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."

Comments

Re:Makes sense.

[YouGotTobeKidding]

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.

Re:Makes sense.

[OrangeTide]

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.