Israelis can now buy beer fermented by using the descendants of a yeast strain that was originally used to brew beer 3,000 years ago in the Philistine city of Gat.
Called HaMishteh (“the Feast”), it’s being produced at the Shikma Brewery in Ashkelon.
You might have seen headlines that declared: “Want to get drunk like a Philistine?” or “Drink the beer that Goliath (or Cleopatra or the pharaohs) had!” or even “A taste of history in every gulp!”
Well, these are not exactly accurate.
Yet when you cut away all the public hype, the story of how this ancient yeast was discovered, isolated, revitalized, and used to brew beer is still a true adventure.
Discovering, isolating, revitalizing, and brewing beer from ancient Philistine yeast
It started a few years ago when Itai Gutman, one of the founders of the Herzl Brewery (then in Jerusalem), was having a beer (of course!) with Prof. Ronen Hazan, a microbiologist at the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Dental Medicine.
“We were discussing a project that had just succeeded in revitalizing yeast from a three-year-old empty beer bottle,” explained Gutman. “We asked ourselves, half-jokingly, if yeast can survive for three years in the bottle, maybe it can survive for hundreds or even thousands of years?”
As Gutman described it, they approached the Israel Antiquities Authority and asked if they could have some shards from ancient pottery that might have held beer or other fermented beverages. “To our surprise, they agreed,” said Gutman.
Dr. Yitzhak Paz, a senior research archaeologist at the IAA, gave them 21 shards of pottery found at four different sites in Israel, ranging in age from 5,000 to 2,500 years old. Residue from the pores of these shards was analyzed by a research team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, including Hazan, Prof. Michael Klutstein, and Tzemach Aouizerat, then an MA student in microbiology. They found the yeast colonies, revitalized them, nurtured them, and sequenced their DNA genome. Quite a piece of work!
These yeast colonies, however, were not the original ones from thousands of years ago, but their descendants. During their 3,000 years buried in the earth, enough rainwater and nutrients seeped in to keep these hearty fungi alive and multiplying. What the scientists found were many generations after the original yeast colonies.
When the cultures were analyzed, it was found that the yeast was authentic and actually used in brewing, and was not just pollution from the environment. In fact, one of the yeast strains found in pots from the Philistine site at Tel es-Safi (Gat) is still used today to brew native sorghum beer in Zimbabwe.
For the next step, beers were brewed using a few of the resurrected yeast strains. Gutman and a team of beer judges tasted them and decided that the one brewed with yeast from Tel es-Safi was the most promising.
There was no attempt to use other “original ingredients” for the grains or the flavoring. We know that the Egyptians, Philistines, and others used a wide range of flavorings for their beer, including honey, different fruits, plants, and herbs. But for these recreated beers, modern hops and malt were used – a true anachronism, since hops originated in Europe around the 11th century CE.
THE FIRST iteration of this beer was unveiled to the public four years ago at a press conference-plus-tasting in Birateinu, the Jerusalem Beer Center. The many journalists and photographers, as well as beer lovers who attended, proved that the subject had caught the popular imagination.
The beer served tasted very much like a modern wheat beer: mild, slightly spicy, sweet and fruity, drinkable, and refreshing.
At the press conference, Paz said that this experiment was a real breakthrough. “This is the first time we succeeded in producing ancient alcohol from ancient yeast – in other words, from the original substances from which alcohol was produced. This has never been done before.”
Prof. Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, who had excavated the Tel es-Safi site, proclaimed: “Make no mistake about it. This is a fantastic find!”
The research team took their findings to Yissum, the Hebrew University company specializing in helping transform scientific innovations into commercial enterprises. Together, they created the Israeli start-up Primer’s Heritage Yeast, headed by Gutman, who now lives in Berlin; the IAA; and Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, and Bar-Ilan University, which were all involved in the project.
“When we started our research, we didn’t plan to go commercial,” explained Gutman. “But then we realized that our revived yeast strains could benefit others – commercial and home-brewers – around the world.”
It took a while before the company was able to find its first customer for the yeast strain from Tel es-Safi. Eventually, an agreement was reached with the Shikma Brewery in Ashkelon, a brewer of craft beer but wholly owned by the giant Israel Beer Breweries Ltd., makers of Tuborg and Carlsberg beers.
Working closely with the Heritage Yeast team, the Shikma brewers were able to devise a recipe for their beer that allowed the aroma and flavor of the yeast to take center stage, with the malt and hops kept very mild so as not to overpower the yeast.
The barley for HaMishteh was grown in Israel – unusual for any Israeli beer.
When I tasted it, my first impression was to draw comparisons with Belgian ales and German wheat ale (hefeweizen). Both of these styles get flavors from the yeast – fruity esters including banana, and clove-like phenols. This is what I tasted in HaMishteh.
It is an enjoyable, balanced beer, aromatic and flavorful, fun to drink, with a very modest 4.7% alcohol by volume.
Gutman explained that we shouldn’t be surprised to find Belgian yeast characteristics in the 3,000-year-old strain. “Belgian brewers have been using traditional yeast cultures for hundreds of years. These are closer to our ancient yeast varieties than the more modern and ‘domesticated’ strains that are used in the popular lagers and ales around the world.”
It’s no wonder, then, that HaMishteh, brewed with yeast from the Philistine city of Gat, actually tastes similar to Belgian ale.
Primer’s Heritage Yeast will be available for sale later this year to anyone who wants to use it, according to Gutman. It can already be pre-ordered on the company’s website.
“We decided to sell the yeast rather than the beer,” said Gutman, “so people can use it to make whatever they want. We don’t want to stop at beer. We hope our ancient yeast strains will be used, for example, by bread bakers, winemakers, mead brewers, even [to make] cheese and other dairy products.”
All that is planned for the future. What you can buy and drink today is a beer made with the same yeast strain used 3,000 years ago – even if it isn’t the same beer that warmed the heart of the pharaohs, Cleopatra, or Goliath. ■
The writer is the owner of MediawiSe, an advertising and direct marketing agency in Jerusalem. He writes a web log on Israeli craft beers at www.IsraelBrewsAndViews.blogspot.co.il.