Learn about ancient Egyptian beer and the role of yeast microbes in the fermentation process
Learn about ancient Egyptian beer and the role of yeast microbes in the fermentation process
Learn about the beer of ancient Egypt and the role of the yeast microbe in the brewing process.
© Open University (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Transcript
NARRATOR: From black death to cholera, and syphilis to typhoid, microbes have been responsible for some of the world's most devastating diseases. But at the same time, these tiny single-cell organisms have aided our survival on Earth, helping us produce some of our favorite foods. Though humans didn't realize it at the time, microbes were being put to work over 10,000 years ago in ancient Egypt to create one of our most popular beverages.
Today, beer production is a mulitmillion pound industry. It's drunk by over a billion people worldwide who consume more than 133 billion liters of beer each year. Yet if it wasn't for microbes, there'd be no beer.
PROFESSOR CHARLES COCKELL: Beer is a very ancient drink. In fact, we think it first emerged in about 6,000 BC. And we find evidence of this in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. And we know that the Egyptians took their beer extremely seriously. Some of the hieroglyphs show that they gave names, like joy bringer and heavenly to their beer.
NARRATOR: Like beer, the Egyptians also enjoyed their wine, again, highly dependent on our friendly microbes.
DR. PAULA SALGADO: One inscription found in a tomb made me laugh-- "Give me 18 cups of wine because I want to drink until drunkenness. My insides are like straw." I guess it was not a very good idea to deny an Egyptian a drink.
NARRATOR: Some historians have speculated that the ancients stumbled across the power of microbes to create beer when a piece of bread, which contains the yeast needed to start the fermentation process, fell into a vat of soaking grain. Left to sit and heat up, the soaking grain germinated producing tiny sprouts, the perfect food for the yeast enzymes. And as they munched away, they produced a kind of alcoholic gruel, which made life a whole lot better.
COCKELL: Egyptian beer was very different from the beer that we know. It had about 10% alcohol content, so it was quite strong. And we know what it was made of because the Egyptians were very methodical at writing down how they made their beers.
In the 1980s people were able to recreate the beer of Tutankhamun based on hieroglyph information. And it was a very different beer, actually a rather unpleasant taste because it was a mixture of hops and honey, and all sorts of ingredients that are quite alien to us in terms of a beer.
NARRATOR: And their methods of drinking beer might get some strange looks in a modern English pub. In some tomb paintings, Egyptians are seen drinking their beer from ceramic cups through tubes, somewhat like drinking with a straw. The perforated straw filtered out the solid bits from the drink. So how do you brew the perfect beer?
SALGADO: Different kinds of yeast have different optimum environments and produce different kinds of beer. The bottom fermenting lager yeast prefers lower temperatures and ferment more slowly. The top fermenting ale yeast gathers at the top of the fermenting vessel and prefers higher temperatures and works quite vigorously.
NARRATOR: You can choose your preferred taste with different types of malts, grains, and hops, or even the addition of fruits and spices. But after that, it's all down to the yeast microbes.
Today, beer production is a mulitmillion pound industry. It's drunk by over a billion people worldwide who consume more than 133 billion liters of beer each year. Yet if it wasn't for microbes, there'd be no beer.
PROFESSOR CHARLES COCKELL: Beer is a very ancient drink. In fact, we think it first emerged in about 6,000 BC. And we find evidence of this in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. And we know that the Egyptians took their beer extremely seriously. Some of the hieroglyphs show that they gave names, like joy bringer and heavenly to their beer.
NARRATOR: Like beer, the Egyptians also enjoyed their wine, again, highly dependent on our friendly microbes.
DR. PAULA SALGADO: One inscription found in a tomb made me laugh-- "Give me 18 cups of wine because I want to drink until drunkenness. My insides are like straw." I guess it was not a very good idea to deny an Egyptian a drink.
NARRATOR: Some historians have speculated that the ancients stumbled across the power of microbes to create beer when a piece of bread, which contains the yeast needed to start the fermentation process, fell into a vat of soaking grain. Left to sit and heat up, the soaking grain germinated producing tiny sprouts, the perfect food for the yeast enzymes. And as they munched away, they produced a kind of alcoholic gruel, which made life a whole lot better.
COCKELL: Egyptian beer was very different from the beer that we know. It had about 10% alcohol content, so it was quite strong. And we know what it was made of because the Egyptians were very methodical at writing down how they made their beers.
In the 1980s people were able to recreate the beer of Tutankhamun based on hieroglyph information. And it was a very different beer, actually a rather unpleasant taste because it was a mixture of hops and honey, and all sorts of ingredients that are quite alien to us in terms of a beer.
NARRATOR: And their methods of drinking beer might get some strange looks in a modern English pub. In some tomb paintings, Egyptians are seen drinking their beer from ceramic cups through tubes, somewhat like drinking with a straw. The perforated straw filtered out the solid bits from the drink. So how do you brew the perfect beer?
SALGADO: Different kinds of yeast have different optimum environments and produce different kinds of beer. The bottom fermenting lager yeast prefers lower temperatures and ferment more slowly. The top fermenting ale yeast gathers at the top of the fermenting vessel and prefers higher temperatures and works quite vigorously.
NARRATOR: You can choose your preferred taste with different types of malts, grains, and hops, or even the addition of fruits and spices. But after that, it's all down to the yeast microbes.