Posted on 03/13/2023 8:39:40 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Bones, ancient grooming tools, even gold – these are all things you might expect to find if you go poking around an Iron Age burial site. What you might not expect to find is your new favorite tipple. But, back in 2016, archaeologists were stunned to uncover a 2,500-year-old cauldron that contained the remnants of an ancient alcoholic beverage.
Project lead Bettina Arnold, from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, was investigating a burial mound – called a tumulus – dating back to between 400 and 450 BCE, when she and her team came across what appeared to be a bronze cauldron. But it wasn’t only the vessel itself that was largely intact...
That contents amounted to nearly 14 liters (3.7 gallons) of an unknown alcoholic beverage, that had been buried along with the occupant of the tumulus. As the researchers explained in a blog post, the cauldron full of booze, as well as the weapons he had been interred with... we can see how arriving in the afterlife with 14 liters of liquor could help with that.
Of course, the only logical next step for the team was to figure out if they could make some of the ancient brew and taste it for themselves. They enlisted the services of palaeobotanist Dr Manfred Rösch, who was able to analyze the cauldron contents and come up with a rough idea of the recipe...
The beverage was determined to have most likely been a type of mead called a braggot, whose origins go back way into the distant past, long before Chaucer mentioned it in his Canterbury Tales. And, luckily for Arnold and the team, one of the cellarmasters at local Milwaukee beer producers the Lakefront Brewery, Chad Sheridan, had a fair amount of experience brewing this particular drink.
(Excerpt) Read more at iflscience.com ...
Iron City didn’t go away. I remember about 40 years ago they did a bit of re-marketing and IC Lite was the all the rage.
“Braggot”.
Hmmmm. That could be a useful word in today’s world...a gay person who never lets you forget that’s what he is.
No kidding. Man, that stuff was awful!
When I was in college near Pittsburgh many years ago we drank a lot of Iron City. It was cheap. Iron City with a shot of J.T.S.Brown bourbon.
“Meh- I Drank Black Label Beer- cant get much worse than that lol”
When I was in high school I had a job as a kitchen hand in an industrial kitchen, the head cook was a guy named Johnny he was probably 90 lb thin, a retired army Sergeant stewburner who smoked Pall Malls and loved his Black Label beer.
I remember driving up to see people in Pennsylvania and passing by the brewery in Baltimore, I think I might have drank one or two in my lifetime and it wasn’t all that bad. But to qualify that statement I have to remind myself that Dad was groovin’ on his Falstaff and Old Milwaukee, Black Label was too expensive I reckon.
After a day of hot work as the yard slave, pops would say “go grab yourself a beer.” After a hot day sweatin’ my arse off, that Falstaff tasted pretty darn good.
My uncles were one step above that with their basement refrigerators full of Schlitz.
Bohunks... Wayne Newton’s “Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer” on the AM, grilled ring bologna and würst, a can o’suds. I think about that and chuckle sometimes.
Iron City: headache in a can...
Very few of us could force ourselves to drink it.
You bet.
In college I drank the Beast (aka Milwaukee’s Best) dyed green for St Paddy’s day.
Later, I was so sick I thought my shoes were going to come out of my mouth. It was.....green. ewwwww!
The bronze cauldron containing the beverage was inscribed as follows: "Great taste, less filling."
Back in the steel mill days in Pittsburgh the mill hunks would go into the corner bar and order an Iron and an Imp (short for Imperial,)and a nice salty blind robin on the side.
I was a Schlitz drinker before Vietnam, when I got there that brew tasted nothing like it did back in the States. I learned some additive was put into all beers to withstand the heat and bouncing around on the cargo ships. I found Bud to be to my liking over there. When I got back to the States Schlitz tasted like it always did.
My point is Black Label being a rather crappy beer to begin with was likely made worse by that extra ingredient. And I did try Black Label over there, and yes, it was just nasty.
They probably drank it from the time it was new (sweet, low alcohol) until it was months old (dry, maybe ~ 13% alcohol depending on how rich one was and how much honey they could afford.)
Ladies probably liked it new, the guys, old.
I must have missed it but where was this cauldron found? Did they list the location of the dig?
Except that this ancient brew has probably deteriorated to the level of Coors Light (i.e., water with the slightest hint of a flavor additive).
“Meh- I Drank Black Label Beer- cant get much worse than that lol”
Oertle’s 92.
Swabia. The reference was easy to miss. The FR topic from 2016 also lacks specific details.
Lol we did too. Funds were tight, so we got the cheapest we could get. The beer used to be called “thr mechanic’s beer” due to,the cheap price.
We drank it warm too when totally desperate. Not advisable lol.
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