Thursday, at the pleasures of love; Friday, at horse-racing; Saturday, at judgment.’
Sundays and Tuesdays must have been particularly taxing.
The following jumped out and we were surprised we hadn’t noticed it:
‘A record of a fire at the monastry of Clonard … around AD787 speaks of grain stored in ballenio, literally ‘in a bath’, which seems to mean the grain being soaked as part of the initial processes of malting.’
Zythophile suggests that what St Brigid drew off may have been water from the ballenium where the grain was steeping in the first stage of malt-making.
NEXT POST: THE GREAT MYSTERY OF PREHISTORIC BREWING
To date there have been 10, 650 views of the fulacht video on YouTube (produced by BigYes). Later this week we’ll be attending the launch of ‘Dining and Dwelling’ – the 6th monograph in the NRA monograph series, which will see the formal publication of our beer theory. Here’s a flavour of the comments from YouTube. You can view the video on our YouTube channel at this link:
elpoulpo (2 years ago)
Awesome video ! My brewmate and I constantly argue about technical details for the best pico-brewing design and then THIS ! The beauty of the simplicity. Thanks a million!
BeeRich33 (2 years ago)
Measure your starting gravity and terminal gravity, you can find out what ABV you achieved.
MadLuplin (1 year ago)
When did you add the bog myrtle and other herbs?
moorearchaeology (1 year ago)
We added the yeast after cooling the wort in a bath for 3/4 hours and then, three days later, when the yeast had taken, we added the herbal ingredients by suspending the ground herbs in a muslin bag in the fermenting vessel – after three – four days it was all ready. You can read more on the moore group blog!
Headwave (1 year ago)
Lads that’s only magic and 99% right! I reserve the other 1% for all the other uses they have; Wool & Linen dying, Leather Production, and tentatively, Bathing, Sauna, Sweat lodge, evaporation of herbs for Medicinal cures and washing the dog. Great film and thank the ancestors for experimental archaeology and people with the Ale gene.
chilcox (1 year ago)
Amazing video. Brewing beer can be a bit intimidating with all the “specific gravity” and “infusion mashing” talk. Jeez Louise, just make beer for Pete’s sake. It doesn’t have to be all that complicated. I like the fact that you weren’t at all concerned about “pH levels” or the “final gravity” or any of that esoteric nonsense. It tastes different every time…and you’re okay with that. Anyway, I really enjoyed it….same goes for the Moore Group website, lots of good info. Thanks for posting.
grofaz1939 (1 year ago)
F—in’ Magic and dead right on!
AllanCav (1 year ago)
Ha ha legends! I love the slurry arkeeollologicalal essplanashun at the end.
oxman0313 (9 months ago)
I would say that you are dead on. I think the irish made beer before anything. Go Beer.
jahfish42 (8 months ago)
Nice idea! But from all the excavated troughs, have we ever had grain in any quantity? Surely it would be spilt everywhere?
mooregroupgalway (8 months ago)
Have a look at our blog at wordpress – google moore groups blog – We’ve been asked this question before – click on the beer category – and you’ll find loads of info on it – anecdotally we’ve heard that even on sites where you would expect a great deal of grain residue there’s none.
jahfish42 (8 months ago)
Reply
now mead or something similar – now you’re talking – this mght leave no obvious residue. But then why the need for the trough…..
fjorukrain04 (6 months ago)Reply
it you used a trough buried in the ground it would keep the temperature more stable, it would also be at a better height for working. plus it you made legs for the hrough there is a chance of it tipping over, and in my mind there are very few things worse then spilling that much good beer
gargoylesama (7 hours ago)
The spent grain could have easily been fed to livestock. The local craft brewery here has a farmer that comes by and picks up the spent grain for his cows. Waste not want not was more than an idea in earlier periods. Sometimes it was a matter of survival.
juamei (8 months ago)
Reply
Beer done easy!
Where would the Bronze Age folk get the natural yeast from?
mooregroupgalway (8 months ago)
@juamei – Again, have a read of the blog for more info on the process – Yeast exists in the air – it’s entirely plausible that natural air-borne yeast can infect your wort. The first brew we did, we left the remains of the wort in the pit overnight and by the following day air-borne yeast was already acting on it. Yeast is everywhere, the secret of a good beer is finding the right one and ensuring consistency over time – google Belgian Lambic beer for a modern example.
gargoylesama (7 hours ago)
It is also known that they would use risen bread dough as a starter of sorts. Ale yeast and bread yeast are of the same genus and species, so it is not a far stretch
jstema (3 months ago)
mmmmmmmbeer
theplainsman6 (2 months ago)
“Give us the flaw”
What? Flaw? Beer and meat cooked on a stick? Flaw? What?
