Would you drink a beer made from 3,000-year-old yeast?
Craft’s new frontier is ancient beer. Archaeologists and scientists are partnering with brewers to use the yeast from archaeological dig sites to make unique craft beer. An article in anthropology magazine Sapiens details Biratenu bar in Jerusalem taking a sip of beer made with yeast from a 3,000-year-old archaeological site. The article reads: “This feat demonstrated that the microorganisms driving fermentation had managed to reproduce and survive for thousands of years. It also settled any debate over the vessels’ purpose — confirming that the jugs with strainers once stored beer for the Philistines some three millennia ago.” Though wine is the historically recorded drink of choice for historians, “beer is telling us about everything from gender roles to agriculture,” says archaeologist Marie Hopwood.
Read more (Sapiens)