"It's a pilsner with hints of vanilla and lemon peel."
"It's great with the ground sloth we have grilling."
Posted on 09/16/2018 7:17:51 AM PDT by ETL
Researchers from the U.S. and Israel have found evidence of the world’s oldest beer-making in an Israeli cave.
Scientists studied three 13,000-year-old stone mortars uncovered in the Raqefet Cave near what is now the Israeli city of Haifa. Residues confirmed that the mortars were used for brewing of wheat and barley, as well as for food storage.
Experts from Stanford University and the University of Haifa participated in the research. “This accounts for the oldest record of man-made alcohol in the world,” said Li Liu, a professor of Chinese archaeology at Stanford, in a statement.
The cave formed part of a prehistoric graveyard used by the Natufian people, providing a clue to beer’s role in their culture.
Experts believe that the Natufians brewed beer as part of ritual feasts that honored the dead. “This discovery indicates that making alcohol was not necessarily a result of agricultural surplus production, but it was developed for ritual purposes and spiritual needs, at least to some extent, prior to agriculture,” said Liu.
The research, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, notes that the earliest bread remains discovered were recently uncovered from a Natufian site in Jordan. The bread remains could be between 11,600 and 14,600 years old, according to Liu, who says that beer findings could be from 11,700 to 13,700 years ago.
The Natufians likely used a three-stage brewing process that first turned the starch of wheat or barley into starch. The malt would then be mashed or heated and then left to ferment with airborne wild yeast.
Prehistoric beer, however, was quite unlike our modern brews, according to Jiajing Wang, a doctoral student at Stanford and co-author of the study. The Natufian brew was most likely a “multi-ingredient concoction like porridge or thin gruel,” the research says.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“Raqefet Cave”
Yeah sure..but did they celebrate Oktoberfest while dancing to Polka music in their lederhosen?
Don’t think there’s much danger of that happening under any circumstances!
"It's a pilsner with hints of vanilla and lemon peel."
"It's great with the ground sloth we have grilling."
Who is that?
Proof that the original inhabitants of the area were not Muslims.
They’re not saying it so I will. Alcohol was the reason for agriculture. Efficient hunter gatherers needed a powerful motivation to stay put and buckle down.
They were HeBrews (sigh)
Beer also helped develop our powers of speech...and our inclination to exercise them. :)
Ha!! Thanks for that. I’m sure she’s not drinking much these days....
/s
Is that a promise?
Thank you, thank you, thank you cave brewers!
How beer saved (actually created) the world
Breadmaking and brewing beer have always gone hand in hand. Everyone who makes sourdough bread knows that it you leave the sourdough starter undisturbed for long enough, a clear-ish, watery liquid will form on top. And it's not for nothing that this liquid is referred to as "liquor."
Sourdough starter is simply a form of wild yeast. And yeast is a fungus that eats carbs and poops CO2 and C2H5OH (ethanol). If you manage the yeast one way it makes mostly CO2, which causes your bread to rise and adds a pleasant flavor. But manage it another and the yeast makes mostly ethanol.
So originally it was a twofer, you got "the staff of life" (i.e., bread) and a beverage that was both nutritious (early beer was a thick, soupy stuff) and safer source of hydration.
But watch the video I linked to to get a fuller appreciation of the importance of beer in human history.
True that. Before this it was Göbekli Tepe at about 9000 BC. But they also found evidence of cereal grains being domesticated at Göbekli Tepe.
But before that IIRC they only dated it to about 6000 BC.
An ancient brewery in Occupied Palestine? Paging Boycott-Divest-Sanction... Paging BDS... Roger Waters and BDS to the white courtesy phone, please!
Besides, everyone knows that alcohol is haram!
/yes, all of the above was sarcasm.
Copy that, so beer goes back to the Stone Age - even further than these so-called ‘researchers’ could find.
Yes, and it was renamed the "Stoned-age".
Amazing story...her mother and daughter had a mental illness. Somehow I don’t think it skipped a generation, lol. She was her own person, that’s for sure. Thanks for sharing.
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