Sounds like a fucking barbeque to me.
Following a recent excursion to Belgium to investigate German trench positions in the vicinity of the the village of Messines, Declan asked if I would post an entry describing my experiences …here it is.
The excavations were directed by Martin Brown and Richard Osgood, two archaeologists working with the Defence estates in England. Both are involved with No Man’s Land – a European Group for Great War Archaeology that has been working on a seasonal basis in the area of Ploegstreet (Conmines and –Warneton), Belgium. They and their team of specialists, conservators, archaeologists and volunteers have been forensically investigating WW1 positions for the past number of years and have recently published a book “Digging Up Plugstreet” recording their findings. Youo can find lots more details on their blog here.
Work this year was concentrated on excavating a number of trenches in the vicinity of the Ultimo crater, the result of one of 19 mines that exploded beneath the German lines between 0300 and 0335 in the early morning of June 7th 1917. It is thought the mines killed in excess of 10,000 Germans and the sound of the successive detonations was heard as far away as London and Dublin. The explosions coincided with the front line troops being relieved so the large number of casualties can be accounted for by both sets of soldiers being caught up in the blast. Of the dead who were not immediately obliterated many were found with no evidence of direct trauma injuries, they were simply killed by the intensity of shock wave.
Following the explosions, the allies advanced on the Messines salient from three sides and secured their first objectives within hours. In the bloody litany of allied offensive failures the battle of Messines was a total success aided by the shock and devastation of the mines, a creeping artillery barrage, and a rapid ANZAC led advance.
To famously quote General Plumer on the night before the attack, “Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography.” And change it they did – today the ultimo crater is approximately 70ft wide and occupies a low ridge surrounded by a small copse of trees. It is now home to ducks and wading birds, its present pastoral setting at complete odds with its violent origins.
The excavation team was quartered in the Messines Peace Village hostel for the week and our working day began at 8.30am. Work officially finished at 5.30 but such was the crew’s enthusiasm that we rarely left the site earlier than 6pm. I’m glad to report that throughout the week we enjoyed excellent weather.
A total of 6 trenches were exposed, all with particular research objectives informed by previous excavations or more recent geophysical results. I, along with a team of 5 others under the supervision of the capable Avril, was despatched to dig a communications trench that zigzagged from a rear position to the front line. What struck me most was the extent of the upcast from the explosion. Thousands of tonnes of earth erupted into the air and the resulting infill preserved much of what wasn’t destroyed in the initial blast. Equally interesting was the sheer frequency of ferric litter. Iron fragments, shrapnel balls, driving bands from shells etc were evident in every shovel full. We found Mauser rounds spent and unspent, German stick grenades, and occasional Lee Enfield casings. As we dug down we exposed the cut of the German communication trench, defined not by any revetment but silt from puddling at the base as well as post holes and the faint ghost marks of duckboards. Running along the edge of the trench we also found communication cables and the possible remains of an electrical junction box. Elsewhere other trenches exposed fire trenches with heavy corrugate, a German concrete bunker, and a midden with some truly remarkable finds (I’m not going to steal the excavators thunder in describing them, but you can check out the Plugstreet blog for more details).
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- Excavations in progress in communications trench
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- Sandbag filled with spent cartridges
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- Ultimo Crater today
All in all the excavation produced a wealth of material and adds to the existing military narrative of the period. On a personal note I want to thank all of those involved for the kindness and friendliness I experienced in the nightly gatherings over a few beers in the peace park; and particularly to Martin and Richard who ran the project with such a light touch belying their thoroughly professional manner.
Okay: It’s not exactly TED. But anyway, here’s our (Billy & Dec’s) presentation at the 2008 NRA Seminar (Dining and Dwelling) which is due for publication next month.
Entitled: ‘Fulachta fiadh and the beer experiment: suggested future research strategies.’ Any Chinese viewers, please forgive Declan. Also note Erratum: Dr. Patrick McGovern, sometimes referred to as the Indiana Jones of beer, was until recently employed at the University of Pennsylvania Museum and not Minneapolis as Declan erroneously states.
Video courtesy NRA.
Via our daily Google Alert email we learned of some interesting research into ancient barley at the University of Warwick, where ‘boffins’ have recovered significant DNA information ‘from a lost form of ancient barley that triumphed for over 3000 years seeing off: 5 changes in civilisation, water shortages and a much more popular form of barley that produces more grains’.
The press release, which summarises a paper entitled “Archaeogenetic Evidence of Ancient Nubian Barley Evolution from Six to Two-Row Indicates Local Adaptation”, has just been published in PLoS One, although a search for the paper there was fruitless (if someone can point us to the paper we’d appreciate it)!
