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How Beer Brewed 5,000 Years Ago In China Tastes Today (thestreet.com)

schwit1 quotes The South China Morning Post: Stanford University students have recreated a Chinese beer using a recipe that dates back 5,000 years. The beer "looked like porridge and tasted sweeter and fruitier than the clear, bitter beers of today," said Li Liu, a professor in Chinese archaeology, was quoted by the university as saying. Last spring, Liu and her team of researchers were carrying out excavation work at the Mijiaya site in Shaanxi province and found two pits containing remnants of pottery used to make beer, including funnels, pots and amphorae. The pits dated to between 3400BC and 2900BC, in the late Yangshao era. They found a yellowish residue on the remains of the items, including traces of yam, lily root and barley...Liu taught her students to recreate the recipe as part of her archaeology course.
One student following a second ancient beer recipe created a beverage that "smelled like funky cheese."

109 comments

  1. Makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Beer in ancient times was often a way of preserving calories (due to the alcohol) and a means of sustenance, as opposed to today when it is primarily a way to get goofy at NASCAR events.

    1. Re: Makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Beer, especially without hops, and bottled without knowledge of sanitation, spoils really quickly. I doubt they were preserving calories for a couple of weeks, when the raw product (dry grain) survives decades.

    2. Re:Makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The raw ingredients will last a lot longer than the beer itself so the claim of preserving calories is dubious. A bottle of beer is going to be ultra-skunk in a year while viable ingredients have been found in Egyptian burials. Also, beer certainly doesn't _require_ hops although that's the norm nowadays.

    3. Re: Makes sense. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      Keeping the rats and fungi at bay can be tricky; so long-term survival is only assured in optimal cases. That said; the fact that ancient-recipe booze tends to be aggressively unfiltered by the standards of even the most yeast riddled modern variants quite possibly has something to do with the fact that you definitely lose calories if you do the filtering and clarifying necessary to get the 'suitably tinted; but otherwise optically clear' results that are currently favored.

      You can recover at least some of the losses if you feed fermentation byproducts to livestock, use them as fertilizer, etc; but if hunger is a real constraint the fact that there's effectively bread sludge suspended in your beer starts to look more like a virtue than a defect.

    4. Re: Makes sense. by youngone · · Score: 2
      Small beer, which is generally low alcohol was brewed regularly (daily?) particularly in the Middle Ages, because, as you assert, people had no knowledge of sanitation, but they did know they would get sick if they drank the water, but not if it was fermented first, so it was the drink for working people in many places.

      I did read that the only time the British Army refused to march during the Peninsula Campaign was when they didn't get their beer ration, but I can't find a link now, so maybe the story is apocryphal.

    5. Re:Makes sense. by YouGotTobeKidding · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nope. It was a way of getting 'clean' water in a time when water could, would, and did kill every day. The calories were just a nice bonus/side-effect.

    6. Re: Makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That was the same with the ancient Egyptians - the fermented beer contained a general antibiotic called tetracycline. The average pyramid building workday consisted of breakfast at sunrise, working from 8am to noon, having beer and bread while the Sun was highest in the sky, then working 2pm to 6pm.

    7. Re: Makes sense. by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 1
      The biggest thing beer brought to the table?
      It was made by BOILING something in water...
      In those days, a drink of water was an insane gamble due to things like E. coli, cholera, dysentery, and the many other gifts of raw sewage and runoff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterborne_diseases

      Here is what beer REALLY did for us:
      https://vimeo.com/23278902

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    8. Re:Makes sense. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Thats a myth.
      Clean water is not difficult to optain.
      And 'unclea' water is not necessarily poisoness.

      Man kind lived millenia without beer and just drank water any other animal was drinking.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    9. Re:Makes sense. by cptdondo · · Score: 1

      and died at 22-25.

      A lot of what we do when we cook dates back to preserving health. Most of kosher and halals techniques are used today in commercial kitchens, without the religious overtones.

      Beer, or any boiled substance, is sterile and thus less likely to kill you. People who drink boiled water live longer, and have more children who survive to have more children. It's simple, really. Once agriculture started, and cities started to form 7,000 years ago, people had to have some form of sanitation.

    10. Re: Makes sense. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      The same could be said of tea; and tea won't get you shitfaced enough to numb the pain of being a subsistence mud farmer; so while I don't deny the sanitary virtues of alcohol; I suspect that some of the other benefits may have been a bigger seller.

    11. Re:Makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Elisabeth the First drank a liter of beer every morning, it has been reported. A fresh start for a new day driving spears through eviscerated Catholic non-converts, warding off the numerous assassination plots and receiving reports from Europe-wide spying network while defending the nation from the Spanish Armada. With the power of enough beer, anything is possible.

    12. Re:Makes sense. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Titus Petronius died with 66 ... suicide.
      Gaius Julius Caesar died with 65 ... murdered.

      The idea that people died around 22-25 is idiotic. We have plenty of Neanderthalian graves with remains of people in their 60s or older.

      Why did I bring the two romans as example (could bring a few hundred if you want)? Because they had aqueducts bring fresh water -- untreated -- into the cities and sewers that transported waste water considerably far away.

      The idea that rain water or water from a creek can not be drunken or water from a well in your garden: is idiotic.

      There is a difference between "fresh" water and "contaminated water" ... most clear waters are not contaminated with anything. Half of south Germany is connected to the "Bodensee" (Lake Constance) emergency water supply. That water is not even treated in any way, it is pumped out of the lake in a few hundred meters depths, and thats it.

      My town uses water of the river Rhine. Pumped out of the ground like 100m away from the river bed, it is filtered naturally by the sand, there is no other treatment done as far as I know.

      The idea that "small bear" was used as replacement for water is a myth coming from knight novels ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    13. Re:Makes sense. by cptdondo · · Score: 1

      A bit of research will bear out what I said. The AVERAGE expectancy in the Roman Empire was 20-30 years. Sure, the wealthy lived a long time but those in the countryside died young. The wealthy always live longer.

      The reason we can drink the water from rivers today is because of stringent surface water regulations; as recently as 60 years ago rivers burned quite regularly. I went to high school in New York City; if you fell into the Hudson River they would take you to the hospital and pump your stomach, as even a small bit of river water was extremely hazardous.

      I worked in surface water for 30 years. You could not drink surface water from the dawn of civilization and city building to about 1980.

    14. Re:Makes sense. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      You could not drink surface water because of modern industries poisoning it.

      The average live expectancy was low because plenty of people died as children.

      Also taking Rome as an example, my fault, means we have to include slaves, which where "burned" especially on farmland and in mines.

      If you go out into the Rockies or Apalachians you can drink most surface water untreated ... or can clean it with extremely simple means.

      If water would be "poisonous" per se, then there would be no animal surviving 30 years or longer. Of course you drink "water flea" and Algae etc. but unless there is a real germ in the water (which basically can only get there from sewage) the water is not by default indigestible or causing harm (I guess you did not serve, or you had learned that ;D )

      You could not drink surface water from the dawn of civilization and city building to about 1980.
      Perhaps you should google about ancient water transportation systems ... they all transported surface water ... untreated btw. Civilizations where build upon them.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    15. Re: Makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So the Scientists Egyptians work like the same hours we do? Shit... we're like slaves

    16. Re:Makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Life expectancy has always been low and it is only modern medicine that has advanced it, while water was sometimes a contributing factor the real problems were with diseases, virus's and simply infection, It was not uncommon to die because of a simple cut that today might even warrant a doctors visit. Roman Empire it was 25-30. right up until the 1800's it was still around 30-35 years.

    17. Re:Makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The average expectancy was 20-30 years because many children died due to child diseases. Once a person reached a certain age, the life expectancy went up. A 20 year old Roman would have an average life expectancy of 60+ years old because he survived all those nasty diseases. Still lower as today, but a lot higher then only looking at the average life expectancy of a Roman baby. If for every 70 year old Roman 2 babies died within the first 3 years, the average life expectancy would have been around 23 years old...

    18. Re:Makes sense. by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      Beer was popular because of the difficulty obtaining potable water and keeping it from turning stagnant. For example, the pilgrims were forced to land at Plymouth rock because they were running out of beer/wine and had to go find some fresh water.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    19. Re:Makes sense. by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      If you go out into the Rockies or Appalachians you can drink most surface water untreated

      Sure, there are many places here in Australia where you can still drink from a mountain stream. However the vast majority of our ancestors over the last 5-10,000yrs did not live in next to a pristine mountain stream. They lived in towns and villages with open sewers running thru the streets and into the waterways. The local water was not fit for human consumption, people did not drink it because even though they knew nothing of germs they knew that dirty water could/would give them cholera and/or dysentery, they also knew that turning it into beer/wine prevented that agonising fate from happening to them. .

