This week we are a couple days late. I am sorry about that holidays are crazy! I am very excited to share this episode with all of you. I met with Sara Toth Stub, journalist we talked about her article for Sapiens magazine about archeologists that recreated an ancient beer with yeasts discovered form clay pots.
Here is a link to her article: https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/ancient-beer/
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Show Transcript it is AI generated and will have many errors.
Colter Wilson: For anyone that’s listened to this podcast you’ll know that beer history is something that has just truly intrigued me for a very long time. And when I was reading an article recently in sapiens magazine, talking about the ancient world and beer and recreating one, I had to have the author of that article.
On the show. So this week we’re talking to Sarah tote stub about her newest article, where she talks about ancient history in beer this week on homebrewing DIY.
And welcome back to homebrewing DIY the podcast that takes on the doing yourself aspect of brewing gadgets, contraptions, and parts. This show covers it all on this week’s show. We’re talking to Sarah toe stub about her newest article, where she is talking about the ancient world and beer. And specifically a group of scientists that recreated an ancient beer using yeast found at a site.
Uh, it’s quite a cool show and I highly recommend sticking ground for the interview. But first I’d like to thank all of our patrons over at Patrion is because of you that the show can come to you week after week, head on over to patrion.com forward slash homebrewing DIY, and give monthly at any amount, your support helps the show come to you week after week.
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Leave us a review and your reviews are going to help others find the show and as well. It’s great feedback for the podcast and helps us improve. The last way to support the show is head over to home brewing DIY dot ear and use some of our sponsor links. I want to thank all of the listeners who went over there and used adventures and home brewing and Bruna back.com and supported the show by doing their Christmas shopping this month.
Super exciting. Also just exciting to see all of the cool things that homebrewers have gotten this month. There’s so much out there from electric home breweries, all the way to grain meals. People have been sending me pictures. It’s pretty cool stuff. So excited to see all of those new Homebrew gifts coming to you.
And. Last I’d like to say. I hope everybody had a great holiday and I just, I had a really great time with the wife and the kids and super mellow had a few beers and just a really relaxing, great Christmas holiday. So super, super cool. Well, that being said, let’s jump into this week’s episode where we’re going to talk to Sarah tote stub.
And we’re going to talk to her about
I’d like to welcome Sarah tote stub. She’s a freelance journalist for archeology magazine and she’s in her past written for such publications as the wall street journal. Sarah, thank you so much for coming on homebrewing and DIY, how are you today?
Sara Toth Stub: Good. Good. Thank you for having me.
Colter Wilson: Well, the reason that I have you on the show today is that you recently wrote a fascinating article about beer.
And I wanted to invite you to the show to maybe talk a bit about that article specifically, the article is in sapiens magazine and is. Talking about a recreation that archeologists have made of an ancient beer. I’d love to just maybe start from the beginning of how you kind of got on this story and, uh, and a little bit of background about the story.
Sara Toth Stub: Sure. Uh, I guess it was almost to half a year ago, a bit more. I was discussing with. My wonderful editor at sapiens, Daisy, you have some, some future story ideas. And she pointed out to me that she had seen an interesting panel that was supposed to be about ancient beer that was supposed to happen at the society for American archeology conference this summer, which never happened because of the COVID pandemic.
So that sort of piqued our interest. Like why, why is this archeology conference having a panel on beer? Um, sapiens covers archeology anthropology. Things like that history. So she just sort of threw that idea out there. And I decided, I said, you know what? You know, I cover, I cover archeology is part of the things I write about from Israel.
And it sort of occurred to me that I had heard several in the last few years about archeological findings having to do with beer in, in different ancient cultures. So I sort of thought, okay, maybe there’s a trend there. Let’s, let’s look into this. And I guess the question that I was most interested in is archeologists really learning about ancient.
Beer and learning about other things through the study of beer, or is this just like a gimmick to make the conference more fun to, you know, have a tasting of, of ancient beer. So that’s sort of where it started. That’s where the idea came from. And that’s sort of how I started to, to look at it. And so I started reaching out to archeologists who were supposed to have been in that panel and to others who have published things about beer in the agent world.
