History of the week

Alcohol history links june 11 - 17th​

I Tried a Medieval Diet, And I Didn't Even Get That Drunk

A week and a half diet of medieval foods? Hell yes. Seems pretty healthy, too. It’s based off of the Regimen Sanitatus Salernum, a collection of advice from English royal doctors in the form of a poem, no less. I’ll have to give it a go one of these days, but maybe substitute the diluted red wine with table beer instead.

lauter and sparge

Merryn Dineley recently provided a very thorough explanation of the lautering and sparging stages of the brewing process, with historical information to boot!

London’s earliest named brewer – or London’s earliest named maltster?

Martyn Cornell once again provides some fascinating material. He goes over the recent Museum of London Archaeology findings where a wooden tablet addresses a brewer named Domitius Tertius Bracearius. According to Cornell, though, the translation is more likely to be maltster, rather than brewer, and goes on to provide some convincing evidence. But as he points out later on, even if he was a maltster, he must have been selling his wares to brewers in London. 

Peruvian beers win medals at South Beer Cup

Cervecería Barbarian, a brewery from Peru, won three silver medals at the South Beer Cup, South America’s leading craft beer awards. One of the winning beers, though, was a Chicha - an ancient Peruvian style of beer made from corn. Always good news when ancient beer styles win.

World's oldest beer brought back to life, scientists claim

A captivating title, but a bit misleading. I have my suspicions on the accuracy of this, and as others have pointed out online, there were probably more bugs in there besides S. cerevisiae and brettanomyces. Still a fun read though. Thanks to Merryn Dineley for bringing it to my attention.