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    20. Re: Makes sense. by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      The pyramids weren't built by slaves. That was just a B movie.

    21. Re:Makes sense. by OrangeTide · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, don't forget how statistics work. Infant deaths tends to pull the average life span down. If you lived to be 60 you were above average, but not surprisingly so.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    22. Re: Makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People in the bolkans treated their water with lye/lyme before being distributed inside a village/city

    23. Re:Makes sense. by cusco · · Score: 2

      My in-laws lived in rural Peru, and had 13 children. Five of the first eight died before their third birthday. Then they moved to the city where they had access to clean water, health care, and a variety of foods, and the next five lived to adulthood. If they all lived to 100 years old their average life span is under 63.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    24. Re:Makes sense. by quenda · · Score: 2

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      When the high infant mortality rate is factored in (life expectancy at birth) inhabitants of the Roman Empire had a life expectancy at birth of about 25 years. However, when infant mortality is factored out, life expectancy is doubled to the late-50s. If a Roman survived infancy to their mid-teens, they could, on average, expect near six decades of life, although of course many lived much longer or shorter lives for varied reasons.[clarification needed] Although this figure relies more on conjecture than ancient evidence, which is sparse and of dubious quality, it is a point of general consensus among historians of the period. It originates in cross-country comparison: given the known social and economic conditions of the Roman Empire, we should expect a life expectancy near the lower bound of known pre-modern populations. Roman demography bears comparison to available data for India and rural China in the early 20th century, where life expectancies at birth were also in the low 20s.[4]

    25. Re:Makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually the poor and rural people lived about as long. It was largely the extremely high child mortality rate and women dying in childbirth that made the life expectancy 20-30 years. Some people got ill and died early but generally if you reached 25 you were as likely to reach your 60s as anyone else.

    26. Re: Makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Beers were more common then, but beers were a everyday clean water drink. It's really unimaginable how many people died of unclean water. Beers cleaned the waters, for general consumption, just as stews, and pourages. Which leads to, was it just a spoiled pourages? Or a flooded storage jar? Earthen storage is age old. Was this hilltop, or valley, near a river?

    27. Re: Makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There were rulers who lived a longer life then that, records showed to the early hundred years old. But, the working class, those who were the slaves, serfs, and warriors? Did not. They were lucky to live to breeding age. Even to the 1900's, people were dying because of bad water. But then again, Romans used lead piping, Dr, how about Flint Michigan?

    28. Re: Makes sense. by slashrio · · Score: 1

      It could also be that the student flunked while trying to recreate a clear tasty beer.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    29. Re:Makes sense. by surd1618 · · Score: 1

      and died at 22-25.

      This is a known myth, listed on the Wikipedia page for common misconceptions. It's based on the mean lifespan of humans, which for most of human history is heavily skewed by infant mortality. Humans who survived infancy have always routinely survived into their 60s.

    30. Re:Makes sense. by cptdondo · · Score: 1

      And children died of mostly water-borne diseases like cholera and dysentery. Water borne diseases were quite common (and still are.)

    31. Re:Makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The idea that beer or any alcoholic beverage was "initially" knowingly brewed to preserve calories, or turn unsafe drinking water into safe drinking water is complete nonsense.

      ALCOHOL WAS AN ACCIDENT.

      Alcohol is one of the only "inventions" discovered independently by almost EVERY SINGLE civilization around the world without any knowledge sharing, and many civilizations didn't even know of one another's existence.... The only way these disconnected civilizations could each independently develop this technology is by ACCIDENT.

      People harvested fruit or grain or berries or whatever, but lacked appropriate storage containers. The food inside got wet from rain or absorbed moisture from the air or the ground it was sitting on. The damp food may have sat for extended periods in warm weather or in direct sunlight and thus fermented.

      When they went to eat the food one day, they realized it "turned bad" but food was scarce so they consumed it anyway... And then they got shitfaced and forgot all their problems for a night. In the morning, a few girls were pregnant, one asshole fell out of a tree and broke his arm, but nobody died... So it was basically safe to eat - and it was awesome.

      When this happened enough times, they learned the results of fermenting specific foods and chose to do it on purpose.

      Every culture, in every part of the world, has alcohol... It was an accident. and it was a good one....

