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Ogol, Ethiopian Mead

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lostnbronx

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I came across a paper today on the isolation of a newly identified S. cerevisiae strain from an indiginous Ethiopian mead called ogol. While the info on the new strain was interesting, it is also moot for most of us in the world (the strain is currently undergoing research in Tokyo for possible applications in the brewing industry there, and will not likely be available in the U.S. for many years, if ever -- so unless you have connections in the Japanese brewing industry, or are planning a trip sometime soon to the Gambella Region of Ethiopia, you aren't likely to get a sample to play with).

What really interested me was the the described process of making ogol, various pieces of which I quote below, that clearly indicates that it is a true mead -- which we define as an alcoholic beverage made with fermented honey as its primary sugar -- as opposed to t'ej, which, as Miriam has shown, is more like a lambic-style beer backsweetened with honey, and not a true mead at all. The ethnic group that makes ogol, the Majangir, seem to be a relatively small part of the population, and therefore it seems unlikely to me that this exact mead is the honeywine of Ethiopia. More likely, it is a local version of a regional drink which spans ethnicities, cultures, and languages in this, and maybe other nearby African countries.

African Journal of Biotechnology, Vol. 4, No. 2, February 2005, pp. 160-163

Characteristics of fermentation yeast isolated from traditional Ethiopian honey wine, ogol

Accepted 20 December, 2005

Indigenous honey wine, known locally as ogol, was collected in a village of the Majangir ethnic group in Southwest Ethiopia, and the procedure for ogol fermentation was investigated.

The precise method for making ogol was determined during fieldwork in Southwest Ethiopia.

Procedure for ogol brewing

Four hundred ml of pulverized bark of the native tree, mange (Blighia unijungata Bak), 500 g of wild honey, and 1.5 l of fresh well water were mixed and incubated at room temperature in the tropical area for about 2 weeks or more to propagate the yeast and prepare a seed culture called bite (Figures 1 and 2). Mange was one of the plants of the honey source as well. The bark might provide some nutrition for yeast growth and chemical compounds that prevent microbial contamination and function as a kind of supporting material for the fermentation yeast.

Around 3 to 4 kg of wild honey containing beeswax and bodies of honeybees was diluted with well water to 10 to 12 l. Diluted wild honey was inoculated with bite as described above in a 15 l earthen pot. The pot was placed next to a dying fire to maintain the mixture at the proper fermentation temperature. Wax and other residues floating on the surface kept the fermentation more anaerobic, and the impurities in the wild honey served as yeast nutrients (Steinkraus, 1983).

After 1 night to 3 days, the fermented mash was ready to be drunk (Figure 3). It was strained to prepare the ogol. The residue composed of the bark and viable yeast cells was recycled to prepare bite for the next batch of ogol brewing. When recycled bark containing yeast cells was used, it took only 2 to 3 days to prepare the bite for the next batch.
Click to expand...

While ogol is likely not the definitive "Ethiopian Mead", it may well be one of several such being brewed locally throughout the region. How t'ej has come to be so completely (and apparently incorrectly) identified in this fashion also needs further investigation, I think. There's a massive amount of misinformation about t'ej in the (Western) mead community, and I can only hope that it will be dispelled at some point in the near future.

-David
 
lostnbronx said:
...or are planning a trip sometime soon to the Gambella Region of Ethiopia...
Click to expand...

I smell road trip!

Cool stuff David. Your research never ceases to aMAZE (pun intended obviously) me.
 
David,

I asked two Ethiopian ladies about ogol this morning, but they had never heard of it. However, that doesn't mean anything; the Ethiopians I know are Jewish, and they lived quite separately from the general population there. It's a big country, so I'm sure there are plenty of regional variations of home-brew.

Also, it's logical to assume that a number of different languages are spoken in Ethiopia, so maybe ogol is known by other names as well. I'll bet it is; the ingredients and method are so basic and so within the reach of anybody, even the poor - as long as they can get honey. And there is always the possibility that the foreigners investigating this can't pronounce what they heard: I've always wondered where that apostrophe in the Western idea of Tej came from. Ethiopians say it quickly, no pause for an apostrophe, just...tej.

Anyway, that was very interesting, David. I was intrigued by the use of tree bark to help fermentation. The Ethiopians I know say the same of the Gesho tree. They use the bark or the leaves. What I obtained here was dried leaves. Next week I'll ask my Tej mentor, Esther, what she knows of Southwestern Ethiopia; who lives there and what kind of people they are. Opened up a new window, you did. :D

Miriam
 
Thanks for posting this David!

I'm at work right now, catching the spare moment here and there to see what's happening on the forums. I just printed out the paper and will have to read through it later.

Interestingly, Garth Cambray, who runs a meadery in South Africa, has done research on the bushmen of Africa, the San people. Their way of making mead is to use the root of a succulent plant (plants that retain water such as cactii) to aid the fermentation since it harbors a yeast. The African practice of using plants such as bark or roots to aid the fermentation of a mead seems to be widespread, and probably very ancient. The San people are the oldest known culture in Africa.

I'll pass the URL of the paper on to Garth and let him know you were the source of it -- I'm sure he'll appreciate it.

On the amount of misinformation on Tej -- it's not limited to Tej alone. In general, there is a lot of poor information on the making of fermented beverages outside of Western culture and tradition. Most of what we know and are familiar with is drawn from Anglo-Saxon or Norse sources, yet meadmaking is a world wide practice. It's that familiarity that tends to distort what we know about non-Western fermented beverages.
 
I was in Ethiopia 7 years ago. AWESOME country, wonderful people.
I'm wondering what is the misinformation regarding Tej?
In my humble opinion, I think Tej is the same as Ogol. There are so many tribes and completely distinct languages in Ethiopia. Some words are shared across languages, but many are not. In some towns we could not get Tej. I am sure it was there, just I did not know the local word for it.

Many people who discover mead talk of the God's nectar, mead being so good ya wanna run wild through the woods. It's all true. In Gonder (North West Ethiopia), I went to one Tej house in particular. The brew came directly from the other side. It was alive. It tasted like nothing other (I tasted 10 to 15 different "Tej" throughout the country, but none came anywhere near). My ex's brain exploded halfway through the first mug. We had to leave. It was not too strong in alcohol, it was too strong in natural power.

The brewing method given for Ogol is the way I'll be going. To brew honey with all the "impurities"/"purities" (depending on your point of view) without ever ever boiling, maintaining the heat on the fire's embers, I think, is the way I am gonna be able to get close to the perfect "Tej" I tasted in Gonder.

Happy days.;D
 
In case you're looking for Gesho (leaves or bark) in the US, there's an Ethiopian market in Oakland called Brundo. They sell bags of ground up leaves and bags of bark/twigs for pretty cheap. They have a website and might even ship stuff to you.
 
Gesho unfortunately doesn't grow in the backyard. :(
However, a friend would probably be able to get it in London, UK, for me. :)

I would love someday to make something as good as the Gonder Tej I had. Just saw link in post 1 below from Miriam's tej recipe. Will try. Will let you know
 
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Miriam and I had some talk about this years ago. Her lady had an interesting recipe, and you can read her article here.

Here is another article written by Virginia Davis in the old Meadmakers Journal, back in 1989.

Both of these have recipes to check out.

I got my gesho at an Ethiopian market in Little Ethiopia in Washington, D.C.
 
Hi Miriam,
Thanks a million. :) I had read Virginia's recipe previously and I think that it will get me closer to the taste I will be trying to reproduce. But I'll give both recipes a go to see.

Which recipe do you prefer or do you use a 3rd undocumented and mysterious recipe?
 
Hi OrganicSu,

I'm not Miriam, I'm Vicky Rowe, the site owner.

Miriams' recipe produces a brew that is closer to a beer than a mead, but is quite good from what she told me.

Virginia's is more of a mead recipe, and will produce, I think, something that is more like the commercial tej that is on the market today.
 
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