Recipe for the ages

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/04/2018 (2738 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg’s brewery scene is always onto the next thing, but a couple of beer connoisseurs are looking to the past for inspiration.

University of Winnipeg professor Matt Gibbs (chair of the university’s department of classics) has partnered with Barn Hammer’s brewmaster Brian Westcott and owner Tyler Birch, to recreate a 4th century AD beer recipe.

A regular customer at Barn Hammer, Gibbs and Birch got on the topic of ancient beer recipes one day and Gibbs mentioned that he had come across such a recipe in his work with the university. He translated it from ancient Greek and the trio decided to give it a go.

“From a technical standpoint, you could tell that basically thousands of years the very basic principle of how this stuff is done hasn’t really changed,” Westcott said. “Of course we have more knowledge and technology now. For example we know about yeast. No one knew about that until 100-odd years ago.

“So there are descriptions we had to work with where you have to take your mixture and put it on your roof… there’s no temperature measurements, no volumetric or weight measurements, because they didn’t have that. But you could tell the basic concept was there.”

Gibbs submitted the project as a research proposal and was approved for a grant which not only funded the first batch of beer, but will allow the group to continue to experiment. The first batch was described as a sour, gold ale — not an instant favourite for most who tried it, but not undrinkable, Gibbs said.

“If you know and like craft beer… and you like it and visit these places, if you stay away from the Coors Light type of thing, this beer will not be strange to you,” Gibbs said. “It tastes sour but not overly sour… someone said they’d recently tried a commercially produced sour beer and the Roman Egyptian beer tasted much better in terms of smoothness, so there are people who drink it.

“And some people drink it and find it disgusting.”

For Gibbs, this project connects to his work in classics in that it bridges a gap between ancient and present day life.

“That’s a lot of what we do in classics. People think we just sit down and read Cicero,” Gibbs said. “Most of us in fact tend to gravitate towards projects which are broadly applicable or say something about the modern world, or else it’s not interesting to anyone.”

Having created and tasted some of the ancient beer, one thing is clear:

“There’s this idea that beer was better 100 years ago. The reality is it’s not true. Beer is better now,” Gibbs said. “You cannot deny that.”