    32. Re:Makes sense. by surd1618 · · Score: 1

      When Are Averages Useless
      I'm not disagreeing with the idea that beer has utility in public health in certain contexts. I just don't like poor arguments.
      Although, as to your argument, I may have an amendment. Besides boiling, there's some scientific credence to the idea that fermenting can help to protect humans from food poisoning. Here's a sample. Of course, there's some notorious caveats with that, e.g. coconut tempeh is not legal to sell in some places due to its propensity to foster a lethal type of food poisoning: Toxic Tempeh contaminated with Burkholderia cocovenenans.

    33. Re:Makes sense. by piojo · · Score: 1

      Is 2% alcohol bacteriostatic? Because it's damn sure not antimicrobial.

      --
      A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
  2. beer causes overpopulation by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    see?

  3. every homebrewn beer smells weird... by paai · · Score: 2

    I have made a lot of beer, and every batch smelled like funky cheese or worse for the first few days or even weeks. That is normal. And as the alcohol is developing, you can drink it and get a buzz. I guess that the ancient chineese, and egyptians, and sumerians, and all other beer drinking civilizations found like me that it pays to be patient.

    Paai

    1. Re:every homebrewn beer smells weird... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      Whenever I make pizza, I let the dough sit in the refrigerator for 2-3 days afterwhich it smells and tastes like beer. Sometimes I'll eat a significant mount of raw dough and get a buzz from it.

    2. Re: every homebrewn beer smells weird... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why does this not surprise me about you?

    3. Re:every homebrewn beer smells weird... by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      They didn't always have the luxury of waiting though.

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
    4. Re:every homebrewn beer smells weird... by paai · · Score: 1

      It is not as if you could not exist without beer...

      Paai

    5. Re:every homebrewn beer smells weird... by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      Well, they could have just boiled the water, but I'm not entirely sure they knew that. They just knew that beer and wine was safer to drink.

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
    6. Re:every homebrewn beer smells weird... by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      And by the way, that's sacrilege! ;) Mmmm.... beer.

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
    7. Re:every homebrewn beer smells weird... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have made a lot of beer, and every batch smelled like funky cheese or worse for the first few days or even weeks.

      No, every home brew doesn't smell like that. Mine always smelled like yeast and the ingredients used. A bit like beer or bread. Funky cheese sounds like bacteria and you shouldn't be growing those. Then, I always had a goal of getting rapid fermentation to beat out any contamination and used an active starter which I stepped up.

  4. Hopps are a relatively modern addition to beer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Before that beers were all very sweet.

  5. Apparently drinking spit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... used to be a thing.

    > Ota also recreated another beer by using a vegetable root called manioc, which required chewing and spitting out manioc before boiling and fermenting the mixture. The end result smelled like funky cheese and Ota herself had no desire to check how it tasted, the university quoted her as saying.

    also

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicha#Preparation

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuchikamizake

  6. Re:Chine did something original? by geek · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I'm not buying it.

    I know you're trying to be funny but the Chinese up until Mao and Communism were some of the most original people in history. It saddens me to see what China has become.

  7. Most interesting nugget buried at end of story by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I thought this was the most interesting thing from the whole article:

    The research team was surprised to find barley in the ancient Chinese beer as barley had not become a staple crop for another 3,000 years.

    Think about someone making beer but the ingredients not really catching on in a big way for three thousand years!

    Or maybe the estimate of when barley because a staple crop is way off.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Most interesting nugget buried at end of story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You think it's a coincidence that barley was the first crop grown by neolithic humans? Beer and barley DID catch on in a big way, only we couldn't get any more barley than mother nature naturally provided.

    2. Re:Most interesting nugget buried at end of story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps people constantly underestimate the strength of ancient trade routes. In Africa, for example, a continent wide trading system and cultural exchange has been theorized to been in existence during that time. That too was unsurprisingly a surprise for the archeologists.

    3. Re:Most interesting nugget buried at end of story by jandersen · · Score: 1

      I think beer is simply any drink that is fermented for only a short time and is relatively low in alcohol. The main distinction from wine seems to be mainly about acidity - wine is made from fruit and beer is made from starchy ingredients - which is why beer in many cultures was/is made by chewing stuff: saliva contains ptyalin, which breaks down the starch to glocuse, which can be fermented; the advantage of using malted barley (... wheat, rice, ...) is that the germinating plant has the same effect as chewing, and it is scalable.

    4. Re:Most interesting nugget buried at end of story by dj245 · · Score: 1

      I thought this was the most interesting thing from the whole article:

      The research team was surprised to find barley in the ancient Chinese beer as barley had not become a staple crop for another 3,000 years.

      Think about someone making beer but the ingredients not really catching on in a big way for three thousand years!

      Or maybe the estimate of when barley because a staple crop is way off.

      Depends on what they mean by "barley". Corn and watermelon are unrecognizable compared to what they were just 200 years ago. This is mostly related to good old fashioned selective breeding. 3,000 years is a very long time in agricultural terms.

      --
      Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
  8. Chemist? by Luthair · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Shouldn't you be a food chemist to 'recreate' a recipe from a 5000-year old sample?

    1. Re:Chemist? by Jason1729 · · Score: 1

      You'd be right. Except that all they're doing is creating a work of fiction to steal headlines.

    2. Re:Chemist? by gravewax · · Score: 1

      by the sounds of it they aren't recreating a 5000 year old recipe at all, merely using similar ingredients. But I doubt that makes a good headline.

  9. Stale, probably? by mark-t · · Score: 1, Redundant

    If it was brewed 5,000 years ago, I can't imagine it'd still be any good by now.

    1. Re:Stale, probably? by Jason1729 · · Score: 1

      They found 3000 year old honey in an Egyptian pyramid that's still perfectly edible.

      The only downside is the horrible curse that will destroy the life of anyone who dates taste the honey.

    2. Re: Stale, probably? by pollarda · · Score: 1

      I was thinking the beer would be a bit dry after 5,000 years.

    3. Re: Stale, probably? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Honey is the only food in the world that doesn't go bad.

    4. Re: Stale, probably? by Jason1729 · · Score: 1

      **that we know of.

  10. Re:Chine did something original? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    China has over 5,000 years of history.. Your country? Not so much?

    Up until around 300-500 years ago China was a very advanced nation.

    learn some world history before you post ignorant comments.

  11. Re: Chine did something original? by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

    Paper and fireworks also come to mind. Communist revolutions aren't so glorious...Except to the dictators that inevitably run them.

  12. History = Fiction by Jason1729 · · Score: 0

    The odds that the absurd methods they used to recreate the recipe have anything to do with how beer tasted 5000 years ago is exactly the same as the odds that anything else in a history book about people 5000 is remotely realistic. Exactly Zero.

    Gotta love history. Make the whole thing up and pretend it's real.

    1. Re:History = Fiction by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      The odds that the absurd methods they used to recreate the recipe have anything to do with how beer tasted 5000 years ago is exactly the same as the odds that anything else in a history book about people 5000 is remotely realistic. Exactly Zero.

      It isn't noted in anything I can find, but its almost certain that they determined the ingredients via proteomics and chromatography. The vegetable matter used in the process would have left proteins that would have been identifiable. The vessel used would give a good clue as to the purpose of putting those things in the vessel. Nothing is 100 percent sure, But Occam's razor will give you a good idea that a liquid holding vessel that contained the products that were determined by their protein signatures was probably used for making an alcoholic beverage.

      Here's a site with a very short example http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com... So let's all relax and have a beer!

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    2. Re:History = Fiction by Jason1729 · · Score: 1

      Which is exactly my point. The process by which we make beer (or bread) is very, very non-obvious. 3000 years ago, it's likely they had very different ideas then we do today.

      To take an approximate guess of the ingredients and then assume you can recreate the recipe is idiocy. Can you take a fresh bottle of modern beer as a finished product, analyze it in a lab and create an identical copy? Of course not. And we know all the modern beer making techniques. So you think you can take 3000 year old residue of beer and figure out what they did 3000 years ao?

    3. Re: History = Fiction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oblig PBF Comic... http://pbfcomics.com/209/

    4. Re:History = Fiction by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Which is exactly my point. The process by which we make beer (or bread) is very, very non-obvious. 3000 years ago, it's likely they had very different ideas then we do today. To take an approximate guess of the ingredients and then assume you can recreate the recipe is idiocy.

      Some folks find it as fun. I'm not certain why this has your hackles up. It is interesting to see what the ancients ate and drank.

      I really don't think that anyone is believing that it is an exact copy. It's a fermented beverage made using the ingredients they sussed out via analytical methods.

      So you think you can take 3000 year old residue of beer and figure out what they did 3000 years ao?

      You can have a pretty good idea though.

