Beer Frontier. Aventures of a Beer Activist.

Beer is depicted on the walls of the tombs, as are scenes of brewing and baking. Beer and bread were considered aspects of the same job, since beer was probably made partly from loaves of specially made bread.

Beer of the Gods
The legend of the Egyptian god Osiris explains that he taught humans to brew beer. Since Pharaohs were considered both human and divine, it seems appropriate then that they were sent off with large caches of beer. Some tomb paintings depict guests at banquets drinking to the point of throwing up and then being carried home.

As an Egyptian goddess of wine and beer Hathor was also called the 'Lady of Drunkenness', who also symbolized love and destruction. She was the daughter of Ra, the supreme Sun God, and was a patron of dance and music as well. Her worshipers got drunk on beer as part of their spiritual practice. Tenenit was yet another ancient Egyptian goddess of beer.

Dwarves Were Always Popular
Beer was the every day food-beverage of royalty and common folk alike. To go without was considered a terrible impoverishment. According to J.H. Breasted, in Ancient Records of Egypt, Part Four, a Pharaoh named Tefnakhte was once forced to evade attackers for a prolonged period of time. Upon his eventual surrender, he described the hardships of his refuge: I have not sat in the beer-hall, nor has the harp been played for me; but I have eaten bread in hunger, and I have drunk water in thirst. The horror of it all.

The term 'beer-hall' was used interchangeably with the notion of a convivial get-together, a place, or an occasion for beer drinking.

Though it was drunk routinely for nourishment, beer was also a catalyst for exceptional banquets and good times. Entertainment during a beer-hall consisted of storytelling, music of flutes, oboes and harps, singing and recitation. Dancing and acrobatics were performed by scantily dressed young women. And according to an account in Ancient Wine, a book by Patrick McGovern, 'Dwarves were always popular,' as were wrestlers.

Herodotus, considered the world's first historian, described such a scene in his Histories II:
When they have finished eating, a man bears round a wooden figure of a dead body in a coffin, made as like the reality as may be both by painting and carving, and measuring about a cubit or two cubits each way; and this he shows to each of those who are drinking together, saying: "When thou lookest upon this, drink and be merry, for thou shalt be such as this when thou art dead." Thus they do at their carousals.

An Unknown Art
Unfortunately, the materials used to brew in these ancient times were quite degradable, so the archeological record of Egpyt's breweries is scant. One of the oldest and best-attested probable breweries is in the modern city of Kom Al-Ahmar, known by the Greeks as Hierakonpolis, in ancient Egyptian called Nekhen, named after Nekheny the Falcon god, who was an earlier form of Horus. The site dates to 5,000 years ago, according to Barry Kemp, an Egyptologist at the University of Cambridge.

At the site, Kemp's team found large, well-heated conical vats that were encrusted on the inside with a cereal-based residue. The vats appeared to have been permanent structures, indicating a large-scale operation, and their shape suggests that they held liquid. Combined with anthropological evidence, the experts agree that this was beer.

Another ancient brewery may be el-Amarna, along the Nile in middle Egypt. The city was the capital of ancient Egypt nearly 3,500 years ago, during the reign of King Tutankhamen's father, Akhenaton. The archaeological site is located in what is thought to be the Sun Temple of Nefertiti, Akhenaton's wife. Kemp and his colleagues found a complex of rooms that had been used for cereal processing. Ovens, charred grains, jars, and larger vessels indicate that the rooms were either a brewery or a bakery - or perhaps both.

"No piece of equipment survives that can be unequivocally linked to brewing," says Delwen Samuel, an archaeobotanist at University College London, who studied the el-Amarna site with Kemp. "Bread and beer were staples of the ancient Egyptians, so it's a matter of inference." However, writing and drawings from the site tip the scale toward breweries, she says.

More evidence suggests that one very likely tipple of the ancients was a type of grog, a mixture of beer, wine and mead. This conclusion is part of a controversial debate between wine advocates and beer drinkers. Imported wine, say the former, was clearly the beverage of the sophisticated elite. They were surprised when the evidence showed that what they all assumed was wine, was actually a beer that may have had some wine mixed in with it, possibly being used as a yeast starter.

Brew Like an Egyptian
Emmer wheat, though, was the fermentable grain of choice, as it grew in abundance on the banks of the Nile. Modern brewers have made admirable attempts to recreate the Egyptian grog. Scottish and Newcastle created King Tut Ale by using residue found in the tomb of King Tutankhamen. Anchor Brewing has formulated experimental Sumerian beers, which may have been similar to Egyptian ales.

Kirin has done extensive research on ancient Egyptian brewing and has published a very helpful website for anyone interested in learning how to make an ancient Egyptian homebrew.

Beer loaves were made from a richly yeasted dough. This dough was lightly baked and the resulting bread was crumbled and strained through a sieve with water. Ingredients like dates or extra yeast might have been added. The dissolved mixture was fermented in large vats and then the liquid was decanted into jars which were sealed for storage or transport.