Stanford Students Reproduced Beer From 5000 Years Old Chinese Recipe, It Tasted Sweeter Than The Beers Of Today

Before the industrialization, peoples used to brew a lot of beers at their home. Students from Stanford University finally able to reproduce ancient beers from a 5,000 years old recipe. Using that recipe Chinese people used to brew beers at their kitchen.

A group of Stanford University students started working on this project under the guidance of Dr. Li Liu, Profesor of Chinese archeology. During the research on “archaeology of food” professor Liu discovered the earliest beer making process of china. Liu and her team collected the brewing process of the beer from the leftover samples inside the 5,000 years old vessel. The research team collected the vessel from the excavation site in north-east China. By analyzing the chemical components of the residue, the team was able to brew the beer at their lab.

Lead researcher Dr. Liu said in a statement,“Our results suggest the purpose of barley’s introduction in China could have been related to making alcohol rather than as a staple food”. Their research report was first published in the journal of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS).

According to The Drinks Business, cereal grains were the main ingredients of beer in ancient China. They also used barley, millet and a type of grass that was known as Job’s tears. Researchers also discovered the traces of yam and lily root during the analysis of the ancient vessel.

Before this discovery, the earliest evidence of barley seeds of China was dated 4,000 years old. This thing suggests that the barley seeds were first domesticated in western Asia and then it was brought to China for brewing purposes, rather than making foods.

Dr. Liu explained that the ancient beer looked different than the modern beer. It was not as clear as the beer of today, the ancient Chinese beer looked more like an oatmeal or porridge. Liu and her team used straws to taste their product because the ingredients used for fermentation were not filtered out. Stanford students who were the part of the research said that the beer tastes fruity and it was sweeter than the modern beer.