      I think you are getting a little wrapped around the axle about the wrong thing. The idea isn't to recreate the exact beer - as you note using other words, how would we even know? The real purpose is to deal with the analytical tools, to come up with likely percentages of ingredients, then throw together a guess and see what bubbles up. A lot of classes have this sort of thing. Build Robots and have a Robo-War. My University has a extended class where Mechanical Engineering students build from the ground up, small racing cars that they then compete with other colleges. They learn a lot while enjoying themselves. They would claim much more than lecture only classrooms. I believe them.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  13. Wait?? by Vegan+Cyclist · · Score: 1

    There were humans 5,000 years ago? And they ate CARBS too? #falsenews

  14. Re:Chine did something original? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    To be fair, China's decline predated Mao by several generations. You can't blame Mao for the Opium Wars.

  15. Taste? Better than fresh Budweiser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Of course, tasting better than Buttwiper (or most American mass-produced beer) isn't that tough.

    Although US beer is getting better - all you young 'uns don't remember that 30 years ago Bud or Busch or whatever HAD TO BE COLD when imbibed lest you puke it back up.

  16. Beer of the past was sweeter? by burhop · · Score: 2

    ' The beer "looked like porridge and tasted sweeter and fruitier than the clear, bitter beers of today," '

    Do you know how many types of beers there are today? Just go to any local microbrewery (well, maybe not in Germany- beer purity laws and all) and you will find 3-10 very different beers that are completely different from the next microbrewery.

    So, someone 5000 years from now finds a beer recipe from some "ancient" brewery and concludes all our beer tastes like PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon).

    (OK, a little beer porridge might be fun to try)

    1. Re: Beer of the past was sweeter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or just go to the countries along the Silk Road and ask for boza https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boza

    2. Re:Beer of the past was sweeter? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Do you know how many types of beers there are today? Just go to any local microbrewery (well, maybe not in Germany- beer purity laws and all)

      The reinheitsgebot is a bullshit excuse. If your beverage doesn't meet its requirements, you simply can't call it beer. This has been explicitly the case since 2005, but there were already examples.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Beer of the past was sweeter? by ausekilis · · Score: 1

      I suppose in 5000 years people thinking we drank nothing but PBR is better than Bud Light, Keystoneor Olde English 800.

  17. Um... no. by Lumpy · · Score: 1

    If it looks like porridge then it's still in the middle of fermentation.
    If it's sweet, ITS STILL IN THE MIDDLE OF FERMENTATION.

    honestly, did they even look at some of the early recipes out of europe or the middle East? Pharaoh Beer is from 2570bc and if you do it properly is not sweet and not "like porridge"
    What makes beers bitter is Hops, and if you don't have hops in it then it's not bitter Hops were not known to the middle east or china and were not even used until europe in the 9th century.

    archeologists need to stick to digging up things and leave beer making to the experts.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:Um... no. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      If it looks like porridge then it's still in the middle of fermentation.
      If it's sweet, ITS STILL IN THE MIDDLE OF FERMENTATION.

      Yeah, but lots of people drink beverages which are still fermenting, mostly people in the jungle. Booze made from palm trees and booze made from corn are commonly consumed while still young.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Um... no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Today in China they have /jiuniang which now a days is made from /mijiu, but it's exactly what this sounds like. Low alcohol rice wine/ in China goes back at least 9000 years.

  18. Amateurs by phrobot · · Score: 1

    Yeah my first attempts at brewing beer disn't taste much like beer either.

  19. Re:Chine did something original? by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It was the fatal consequence of blinding awesomeness: blinded arrogance. China was the wealthiest, most advanced civilization in the world for over a thousand years; at certain point it becomes natural to look at something like that as a birthright. And when that happens you stop looking forward and outward and start looking inward and backward.

    When the epitaph of the United States is written, this is what it will say: "America: Killed by landing on the Moon." After that Americans simply can't believe anyone else in the world can do anything better than we can. We must have the best cell phone networks, the best healthcare system, and, even though we despise it, the best education system. We'd never look at what countries that are beating us in education are doing. If they're beating us they must be cheating; the system must be rigged.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  20. Re: Chine did something original? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LOL... They have a longer history than that. I do and I am just native American. Yes, we are a sovereign nation. Yes, I belong to a tribe. However, there were people in China before 5000 years ago. Lest you say something about nation, by name, I'd suggest looking at how little of that time was unified in the current form that is China.

