Tate Paulette

...and a video showing @altonbrown.bsky.social's first taste of one of our ancient Mesopotamian beers (the one that they called "dark" beer). You'll need to crank up the volume to hear his reaction

YouTube video by NC State CHASS Brewing Up Something Ancient

Here's a direct link to the video about our effort to recreate two ancient Mesopotamian beers

You're welcome. I hope you enjoy it, though there's not much discussion of the recent experimental brew. Bear in mind that we weren't aiming for extreme authenticity there. We did employ the correct proportions of ingredients. Beyond that, we focused mainly on trying out one theory about bappir

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it

YouTube video by ArchaeologyTV Beer in Ancient Mesopotamia with Tate Paulette

If you didn't catch my talk "Beer in ancient Mesopotamia" at last week's @archaeological.org Archaeology Hour, you can now watch it here on YouTube

Food and the Future The sold-out debut of The Human Factor Speakers Series, featuring Alton Brown, brought campus and community together for lively conversations about the deeper meaning behind the food we eat.

Here's another story about the Human Factor event, featuring some great shots of @altonbrown.bsky.social tasting our beers––first, the dark beer through blown-glass "reed" straws from a communal vessel, then the golden beer (+3 herbal additions: juniper, cardamom, and hyssop) from tasting glasses

These are all gone, but Les and I have been talking about a next round of experimental brewing. Perhaps we can put together some kind of tasting event at Trophy

If you're into history and into beer and HAVEN'T read Tate's book "In the Land of Ninkasi" are you REALLY into history and beer?

Tasting History NC State history professor Tate Paulette and Trophy Brewing’s Les Stewart teamed up to recreate 4,500-year-old Mesopotamian beer, giving modern drinkers a taste of Sumerian culture.

Here's a nice write-up and video about my recent collaboration with Les Stewart from Trophy Brewing Co. to recreate two ancient Mesopotamian beers. We served these to @altonbrown.bsky.social last week on-stage at NC State's new annual speaker series "The Human Factor" chass.ncsu.edu/news/2025/09...

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Very happy to have had my braincells recharged a little bit by @tatepaulette.bsky.social ‘s delightful AIA lecture today. Fond memories of the ~suggestive tablet in my undergrad’s little archaeology museum & its delightful entry point for discussions about early brewing & Mesopotamian life.

Tap into Ancient Mesopotamian history next week as we kick off AIA Archaeology Hour with Tate Paulette’s lecture, "Beer in Ancient Mesopotamia." Discover the world’s first great beer culture and the people who brewed, drank, and celebrated it.

Register: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Oh, that’s interesting. Thanks!

We're so excited to tap into the beer culture of Ancient Mesopotamia!

I feel like they’re trying to tell me something … something about … breakfast?

Explore the world’s first great beer culture with Tate Paulette! Join the AIA on Sept 17 at 8 PM ET | 7 PM CT | 6 PM MT | 5 PM PT for "Beer in Ancient Mesopotamia." Register here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

#Archaeology #AIA #AncientMesopotamia #BeerHistory

New beer reading material has arrived. I've always been slightly cynical about recreations of historic/ancient brews. Some accounts seem to be very enthusiastic but lack substance. Having engaged with the author, @tatepaulette.bsky.social, on Bluesky recently I'm looking forward to reading this 🍻

Excellent! I hope you enjoy it.

Yes, they certainly could have used unmalted barley. After a previous brew that turned out intensely acidic, though, we were trying various methods that might give the yeast a head-start over other microbes. We've taken samples of the different starters and bappirs to see how this played out

I'll be speaking about "Beer in Ancient Mesopotamia" for this year's Archaeological Institute of America (@archaeological.org) "Archaeology Hour" series. The talk will take place via Zoom on September 17 at 8pm Eastern Time. You can register at this link: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Yes, the brewers are tracking pH and gravity as the beer ferments and will do an ethanol extraction once the fermentation is complete

One interpretation of bappir is that it was a dried out sourdough starter. I borrowed two sourdough starters from colleagues. Both are normally fed every 8–12 hours with wheat flour and water, but, as a test, I fed some bowls of starter with malt flour for a few days. This video shows one of those

Excited to share these beers with @altonbrown.bsky.social at an event at NC State later this month. We haven’t aimed for extreme authenticity, e.g., using stainless steel rather than ceramics. Our focus has been ingredients, e.g. using sourdough starters like this (fed with malt) to make our bappir

Yes and no. We brewed a "golden" and a "dark" beer, both based on documents from the city of Girsu. These provide the grain bill and total beer for each batch. We don't know if any other ingredients were used, and we don't know anything about temperature. Here are the relevant pages from my book.

In this case, we mixed crushed base malt and the smoked brown malt with hot water

This is a traditional mash. We don't know exactly what method they used in Mesopotamia. I am aware of keptinis via some discussion with @larsga.bsky.social, and I'm reading his book now. The color here comes from brown malt smoked over poplar to approximate an ingredient known as titab in Sumerian.

Photo showing a dark brown liquid with barley husks floating on the surface and a few surface bubbles

Photo showing date syrup pouring from a plastic bottle into a beer keg

Brew-day, part 2. We brewed a “dark beer” based on documents from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Girsu. Here you see the wort right after the addition of bappir. We also went off recipe and added date syrup

Photo showing the book In the Land of Ninkasi by Tate Paulette sitting on top of several containers filled with bappir in different shapes and sizes

Photo showing a bin half full of crushed bappir, sitting on a table full of bappir in different shapes and sizes. In the background, storage shelves at Trophy Brewing

Brew-day today. Here’s my book among the bappir and a bin of crushed bappir ready to be hydrated and added to the wort to start the fermentation

I fed some bowls of sourdough starter with the usual ration of wheat flour and others with malted barley flour. For the bappir, I mixed starter with milled malt and tried different shapes and drying methods: e.g., low temp in the dehydrator for a few hours vs. high temp in the oven for a few minutes

Photo showing a dog (beagle-corgi?) sitting with front paws forward and ears attentive on a colorful rug from Iraq

Photo showing a dog (beagle-corgi?) standing, with tail wagging and face attentive, on a hardwood floor

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