After piecing together a 3100 year old beer recipe through microscopic examination of scrapings from a red clay jar, university professors were able to recreate a batch of Europe’s oldest beer. The feat was accomplished in Barcelona, capital of Catalonia, the North East State of Spain.

The ancient brewsters already used barley and a kind of wheat, called emmer or spelt. They knew the importance of cooking herbs in the beer to flavor and preserve the drink. The result of the professors home brewing experience was thickish with a lot of particles floating in it, rather dark and a bit flat, but at the same time they ended up with a brew of about 8 % alcohol by volume. I would say, “a beer like a meal”. We call a beer with this strength of alcohol a DOUBLE in Belgium.