Beer in Ancient Egypt

Although the richest preferred wine, the national drink of Ancient Egypt it was beer, which was made with the same basic dough of bread (https://www.pilloledistoria.it/9871/storia-antica/pane-nellantico-egitto).

Once ready, the beer was then stored in specific containers, in special jugs in practice, which became the hieroglyphic symbol of the drink itself.

We learn more about beer production in Egypt from wall paintings , which illustrate perfectly and in detail the main phases of the procedure implemented to obtain the blonde drink.

Much loved by farmers and artisans, but not disdained even by the wealthiest classes, Egyptian beer was based on barley, even if starting from Amenhotep II (New Kingdom) it was preferred to replace this ingredient with spelled; in fact, the beer resulting from the barley was rather cloudy and needed to be filtered, while the beer produced from spelled was totally free of residues and therefore immediately clear without any need for additional interventions.

The yeast it was made from an alcoholic compound that was generally date wine, in turn obtained by simply pounding the dried dates with your feet.

The purified mixture obtained was placed in clay pots to ferment; the beer obtained at the end of this laborious manufacturing process was very alcoholic and tasted similar to that of our white wine.