  21. sour taste? by Chewbacon · · Score: 1

    Sounds like infection. I wonder if they even understood what they were doing.

    --
    Chewbacon
    The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
    1. Re:sour taste? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      by the sounds of it they have no understanding of brewing and are simply playing around with what they discovered are some fo the ingredients. Obviously they have very little knowledge of brewing and they don't even have a recipe (despite what the summary says). Not surprising they make fundamental mistakes. from memory my first attempts had similar failures before I learnt what I was doing.

  22. Dogfish Head - Chateau Jiahu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Already Done.

    Let's travel back in time again for another Dogfish Head Ancient Ale (Midas Touch was our first foray and Theobroma our most recent). Our destination is 9,000 years ago, in Northern China! Preserved pottery jars found in the Neolithic villiage of Jiahu, in Henan province, have revealed that a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey and fruit was being produced that long ago, right around the same time that barley beer and grape wine were beginning to be made in the Middle East!

    Fast forward to 2005. Molecular archaeologist Dr. Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology calls on Dogfish Head to re-create another ancient beverage, and Chateau Jiahu is born.

    In keeping with historic evidence, Dogfish brewers use brown rice syrup, orange blossom honey, muscat grape, barley malt and hawthorn berry. The wort is fermented for about a month with sake yeast until the beer is ready for packaging.

    1. Re:Dogfish Head - Chateau Jiahu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Already Done.

      Let's travel back in time again for another Dogfish Head Ancient Ale (Midas Touch was our first foray and Theobroma our most recent). Our destination is 9,000 years ago, in Northern China! Preserved pottery jars found in the Neolithic villiage of Jiahu, in Henan province, have revealed that a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey and fruit was being produced that long ago, right around the same time that barley beer and grape wine were beginning to be made in the Middle East!

      Fast forward to 2005. Molecular archaeologist Dr. Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology calls on Dogfish Head to re-create another ancient beverage, and Chateau Jiahu is born.

      In keeping with historic evidence, Dogfish brewers use brown rice syrup, orange blossom honey, muscat grape, barley malt and hawthorn berry. The wort is fermented for about a month with sake yeast until the beer is ready for packaging.

      This is interesting and I would be happy to try it. However, it is not "already done", it is an interpretation. The summary mentions traces of yam and lily root, which are not in the commercial resurrected brew. Hence several approaches/interpretations would be interesting (and fun!) to try.

    2. Re:Dogfish Head - Chateau Jiahu by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      In keeping with historic evidence, Dogfish brewers use brown rice syrup, orange blossom honey, muscat grape, barley malt and hawthorn berry. The wort is fermented for about a month with sake yeast until the beer is ready for packaging.

      So you have evidence of the fermenting time? And the yeast strain? No, you don't. So, no, you don't have a historical beer. (And that's setting aside the fact that 'brown rice syrup' isn't brown rice. Etc... etc..)

  23. Re:Chine did something original? by InfiniteZero · · Score: 1

    This. And The Wall.

    The Great Wall was started before 200 B.C., but much of what we see today was rebuilt in the 1500s Ming dynasty, when Zheng He's epic around-the-world voyage occurred. His fleet was 300 ship strong, with the capital ship's size comparable to modern day aircraft carriers. Here is an image comparing Zheng He's ship and Columbus':

    http://www.digitalhistory.uh.e...

    Sadly, after the voyage, they decided they didn't want anything to do with the rest of the barbarian world. The emperor declared it a capital offense for anyone to own a ship with more than one mask, and ordered to build/rebuild the wall.

    Incidentally, Zheng He was a Muslim.

  24. and 5000 years later by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    American beer is just recycled piss.

  25. Re:Chine did something original? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Way to be a racist asshole.

  26. wrong fucking title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Typical editors. No one is tasting beer brewed 5000 fucking years ago. Drop the word "brewed" to not be so dumb.

  27. In Actuality by b783719 · · Score: 1

    5000 yrs beer:
    It was actually expired fruit treat, but the Chinese ate them and found out it still tastes good.

    5,500 bc cheese:
    It was actually expired milk, but the Egyptian ate them and found out it still tastes good.
    .
    . /joke

  28. Ancient beers by woboyle · · Score: 1

    One of the main things that ancient beers provided was something potable that did not have serious infectious bacteria, which most of the water then did have. Drink been - get drunk. Drink water - get typhoid!

