Discover the Oldest Beer Recipe in History From Ancient Sumeria, 1800 B.C.

Image cour­tesy of Lock, Stock, and His­to­ry

Beer, that favorite bev­er­age of foot­ball fans, frat boys, and oth­er macho stereotypes—at least accord­ing to the advertisers—actually has a very long, dis­tin­guished her­itage. It’s old­er, in fact, than wine, old­er than whiskey, old­er per­haps even than bread (or so some schol­ars have thought). As soon as humans set­tled down and learned to cul­ti­vate grains, some 13,000 years ago, the pos­si­bil­i­ty for fermentation—a nat­u­ral­ly occur­ring phenomenon—presented itself. But it isn’t until the 5th cen­tu­ry, B.C. that we have sources doc­u­ment­ing the delib­er­ate pro­duc­tion of ale in ancient Sume­ria. Nonethe­less, beer has been described as the “mid­wife of civ­i­liza­tion” due to its cen­tral role in agri­cul­ture, trade, urban­iza­tion, and med­i­cine.

Beer became so impor­tant to ancient Mesopotami­an cul­ture that the Sume­ri­ans cre­at­ed a god­dess of brew­ing and beer, Ninkasi, and one anony­mous poet, smit­ten with her pow­ers, penned a hymn to her in 1800 B.C.. A daugh­ter of the pow­er­ful cre­ator Enki and Nin­ti, “queen of the sacred lake,” Ninkasi is all the more poignant a deity giv­en the role of women in ancient cul­ture as respect­ed brew­ers. The “Hymn to Ninkasi,” which you can read below, not only pro­vides insight into the impor­tance of this cus­tom in Sumer­ian mythol­o­gy, but it also gives us a recipe for brew­ing ancient Sumer­ian beer—the old­est beer recipe we have.

Trans­lat­ed from two clay tablets by Miguel Civ­il, Pro­fes­sor of Sumerol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go, the poem con­tains instruc­tions pre­cise enough that Fritz May­tag, founder of the Anchor Brew­ing Com­pa­ny in San Fran­cis­co, took it upon him­self to try them. He pre­sent­ed the results at the annu­al meet­ing of the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of Micro Brew­ers in 1991. The brew­ers, writes Civ­il, “were able to taste ‘Ninkasi Beer,’ sip­ping it from large jugs with drink­ing straws as they did four mil­len­nia ago. The beer had an alco­hol con­cen­tra­tion of 3.5%, very sim­i­lar to mod­ern beers, and had a ‘dry taste lack­ing in bit­ter­ness,’ ‘sim­i­lar to hard apple cider.’” A chal­lenge to all you home brew­ers out there.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, May­tag was unable to bot­tle and retail the recre­ation, since ancient Mesopotami­an beer “was brewed for imme­di­ate con­sump­tion” and “did not keep very well.” But what Civ­il learned from the exper­i­ment was that his translation—in the hands of a mas­ter brew­er “who saw through the dif­fi­cult ter­mi­nol­o­gy and poet­ic metaphors”—produced results. Below, see the first part of the “Hymn to Ninkasi,” which describes “in poet­ic terms the step-by-step process of Sumer­ian beer brew­ing.” A sec­ond part of the hymn “cel­e­brates the con­tain­ers in which the beer is brewed and served” and “includes the toasts usu­al in tav­ern and drink­ing songs.” You can read that joy­ful text—which includes the line “With joy in the heat [and] a hap­py liver”—on page 4 of Pro­fes­sor Civil’s arti­cle on the Hymn.

Hymn to Ninkasi (Part I)
Borne of the flow­ing water,
Ten­der­ly cared for by the Nin­hur­sag,
Borne of the flow­ing water,
Ten­der­ly cared for by the Nin­hur­sag,

Hav­ing found­ed your town by the sacred lake,
She fin­ished its great walls for you,
Ninkasi, hav­ing found­ed your town by the sacred lake,
She fin­ished it’s walls for you,

Your father is Enki, Lord Nidim­mud,
Your moth­er is Nin­ti, the queen of the sacred lake.
Ninkasi, your father is Enki, Lord Nidim­mud,
Your moth­er is Nin­ti, the queen of the sacred lake.

You are the one who han­dles the dough [and] with a big shov­el,
Mix­ing in a pit, the bap­pir with sweet aro­mat­ics,
Ninkasi, you are the one who han­dles the dough [and] with a big shov­el,
Mix­ing in a pit, the bap­pir with [date] — hon­ey,

You are the one who bakes the bap­pir in the big oven,
Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,
Ninkasi, you are the one who bakes the bap­pir in the big oven,
Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,

You are the one who waters the malt set on the ground,
The noble dogs keep away even the poten­tates,
Ninkasi, you are the one who waters the malt set on the ground,
The noble dogs keep away even the poten­tates,

You are the one who soaks the malt in a jar,
The waves rise, the waves fall.
Ninkasi, you are the one who soaks the malt in a jar,
The waves rise, the waves fall.

You are the one who spreads the cooked mash on large reed mats,
Cool­ness over­comes,
Ninkasi, you are the one who spreads the cooked mash on large reed mats,
Cool­ness over­comes,

You are the one who holds with both hands the great sweet wort,
Brew­ing [it] with hon­ey [and] wine
(You the sweet wort to the ves­sel)
Ninkasi, (…)(You the sweet wort to the ves­sel)

The fil­ter­ing vat, which makes a pleas­ant sound,
You place appro­pri­ate­ly on a large col­lec­tor vat.
Ninkasi, the fil­ter­ing vat, which makes a pleas­ant sound,
You place appro­pri­ate­ly on a large col­lec­tor vat.

When you pour out the fil­tered beer of the col­lec­tor vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.
Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the fil­tered beer of the col­lec­tor vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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The Art and Sci­ence of Beer

Lis­ten to the Old­est Song in the World: A Sumer­ian Hymn Writ­ten 3,400 Years Ago

Free Cours­es in Ancient His­to­ry, Lit­er­a­ture & Phi­los­o­phy

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness