June 22nd, 2010 by Nate
Ok, so ‘old’ is a relative categorisation. However I recently came across this article from Edible Geography about the origins of the very cool Dogfish Head’s Theobroma beer.
So it turns out that this beer was developed by the brewery in association with biomolecular archaeologistPatrick McGovern, who worked with John S. Henderson to identify a residue found on the inside of 1400 B.C. Mesoamerican pottery fragments. These fragments were found in what is today known as Honduras and after some intense testing an analysis found traces of the compound of cacao, theobromine.
So yeah… not really old. Perhaps Ancient is better?
What does this mean, well to sum it up they had found what appears to be the earliest known evidence of an “alcoholic beverage made from sweet cacao pulp”. Apparently this was a drink made fromthe fermented fruit of the cocao plant. The very same plant that we cut off and dispose of in order to get chocolate-producing beans.
Needless to say, VERY COOL stuff. I mean to find what is essentially the oldest evidence of a fermented alcohol drink just goes to show how important beer or beer like substances have been to the world.
From what I’ve read of the article, I’ve just ordered McGovern’s book, Uncorking the Past from Amazon and hopefully it’ll be here soon.
So as to the beerfrom Dogfish Head, well it seems that based on the findings of the investigation and some impressive brewing techniques, you can now buy this limited run beer that mimics some of the qualities of ancient booze.
I’m with Nicola over at this article from Edible Geography, I love the idea of this attempted archaeo-brewing. Now I’ve just got to get my hands on some of this beer!
ancient, ancient beer, archaeo-brewing, cacao, Dogfish Head, Dogfish Head’s Theobroma beer, Mesoamerican, Theobroma, Theobroma beer, theobromine, Uncorking the Past
