Research: ancient beer brewing

Research: ancient beer brewing

Discover how ancient beer brewing might have been done! ✨

The experiments are held as part of the PhD project titled “Malting and beer brewing in ancient southern Scandinavia”, by PhD student Adam Cordes, and supervisors Kim Hebelstrup, Crop Genetics and Biotechnology, Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Flakkebjerg, and Peter Steen Henriksen, Environmental Archaeology and Materials Research, National Museum of Denmark.

The PhD project investigates the earliest malting and beer brewing in the southern Scandinavian region. In this connection, the project investigates whether the early farmers in the Danish area may have brewed beer already in the Neolithic period.

This is tested by brewing different types of beer based on the material culture that was available at the time, over an open fire and with the same simple tools. For the trials, we have therefore had ceramic reconstructions from the Neolithic period made in Sagnlandet’s pottery workshop, which will be used for brewing and fermentation. Brewing will also be done in wooden containers.

The experiments will contribute important knowledge about how beer brewing may have been carried out in the Neolithic period and how the different processes could have been controlled without modern tools. Material from the various processes in the experiments will also be included in a modern collection that can help researchers identify beer brewing in ancient times based on archaeological material.