    --
    Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
  29. Sadly ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... the stuff they found was the waste water.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  30. Re:Chine did something original? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

    To be fair, China's decline predated Mao by several generations. You can't blame Mao for the Opium Wars.

    To be fair, China's decline predated the Opium Wars by a few centuries as well. You can't blame Opium for the Manchu conquest.

  31. Re:Chine did something original? by quenda · · Score: 1

    To be fair, China's decline predated Mao by several generations. You can't blame Mao for the Opium Wars.

    To be fair, China's decline predated the Opium Wars by a few centuries as well. You can't blame Opium for the Manchu conquest.

    To be fair, China's decline predated the Manchurian Conquest by some generations. You can't blame the northern barbarians for the slow decline of the Ming Dynasty.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  32. Re:Chine did something original? by quenda · · Score: 2

    China has over 5,000 years of history.. Your country?

    The PRC is less than 70 years old. The Republic of China (surviving in Taiwan) little more than a century.
    In contrast, England goes back to the Norman conquest in 1066.

    European history is of a similar age to Chinese. Of course, the Middle East was first.

  33. Re: Chine did something original? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

    They have a longer history than that. I do and I am just native American.

    In that case, you're probably talking about prehistory rather than history. History all but required writing.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  34. Ale vs Lager by zifn4b · · Score: 1

    This sounds more like an Ale whereas a lot of what we drink today is some form of Lager. A lot of today's Ales are milder (IBU) like what is described here.

    --
    We'll make great pets
    1. Re:Ale vs Lager by eheldreth · · Score: 1

      Just for some education on beer styles. The primary difference between Ales and Lagers is in both the strain of yeast used and what temperatures they ferment best in.

      Ales are less cold tolerant, are most active on the top of the wort, and produce more fruity esters.

      Lagers are far more cold tolerant, are most active on the bottom of the wort, and produce a cleaner "crisper" beer. Lagers are then left post fermentation in a 40 degree or cooler chamber for a couple weeks. A process which has come to be known as lagering.

      Both beers come from the same base ingredients and either can be hoppy or not. In fact the hoppiest beers we have today tend to be IPA's, which are ales incase the A didn't make that clear.

      --
      The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
    2. Re:Ale vs Lager by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      The major distinction between ale and lager is the yeast, and then, due to the conditions the yeast requires, the temperature at what it was fermented. Other things, like the type of grains, other additives, amount of hops, are unrelated to whether it's an ale or lager.

  35. Re:Chine did something original? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Zhngguó (AKA "China") predates the PRC and ROC by thousands of years.

    Great Britain is only about 300 years old.

  36. Re: Chine did something original? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then China is not 5,000 years old. :'(

    Only 4,000 as told by the Japanese. :'((((

    But then again, Chinese like to inflate numbers, like the Nanking massacre. (dugs)

  37. Re: Chine did something original? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To be fair, you cannot blame the " opium wars" for what? China was a loose collection of city states under a warlord. That leader was fighting to keep out the Koreans and monguls, not realizing there was a British menace. But, there was an interesting part of this article I did enjoy. Beer, cheese flavored, not from Minnesota.how dare they not send the recipe to the Packers to experiment with!

  38. Re: Chine did something original? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You forgot the early translations of births. Usually in Latin, to about 68 of the current era. But, I have read of the battle reports to the various leaders from around 500, say 460 approximately, and for the reports to have been given, it would seem that the common usage by a conquer would predate that. Since you find only maybe one in a hundred reports were kept.

  39. Re:Chine did something original? by dj245 · · Score: 1

    When the epitaph of the United States is written, this is what it will say: "America: Killed by landing on the Moon." After that Americans simply can't believe anyone else in the world can do anything better than we can. We must have the best cell phone networks, the best healthcare system, and, even though we despise it, the best education system. We'd never look at what countries that are beating us in education are doing. If they're beating us they must be cheating; the system must be rigged.

    Alternatively, 1969 was 24 years after the end of the Second World War. It would be reasonable to assume that it took at least that long for all the destroyed industrial capacity across Asia and Europe to be rebuilt.

    --
    Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
  40. Re:Chine did something original? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "China has over 5,000 years of history.. Your country? Not so much?"

    Ancient history. White people and the West invented everything for the past 100 years.

  41. Re: Chine did something original? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

    China can be old but have a somewhat shorter history, with its beginnings shrouded in prehistory. These things happen.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20