Forget Bud, try Sumerian brew

Brewery owner Fritz Maytag presented a replica of an ancient Sumerian beer produced for the first time since 3,000 B.C. to over 300 people at the University Museum on Sunday. He said he reproduced the beer for fun, but also to contribute to scholarship. Maytag, a tradesman familiar with the brewing process, said that by using references in Sumerian hymns, he can identify beers better than scholars. "The articles written are ignorant of brewing," Maytag said. "Brewing texts are written by scholars who know nothing of brewing." Before the anxious audience was allowed to sample any beer, Maytag described how his small San Francisco brewery reproduced the recipe for "Ninkasi" beer by consulting an ancient Sumerian hymn. "Ninkasi" is the Sumerian goddess of brewing. In order to be true to the ancient recipe, Maytag used fermented bread and stewed dates instead of malted barley, which is a common ingredient in modern beer. Patrick McGovern, an archeochemist at the University Museum, said that ancient peoples, who were originally hunters and gatherers, may have settled on farms in order to brew beer. McGovern said his chemical analysis of Iranian drinking vessels reveal remnants of ancient beer. "Beer is the popular beverage in lower Mesopatamia," he said. The audience became active participants in the event when author and beer expert Michael Jackson delivered a tutored tasting of 12 beers. They represented chronology tracing the history of beer from ancient Sumeria to the present. Jackson said that the beers in his tasting sample produced before prohibition are much more diverse than those produced afterwards. Before prohibition, Philadelphia had over different 100 breweries. Once beer was again legalized, it became much more commercial and standardized, he said. Jackson's eager audience frequently got ahead of him in the lecture, tasting beers before he presented them. And, although the ancient Nikasi beer contains little alcohol, Drex Patton of Swarthmore gave it a positive rating anyway. "It's better than no beer at all," he said.

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