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Iron Age Irish Beer?

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I

imipak

NewBee
Registered Member
Dec 9, 2006
16
0
1
56
Portland, OR, USA
The BBC is reporting that researchers have reverse-engineered an Iron Age Irish beer, and that it tastes excellent. I assume that the BBC verified the latter part of the claim. However, what was not included was either the recipe or a link to where a person could obtain it.

Does anyone know more about this research and what the recipe was?

(For that matter, researchers have deciphered hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt for the making of truly ancient beer. Again, no recipe has ever been posted, as far as I know, only the claim as to how good it was. Has anyone been teaching these guys the easy way to drive a homebrewer ever so slightly insane?)
 
Although very interesting, some questions come to mind.

First, from the photos, they used a thermometer to determine the correct mash temperature. If they were attempting to recreate the flavor and abv of a Bronze Age beer, then the determination of temperature should be done by feel, rather than digital readout.

Second, also from the photos, did they make bread from the gruel? If they did, and it had enough starch and gluten in it to make dough, then their extraction rate was very poor indeed.

Third, boiling to sterilise (sanitize - search for discussion on this topic) was not understood back in the Bronze Age as far as we know. Would they have boiled the wort back then, or just let it cool down from that point?

Fourth, adding bakers yeast? Did they know about yeast? From descriptions of the brewing of beer in other countries, the family "stiring stick" was the magic that got the fermentation going. Yeast was completely unkown. Surely, to really recreate the recipe, they should have allowed the natural yeasts from the air and whatever herbs they added to get the thing fermenting?

Did make me thirsty for a beer though.

Cheers,

Angus
 
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