Um, Based on, on research, you know, in the middle East and the near East in China and in many places. So that’s how, how it started out, you know, reached out to, um, brewers mainly from small places, mainly in the States who I had seen making, making ancient beer or running workshops about ancient beer. And I ha I even saw through my initial research, as some museums were brewing agent beer, having beer people working with archeologists to, to do this.
So that’s, um, That’s kind of how the story started. So I did, as I, as I usually do, you know, a lot of background research and interviews to, to, um, identify main themes and find interesting people, people to talk to. I, I hope it shows through in the article, but one of them, but I did find out, you know, this is obviously much more than a gimmick.
Um, archeologists are, are learning many fascinating things about, about different agents societies by studying, by studying their beer. So.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. And I obviously, if you’re listening to this podcast right now, I will put a link to the article itself from the show. And I highly recommend you go and just consume this entire article.
It is a great read, but some things that, uh, let’s, let’s talk a bit about the background. There were. You, you, you did some research, you’ve talked to a bunch of different people. It seems like all over the spectrum in the beer world, when it comes to historians all the way to brewers, what, what would you say are some of the pers the pervasive themes that were.
Kind of through all of those conversations about the culture and beer and kind of how they were intertwined.
Sara Toth Stub: So one theme that, that sort of this sort of comes up is that several people said this, you know, the beer was not something. People in the ancient world where we’re not stupid, they wanted, you know, things that tasted good things that made them feel good.
All these sorts of things that, that we have today. So, you know, beer was not just something that was discovered by accident. Most likely because someone left some bread sitting around in water, um, you know, many, many of them. These societies had, had developed very specific recipes for making beer and also other fermented drinks, you know, often based on what a great ingredients were readily available to them.
So that’s something that, that really came out. People, you know, their identity was, was connected. To, to some of these drinks. Um, another thing that came out is how much we still don’t know because, um, you know, a lot has been learned in the last couple of decades as chemistry and, and other forms of science have advanced, which now can vary, you know, exactly identify oftentimes which ingredients were used and, and can even, you know, map the genome of some of the grains and some of the other plant things that were used.
So that’s. That’s interesting to know, but you know, this all depends on, you know, is, was there a good sample left on the jog or, you know, did you happen to dig in the right place? You know, there are a million things that have to line up to, to get those, you know, residue samples that, that people can analyze.
So there’s a lot that’s not known and because beer was something, you know, it doesn’t have a very long shelf life. I mean, obviously there are nuances, but it’s often made in the home, you know, much the way that the bread was and other, you know, basic food items. So it was something that in many cases, there weren’t necessarily, you know, trade records about it with what you may often see with wine, because wine in general, You know, keeps longer.
It was something that was, that was traded more. Whereas beer tended to be something that was consumed, you know, locally, whether that was in the home or in the village or in the town. And of course there are exceptions. So that makes beer sort of, um, someone that, that I interviewed who. Works at the Avery brewing company.
I think it’s called in Boulder. Actually. He was saying that the archeological record of beer has a lot of holes in it, you know, there’s, we don’t have as full of story about it as we have maybe about wine or about other things, because again, it wasn’t recorded and trade documents or, or things like that.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. I think that that’s something that I think is fascinating to me is that there are a lot of holes in the beer history. It’s kind of like, it is something that was very made on a farm or made in the home. And then all of a sudden. A few hundred years ago, people did start making it a commercial scales.
And then we now have like we have today. But before that it was essentially a homemade beverage. And, and one of the things that you in your article you point out is that the beer that they recreated here was made from yeast that was found in pottery, is that, is that a pretty common occurrence or is that something that is unique?
Sara Toth Stub: So this was a unique situation. I’ll just fill people in, in case they haven’t, haven’t read the article, but basically a team of archeologists in Israel, consisting of researchers from various universities, field archeologists, um, and also as an interdisciplinary team. So. So chemists and other scientists they had had vessels from, from various, I think it was as many as five archeological sites around Israel from, you know, ranging from 5,000 years ago, 4,000 years ago, 2000 years ago, you know, sort of a range of things.
