A beer from Ancient Egypt is revived: this is the drink that the builders of the pyramids drank 3000 years ago

A history-loving homebrewer in suburban Utah has pulled off something few museums or universities have even attempted: reviving a beer that may have been the drink of choice of pyramid builders in Ancient Egypt over 3,000 years ago.

Without the help of a fancy lab or any funding, Middle Eastern studies scholar and self-taught brewer Dylan McDonnell recreated the ancient tipple all by himself in his own back yard in Millcreek, just outside Salt Lake City.

How a Utah homebrewer made an Ancient Egyptian beer

But doing so was no easy task. Inspired by the hordes of Americans baking sourdough bread in the early stages of the covid-19 pandemic, McDonnell went down a slightly different route linked to two of his passions, hoping to replicate the kind of beer drunk by laborers working for the pharaohs three millennia ago.

McDonnell went through 75 beer-related recipes in the Ebers Papyrus, a 3,500-year-old Egyptian medical text, discovering there were eight core ingredients: desert dates, Yemeni Sidr honey, sycamore figs, black cumin, juniper berries, golden raisins from Israel, carob fruit, and a hint of frankincense. Good luck finding some of them in Utah.

However, where there’s a will there’s a way, and McDonnell was determined not to be stopped by inconvenience. He grew Egyptian purple barley in his garden, malted and dried ancient emmer wheat (also known as farro) and even smoked some of the grain to mimic Bronze Age conditions.

Yeast the key to recreating 3,000-year-old beer

But the yeast, as with most beers, was the key. McDonnell partnered with Primer’s Yeast, a German-Israeli biotech firm that works with archaeologists to isolate and revive dormant yeast strains found in ancient ceramics, and was sent an extract from a jug discovered at Tel es-Safi, the site of the ancient Philistine city of Gath. According to experts, that very strain had been used to ferment beer almost 3,000 years ago.

The result was a drink offering floral aromas, fruity sweetness reminiscent of apricot, and a tangy acidity not unlike a light fruit wine or modern cider. “It has a rustic, almost wild character, but it’s totally drinkable,” said Chris Detrick, brewmaster at Level Crossing Brewing in Salt Lake City, after a private tasting.

No plans to sell ancient beer

And you’ll have to take Detrick’s word for it, as McDonnell has no plans to sell his beer, or even brew more of it. For him, it was all about finding a connection with the ancient past.

“During the brewing process, I stopped and looked up at the sky,” he said. “And I thought: someone 3,000 years ago was doing the same thing, following the same recipe.”

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