[Stones] bronze age ale

[Merryn Dineley]

hi Ric, my mail went down for a while so I am just catching up.

Well, the fodder bit is interesting. Spent grain makes excellent animal 
fodder. It is the barley husks that remain after beer has been made. 
Cows love it.

I think malts and ale are the only thing you can usefully do with 
barley. It is impossible to grind unmalted barley into flour using a 
saddle quern. But you can easily crush the malted barley. The whole 
thing is complicated to explain but it is simple really. If you are 
interested then I have some publications?....

My husband is making some meadowsweet ale just now.

Merryn

Ric wrote:

> Hi Merryn,
> 
> point taken with thanks: the barley may have been
> grown especially for beer production, it seems, rather
> than as a food or fodder crop?
> 
> i note also, with interest, the traces of Meadowsweet
> in the apparent beer brewing process, a plant
> associated with mythology in the Mabinogion?
> 
> cheers!
> 
> Ric
> 
> --- Merryn Dineley <merryn at dineley.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Ric, according to my research, brewing was a feature
>>of neolithic grain 
>>processing, from c4000 BC onwards in Britain and was
>>in full swing 
>>before the Bronze`Age. Evidence at Barnhouse, a
>>neolithic village near 
>>the Stones of Stenness, of organic residues in
>>Grooved ware indicates 
>>turning barley into malt sugars and ale. Drains and
>>huge pots indicate 
>>the wet processing of barley.
>>
>>I have to agree with you about stereotypical images
>>of neolithic 
>>farmers! Nobody woke up one day and said 'I think I
>>shall be a farmer 
>>from now on' It was a gradual development and
>>hunting/gathering was 
>>important for a very long time.
>>
>>I think malting is the key. The research into Bronze
>>Age fulact fiadhs 
>>is interesting because these features have been
>>interpreted as meat 
>>cooking places up to now - but with no evidence of
>>bone at the sites. I 
>>think mashing is a much better explanation. Hot
>>stone mashing with 
>>fermentation to follow! Barley is of little use for
>>flour or bread but 
>>is great for malting.
>>merryn
>>
>>Ric wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Hi,
>>>
>>>i guess the NW European cereal yield in the Late
>>>Bronze Age might have been approaching practical
>>>levels of 'milled barley' to kick-start the
>>
>>brewing
>>
>>>industry, but we seem to have developed a
>>>stereo-typical image of the prehistoric farmer who
>>>just turned up one day, and created - as if by
>>
>>magic -
>>
>>> rolling vistas of endless cereals rippling in the
>>>breeze?
>>>
>>>the truth is more likely that agriculture was a
>>>lengthy stop-start process of experimentation,
>>>presumably originally subservient to animal
>>
>>husbandry
>>
>>>(esp. cattle), and pretty much running parallel to
>>>hunter-gatherer modes of subsistence for many
>>>generations if not many hundreds of years - after
>>
>>the
>>
>>>gradual arrival of 'the neolithic cultural
>>
>>package' of
>>
>>>proto-agriculture, from Southern Europe?
>>>
>>>just a thought?
>>>
>>>;)
>>>
>>>Ric
> 
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