MILL CREEK, Utah (ABC4) — Using recipes from ancient Egyptian papyrus and his master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies, a Mill Creek man has brewed a beer based on a recipe that’s nearly 3,000 years old.
Dylan McDonnell, a self-described avid brewer, recently recreated what he calls an authentic ancient Egyptian beer recipe using yeast from ancient pottery.
Brewing drinks like this allows him to taste history and “connect with that time period,” he said.
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He derived the beer recipe from the Ebers Papyrus, a document of herbal knowledge dating back to around 1550 B.C.
“What I did was take every recipe that mentioned beer and take the top eight ingredients from that recipe and make a beer,” McDonnell said.
Among the ingredients he required were Egyptian purple barley, emmer wheat, Egyptian balsam berries, Israeli golden raisins, and frankincense.
The yeast used in brewing beer is also ancient: A group of Israeli scientists managed to extract yeast from a bottle dating back to the 9th century BC.
McDonnell has been brewing beer for hours every day since January.
“It’s amazing,” he says. “3,000 years ago, someone in Egypt was probably putting those same ingredients in a pot and boiling them and trying to make the same thing.”
As for the taste, it has a citrus aroma and a strong sour taste. It has a sour taste, but no hop flavor at all.