And some of them had the idea to not just identify, you know, what. What the residues were on these vessels, you know, that, um, has become somewhat common in archeology to find something and to do residue analysis and say, okay, we see that it contains traces of weeds or, you know, whatever, whatever it is, but they decided to go a step further.
And not only say that there were traces of yeast, but to see if they could see if that that yeast was still viable, because yeast is something, a microorganism that lives in a colony. So the colony can keep surviving for a long time. Obviously the individual micro organisms die off, but the colony can live for a very long time.
So they were curious if these colonies, you know, on these vessels that were. Thousands of years old, we’re still viable enough to, to use today. You know, what would it cause fermentation today? So know as obviously sort of a lot of complex science work in a lab, but they isolated a few different yeast samples.
They actually ended up being different species of yeast. And they use them to, you know, they fall at sort of a basic recipe for a home brew and they also were. They worked with, with some brewers as well, and they use them and made, I think, um, for different kinds of beer and one kind of need, which is basically yeast and honey, I believe.
And, um, yeah, they made them and they all sort of, you know, really tasted like beer more or less, but one of them, one of them, the one that I actually didn’t have the opportunity to taste these because this, this event actually happened before I was writing this story. So I, you know, I interviewed everyone and watched videos and sort of, you know, Recreated the, the tasting, but I actually didn’t get to taste the beer myself, but they said that the one that tasted the best was actually the one made with the same species of yeast, which is most commonly used today in the Western world to brew beer.
So I thought that was interesting. So, yeah, that’s what, that’s what they did. I don’t think this is something people can, can do at home because it took a lot of scientific work in the lab as well, to figure out, you know, if these were actually viable and keep them in the right conditions.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. It’s kind of something where the, this was a unique situation where you found a bit of yeast slurry and were able to actually isolate the yeast out.
And to be honest at a, at a. It a Homebrew level. You can, you could actually make your own little yeast lab at home and grow things up, but you’re, you’re gonna really struggle to differentiate between different species of yeast on a slant or something like that. And so, yeah, I, I agree this.
Sara Toth Stub: Or you’re going to have to end where you would have to convince archeology.
I mean, if you could convince the archeologists to give you some of these units
Colter Wilson: do that. Yeah, exactly. But even, even then, you’re going to, you’re going to still struggle to get it isolated without a full lab. It’s just, that’s kind of the deal. Yeah. And then, uh, one thing I would, I would love to know is, so you, you said that they made these beers and funny the beer that is more.
Related to modern yeast is the one that ended up tasting the best. Uh, and I’m not surprised by that. I think Saccharomyces, which is the modern brewers yeast is, is if there’s a reason why we brew with it, right. It works and it tastes great. Uh, what do you think as far as socially that they were able to kind of drive from this.
From these discoveries, right. I know that they made it using more modern malts and things like that. And really this was just the yeast. But the idea is that, you know, are there things that these discoveries tell us about those ancient cultures that we can derive about? Maybe what daily life was like, those kinds of things.
So
Sara Toth Stub: in this case of this project that I just talked about in Israel. So first of all, is some of the vessels that contained yeast were from a couple of different, you know, a few different archeological sites. And they had suspected that these pitchers and vessels, which were quite numerous were used for beer because they had sort of like a filter, a filter.
Spout on them. You know, it had been assumed that, okay, it would make sense that this was used for pouring beer that could filter out, you know, bits of things that you don’t necessarily want to drink that are left over from the fermentation process. Um, but they never really knew that for sure. So now they know that for sure.
So they know that, for example, among the Philistines who were sort of like a seafaring people. From the region that, that settled, you know, in, in what is now Israel and Lebanon and other places in the region, you know, there are a lot of these sorts of vessels found that a lot of their archeological sites.
So now people know for sure that beer was probably, you know, a big, a big part of their life. And then going back, um, jumping to a couple of other projects that were done, you know, farther, farther back in history in a pro and an archeological project in China and the yellow river Valley. Um, they also found, uh, found vessels that had traces of basically fermented beverages on them as well.
That were as old as, you know, eight then dating back 8,000 years. So not only did they find out okay, that, that. People were making beer like beverages back then, but they were also making these beverages, you know, right around the time when other evidence shows that they were starting to domesticate grains and plants that were used for food.
So basically, you know, when they started to domesticate plants, one of the main uses are for these plants as far as they can tell was not just making bread, but was also, you know, making beer. So that was interesting. It showed that that, uh, You know, I mean, no one knows exactly how this, how this happened, but maybe one of the motivations for domesticating plants and for, you know, making them grow more efficiently, closer to where you are, could have been that they needed it for, for making, for making drinks like this.
And that’s also a similar discovery was made also in the nut to fie in culture, which is from. I don’t know, as long as, you know, 15,000 years ago, and also in the Mediterranean region and what is now Israel, Jordan, that, that area, you know, the archeologists found in a cave on the coast of Israel, evidence of beer being made like 11,000 to 13,000 years ago in, uh, in India to P insight there.
And it sort of matches up. Uh, roughly to the age at which they have found that that culture also started making bread. So the two were, you know, sort of came into being, or at least being, being done roughly the same time. So that that’s interesting because scholars say that this can help them better understand maybe people’s motivations for domesticating, grain, and motivations for becoming settled societies rather than nomadic societies.
Um, you know, beer was, was probably part of that story. Another interesting thing that researchers have learned as well, both in the case of China and in the case of this Natufian civilization. In Israel and other places in the region, they have found its sites and both of those places, evidence of beer making in the same areas where people were buried.
So they think that there is maybe some link between morning rituals or burial rituals and feasting or, or drinking or, or things like this. And, and was one researcher from Stanford university pointed out to me. She, she was involved in the research in China, as well as in these. The two key insights around Israel.
She was saying that. You know, she said, you know, we have to acknowledge that in all of this, you know, it’s alcohol, it wasn’t just for sustenance. Like people, you know, were drinking it perhaps because of the alcohol, because of the way it made them feel. So, so that’s something. Also connected to the idea of the alcohol.
It should be pointed out that that some scholars have also said that that beer may have been consumed or may have been made because it was a way to ensure or try to ensure that people wouldn’t get sick from water sources that weren’t necessarily clean, that this was a way to sort of sterilize.
Colter Wilson: Yeah.
See to me, that is the most fascinating part of all of this is, is really just how alcohol and beer were used in daily life. And we can even take that to modern examples, right? So like for example, and, and this is just me kind of going off the cuff here, but for example, right now in the home brewing world, there’s a really big.
Push towards these farmhouse ale, yeast strains that are out of Norway called , which have been used for hundreds of years at a farmhouse level, and are now just hitting the, uh, the, the brewing scene. And they’re completely different than any type of brewers, yeast that has ever been out there that these yeasts were actually used.
Were things such as funerals, right? Somebody would pass away, they would then brew a and they still do this to this day. They would brew a beer with these and they, I have to have the beer done by the time the funeral. So you have only a few days to have it done. And these beers actually Confirmit and as little as four days grain to glass.
And so the idea is that, yeah. And so you can take even modern examples of, we do this today and. Go back 8,000 years. Why would we be doing that? 8,000 years ago? We’re still human beings. Right?
Sara Toth Stub: So,
Colter Wilson: yeah. So this was a, it’s a fascinating article and I appreciate you taking the time to come on to this show and talk to us about your journey through this article.
I’ll make sure we link to it, or is there anything beer related or. Alcohol research related in your future?
Sara Toth Stub: Not at the moment, but, um, I, I do think it’s something that, you know, something that sort of caught my attention, going back to the first project that I, that I talked about, where the researchers in Israel isolated that yeast and made beer from it, there is, uh, something that I might look into writing about.
I thought was interesting. They said that there is a lot of potential now that they have. Succeeded to do that. There’s a lot of potential in learning more about cheeses, for example, or olives or pickles or other other foods that may have been consumed in the ancient world that were fermented, um, to, to learn more about how, how those were made, because maybe you could also isolate.
