first try: Ancient Egyptian Ale

This is a work in progress.

The local malt house (vallymalt.com) had a small quantity of malted Emmer wheat, a type cultivated for thousands of years. The hot summertime seemed the right time to brew something the ancient Egyptians used to stave off the heat. I researched the heck out of old Egyptian types of brewing and found 1. they used both barley and wheat, and 2. it could be made in many ways - strong, weak, spiced, honey, whatever. Except for not using hops pretty much anything goes. You do not even have to use emmer wheat.

One place mentioned the old time pharaohs liked red colored beer, another site mentioned it was sour, and a third said something about a middle eastern spice mix called za'atar. Hmm. One of the main ingredients in za'atar is sumac - yep, those red fronds you see everywhere in the summer and fall. Sumac is sour and you can find various recipes for red sumac "lemonade" or tea. Aha! The secret ingredient!

Note: poison sumac has white berries and lives in boggy areas. No chance of getting them confused.

Late summer or fall is the time to gather sumac berries but I wanted to try it now, so I got a half pound of dried sumac at the middle eastern food store. You can find it online or simply wait until late August and gather all you want. Bitterness is optional for this recipe but I wanted some. I gathered a whole bunch of common yarrow from the roadside and saved the flower heads. June and July is the time to gather yarrow.

This would have been fermented at higher temps with wild yeast. I wanted a cultivated type intended for higher temps. The LHBS had Wyeast 3726 Farmhouse Ale on hand. I would have been happy with a Belgian or similar. I happen to use BIAB instead of clay jars.

Here is the all-grain recipe. I guessed at a 60:40 barley/wheat mix.
----------------------------
Ancient Egyptian Ale
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal

Estimated OG: 1.046 SG
Estimated Color: 6.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 13 IBUs (really estimated. I used yarrow, not hops)

Boil Time: 60 Minutes

5 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) 50.0 %
4 lbs Wheat Malt 40.0 %
1 lbs Crystal 30L 10.0 %
4.00 oz Yarrow Flowers, fresh (Boil 60 min)
4.00 oz Sumac (Boil 10.0 mins)
0.50 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 mins)

yeast: Wyeast 3726 PC Farmhouse Ale

bottle at zero or 2.0% carbonation.

-----------------------
Flat beer? Yep, they must have had flat beer because they did not have any pressure vessels, only clay jars. I chose a low carb level.

I just bottled it and it is conditioning. Some early notes:

• Leave out the crystal malt. This should get its color and flavor from the spices and yeast.
• It is not very red. Next time I will not boil the sumac at all, just add it to the cooled wort in the primary fermenter. It could use more for color and flavor.
• The yarrow flowers are more bitter than I expected and lend a "green" flavor. My son says it tastes like tea. Not bad, just different.
• I would use more coriander.
• i gotta try this again!

Very cool. I love red sumac berries - would describe them as tart. Maybe I'll try something like this sometime. Be sure to give us updates if you try it again.

What did your sources say about the ancients brewing with wheat exactly? I had understood that many past civilizations understood the inherent food value of wheat was higher than that of barley so barley was more reserved for "liquid bread". Now I understand since the beer was made in the individual households by the women, wheat could have been used along with other available grains to make their fermented liquid porridge. But still there I could see that with more experience they could apportion more of their wheat to baked bread and barley to liquid bread. After preparing their drink for countless times one would think they could become quite experienced with what base grains work best, if they had a choice of grains to employ.