An ancient Mesopotamian beer recipe that dates back thousands of years, is finding new life in modern times thanks to innovative brewers tackling food waste.
The recipe, etched into a clay tablet as a poem to Ninkasi, the goddess of beer, reveals a unique brewing method that included bread.
Sumerians, who lived in ancient Mesopotamia around 4,000 to 6,000 years ago, used “beer bread,” a twice-baked barley bread, to start the brewing process.
But How?
The process of making beer from bread involves reusing surplus bread that would otherwise go to waste.
The bread is first crumbed using an industrial shredder and mixed with traditional brewing ingredients like barley.
This mixture provides the sugars needed to start the fermentation process.
Rice hulls are added to prevent the bread from becoming too dense, ensuring a successful brewing process.
From Waste To Beer
In 2016, London’s Toast Brewing revived this historic recipe to combat food waste.
Having seen the vast amounts of bread discarded by factories and supermarkets, founders Tristram Stuart and Louisa Ziane decided to innovate and transform surplus loaves into beer with this ancient method.
