A 3,000-year-old beer foams with flavor

H

ow good can a 3,000-year-old beer taste?

While any cold beverage would have quenched a reporter’s thirst in last week’s 97-degree Jerusalem heat wave, members of the foreign press corps gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up after sampling “test-tube” beer produced by a group of Israeli microbiologists and brewers from yeast cells extracted from pottery shards discovered at three ancient archaeological digs.

“When we first brought out this beer to make a l’chayim, I joked that we’ll either be dead in five minutes or we’ll live to tell the story,” said Aren Maeir, a professor of Archaeology and Land of Israel Studies at Bar-Ilan University. “Today, we’re here to tell the story.”

The story begins when archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority excavated clay jugs from three different sites. One was in Jerusalem’s southeastern Ramat Rachel neighborhood dating to the early days of the Second Beis Hamikdash, when the Prophet Nechemiah was governor of Jerusalem under Persian rule. A second was unearthed in the former Philistine city of Gath, close to Beit Shemesh, and a third from a site that archaeologists believe was home to an Egyptian fortress in Jaffa.

Scientists from three Israeli universities who examined the shards found a high likelihood that the yeast cells were in the family of the original strains used in fermented beverages like beer and mead (honey wine). Even millennia later, yeast cells can reproduce and survive as colonies in the microenvironments of ceramic vessels.

After sequencing the genome of the yeast specimens, scientists determined they were similar to yeasts found in modern traditional beers. At that point, they turned over the yeast specimens to local beer expert Itai Gutman, who made two different batches. Pleased with his product, he invited certified tasters from the Beer Judge Certification Program, which trains judges to evaluate home-brewed and commercial beer. Their verdict? “High-quality and fit for consumption.”

While several attempts have been made to recreate the taste of ancient beer, those past experiments utilized modern ingredients along with modern, domesticated commercial yeast. Making beer with ancient microorganisms has never before been attempted. Still, no one knows exactly what ancient beer tasted like, so this is only a best effort.

“While the brew contains a very big mix of the original yeast bacteria, what we produced is not quite the real taste of the original beer — but it’s closer than anything that’s been done before,” said Dr. Ronen Hazan, a microbiologist at the Hebrew University–Hadassah School of Dental Medicine, who led the research.

How close is this beer to appearing on supermarket and liquor store shelves?

“We’re currently working with the universities to release a few trial batches,” says Shmuel Nakai, owner of the pub where the tasting took place. “Only time will tell.”

 (Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 762)