You know, parts of different ingredients of those and, and learn more about that. So just, yeah, the, I mean, I, I would, I am interested in this idea of how, how resourcers have been able to delve more deeply into the, into the food that people in the ancient. World have, you know, we’re eating. And that’s really interesting because for a long time, archeology was, you know, it’s always been, I guess, about the things that, that survive, but for a long time, that was, you know, stones and, and things like this.
But now because of the advancement of the chemistry, biology, genetic science, it’s possible to learn about things that. Really don’t even exist anymore. You know, you have microscopic residue, but you could learn all about someone’s diet from that are all about their economy or their society. So I find that concept.
Interesting. And I hope to, to maybe, um, write some more articles about projects, looking into that.
Colter Wilson: Couldn’t, can’t wait to read them because to me, it’s you listed off all the great, you just listed off all the great things in life, which are beer, wine, cheese, olives. I mean, come on. So. Fermentation makes all the great things in life.
Right. So, uh, well, I want to thank you for coming on homebrewing DIY. And like I said, if you, if you ever write another article, I’d love to have you back, but, uh, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Sara Toth Stub: Okay. Well, thank you so much for having me. It was a lot of fun.
Colter Wilson: Now we’re going to hop into a bit of feedback.
I had a bit from Michael that he sent me an email. You actually just went over to the contact form on our website and sent me an email this last week. And this was a good follow-up to an earlier episode. So let’s hop into. His comment. He said, hi, I just discovered your podcast yesterday. Absolutely.
Brilliant. Thank you for making it in one of the ice spindle shows, you mentioned that you were trying to find a way to flash the firmware for a non-PC machine. I’m on a Mac in my head and it’s the only thing I have in my house. So wondering if the, if that’s what you’re using is the same thing. And did you ever find an answer?
Maybe I could come up in a later episode, best wishes Mike. I did respond to Mike and I said, Mike, Thank you so much for listening to the show, but yes, uh, John Beeler who made ferment track has come up with a new piece of software it’s called brew flasher, and it is specifically made for the Macintosh and other types of.
Operating systems to be able to flash the ESP 82 66, specifically for brewing softwares. So he’s, he’s gone and made a get hub or pository. I do have a link to the brew flasher software, and I will put that in the show notes. So if you go to home brewing diy.beer, look in the show notes and have a cool little.
Link there. And you’ll be able to head over to the brew flasher software on get hub, or you could just search for one word brew, flasher, and just is, uh, another announcement to kind of finish up the feedback section. I do want people to know that starting next week. Which is the last week show, the last show.
And last week of the year, we are going to have our Homebrew hack show. So very excited about that. Normally I have Evan, the president of the home old town mash paddlers. Do the show with me. And we go through all the different Homebrew hacks that have been sent to me. But Evan is actually not going to be able to make the show this year.
He’s had some family stuff come up and I hope that it works out for him. And we’ll see him again soon. I just need to, he needs to. Take a little break from doing some old tell, mash paddler business right now. And, and I support him in that, that being said, I am going to have Aaron Bandler. Who’s been on the show multiple times and he’s going to go through some of the Homebrew hacks with me this week.
And so very excited for that show and all of the hacks that have already been sent to us. It’s always a great show. So just note that show will drop on Thursday, new year’s Eve, and that will be the last show of the year. So very, very. Excited to hear that
I’d like to thank Sarah tote stub for taking the time to be on this show. I know that we had to talk all the way from Jerusalem to Denver, Colorado working out times morning for me night for her. Always cool to see how global of a show. This podcast really is, but I want to thank her for taking the time to be on the podcast.
Also, just note, if you head over to home brewing diy.beer, I am linking to her article in sapiens magazine as well is I will. Drop a link to her Twitter account. So if you’d like to follow some of the other article archeological articles that she writes, she’s a wonderful author and great journalists. So please make sure you follow Sarah.
Also speaking of social media, head on over to. Our website, homebrewing, diy.beer, or you can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook all at home brewing, diy.beer, one word, and last, if you want to be on the feedback section, just send us an email to home brewing, to podcast@homebrewingdiy.beer, and you can also head over to our website.
And click on the content tab and then fill out that form. And that will shoot me an email as well. Well, that’s it for this week and we’ll talk to you next week on Homebrew .