Written by Dr Robin Allaby, Sarah A. Palmer and Jonathan D. Moore from the University of Warwick’s plant research arm Warwick HRI; Alan J. Clapham from Worcestershire Historic Environment & Archaeology Service at the University of Worcester; and Pamela Rose fromThe McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, it describes the results of their examination of archaeobotanical remains of ancient barley at Qasr Ibrim in Egypt’s Upper Nile.
Qasr Ibrim was once a cliff-top fortress standing at the edge of the Nile in what is now the far south of Egypt, in the region known as Lower Nubia. Today, it is a tiny island in Lake Nasser, the lake created by the construction of the Aswan High Dam some forty years ago.
Photo used under Creative Commons from Chericbaker
According to Wikipedia ‘human habitation at the site dates from the Late Kingdom (the last flowering of native Egyptian rulers after the Third Intermediate Period from the 26th Saite Dynasty into Persian conquests ending with the death of Alexander the Great. It ran from 664 BC until 323 BC.) but it reached its greatest prominence in the Middle Ages. Qasr Ibrim is the source of the largest collection of Old Nubian documents ever found. The site was occupied for over 3000 years by 5 successive cultures: Napatan, Roman, Meoitic, Christian and Islamic (more info on Qasr Ibrim here).
According to the press release;
‘The first surprise for the researchers was that throughout that period every culture seemed to be growing a two rowed form of barley. While natural wild barley tends to be two rowed most farmers prefer to grow a much higher yield 6 row version which produces up to 3 times as many grains. That 6 row version has grown for over 8000 years and that was certainly grown in the lower Nile over the same period as Qasr Ibrim was occupied. It was thought that despite the fact that the rest of Egypt used 6 row barley that the farmers of Qasr Ibrim were perhaps deliberately choosing to import 2 rowed barley but the researchers could not understand why that would be so.
The plant scientists were pleased to find that the very dry conditions at Qasr Ibrim meant that they were able to extract a great deal of DNA information from barley samples from the site that dated back 2900 years. This was far better than would normally be expected from barley samples of that age. This led to the researchers to a second and much bigger surprise. They found that the DNA evidence showed that the two rowed barley at the site wasn’t the normal wild two eared barley but a mutation of the more normally cultivated six rowed barley that had changed into a two ear form that had continued to be cultivated for around three millennia.
“There may have been a natural selection pressure that strongly favoured the two-row condition. One such possible cause we are currently investigating is water stress. Qasr Ibrim is located in the upper Nile which is very arid relative to the lower Nile where six-row remains are found, and studies have shown that two-row can survive water stress better than six-row”’
Dr Robin Allaby concludes that:
“This finding has two important implications. Such strong selection pressure is likely to have affected many genes in terms of adaptation. Archaeogenetic study of the DNA of such previously lost ancient crops could confirm the nature of the selection pressure and be very valuable in the development of new varieties of crops to help with today’s climate change challenges. Secondly this crop’s rediscovery adds to our respect for the methods and thinking of ancient farmers. These ancient cultures utilized crops best suited to their environmental situation for centuries, rather than the much more popular six rowed barley they used a successful low grain number yield crop which could cope far better with water stress.”
We’d venture to suggest that the authors have a look at brewing techniques.com here.
Particularly this bit:
‘It is widely believed that two-row barleys are the best barleys for malting and brewing. In fact, outside North America most of the world’s brewing nations exclusively use two-row barley for malt. Six-row barleys, if produced overseas at all, are largely used only for feed.’
Or this bit:
‘The historical preference for two-row barley is based on the fact that two-row barley yields malts with 1-2% greater theoretical extract, meaning that brewers can brew more beer..’
Or this table:
And as the people at brewing techniques point out – it should be mentioned that every barley cultivar, whether six-row or two-row, can have distinct effects on the organoleptic (flavor, aroma, color) characteristics of beer. Two-row malts are generally believed to yield a mellower flavor (our emphasis).
Perhaps there’s a very good reason why the researchers have discounted selection in order to produce a better beer. But at first glance it seems to be a very simple solution to the mystery as to why these ancient Egyptian farmers specifically choose to grow the 2 row variant.
Addendum: Via a third party we’re told that Alan Clapham, one of the paper’s authors, thinks it is more likely that it was environmental pressures that forced them into using two row barley (and he points out that it is six row barley which has reverted to two row) – the arid nature of the site -but suggests we have a look at the work of Delwen Samuel on her experimental brewing at Tell el-Amarna. Apparently the product of this experiment was once produced commercially by Scottish and Newcastle.
Additionally, the full article we were referring to is available here…
