Sumerian Beer & Brewing

The earliest beer was Sumerian. Beer played an important role in Sumerian society, and was consumed by both men and women from all social classes.

In both Sumerian and Akkadian tablets, the word for beer appears in contexts relating to medicine, ritual, and myth. The "Hymn to Ninkasi" dates to about 1800 BCE and sings the praises of the Sumerian goddess of brewing.

Although Sumerian beer was made several millennia after barley was first domesticated, when the "Hymn to Ninkasi" was written beer was made using bread. But bappir, the Sumerian bread, was a storable resource that could be kept for long periods of time without spoiling.

We also know, from various annotations on bappir and beer in the Sumerian and Akkadian dictionaries, that  bappir was eaten only during food shortages. Essentially, making bread was an expedient way to store the raw materials needed for brewing beer.

Through the fermentation of barley-derived sugars into beer, yeast decreases the levels of tannins, which are stomach-irritating chemicals, and increases the levels of B vitamins and essential amino acids.  But for fermentation to occur, yeast cells need a higher concentration of sugar than is normally present in raw barley.

As it happens, a unique property of sprouted barley seeds is quality of possessing large amounts of enzymes that can convert starch into sugar. 

Barley thus has both starch, and, in its sprouted form, enzymes that convert starch to sugar.  The seeds can be sprouted any time of year, and the end product has superior nutritional value as well as being moderately intoxicating.

Collecting and processing wild barley seeds requires tremendous effort, and at the time of the transition to agriculture, barley was not the only exploitable food resource—indeed, many other resources were more accessible. 

It is hard to imagine that the effort spent collecting wild seeds would have been just for the sake of producing loaves of bread. The alcohol content and high nutritional levels of beer are the likely incentives that sparked the Sumerians.

We know the essential brewing process used by the Sumerians from the way goddess Ninkasi's actions are described in her hymn of praise.

"Ninkasi, you are the one who handles the dough [and] with a big shovel,Mixing in a pit, the bappir with date – honey,...Ninkasi, 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 waters the malt set on the ground, The noble dogs keep away even the potentates,...Ninkasi, you are the one who soaks the malt in a jar, The waves rise, the waves fall...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,...Ninkasi, the filtering vat, which makes a pleasant sound,You place appropriately on a large collector vat...Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the filtered beer of the collector vat,It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates."