Chateau Jiahu: It’s Not Just New, It’s Neolithic!

First there was the discovery of the oldest drinkable champagne in the World. Now, Dogfish Head brewery has released the oldest beer in the world made from ingredients found in a Neolithic burial site in China — beer with an original expiration date of around 7,000 BC. It is now the basis of Chateau Jiahu. They may want to steal the slogan from Abbott Beer: Some Things Get Better Given Longer.

Dogfish Head owner Sam Calagione warns that “[p]robably, all beer thousands of years ago — to our modern palates — would have tasted spoiled. In fact, in a lot of hieroglyphics, people are shown drinking beer using straws because they were trying to avoid the chunks of solids and wild yeast.”

Using infrared spectrometry, gas chromatography and other techniques, scientists were able to deduce the ingredients found in pots from a burial site in Henan province. What is fascinating is that the find suggests that humans started making beer not long after settling down and developing agriculture. The ancient Joe-Six-Packs made the beer from rice, grapes, hawthorn berries, honey and chrysanthemum flowers.

They are still looking for evidence of ancient Nachos.

Source: NPR