At the crossroads of flavour science and sustainable brewing, a fascinating discovery has emerged: beer drinkers don’t just vary in taste—they cluster into two distinct camps. A recent study, presented at the American Chemical Society meeting on 18 August 2025 in Washington, DC, reveals that when sampling lagers with comparable bitterness and alcohol levels, beer enthusiasts diverge sharply in their preferences. Some gravitate toward bold, vibrant flavour chemicals—think strawberry-like notes—while others lean into softer, more mellow compounds reminiscent of pineapple.

The Experiment: Tasting, Testing, Splitting

Dr. Devin Peterson and his team at Ohio State University set out to go beyond the realm of trained sensory panels. Instead, they gathered around 135 self-proclaimed beer lovers and invited them to rate 18 lagers over three separate tasting sessions. Despite all beers being matched for bitterness and alcohol, tasters responded in strikingly opposite ways. Mass spectrometry analysis revealed differences in aroma-chemical profiles between the beers. The result?

One faction favored beers high in strong, expressive flavour compounds—brands like Samuel Adams and Brooklyn ranked highly—while the other group flipped the rankings entirely. “Polar opposites in how they’re responding to the product,” Peterson told Nature.

He also noted that these insights unlock new opportunities: brewers can now “tailor these products better for these different cohorts.”

What This Means for Craft Brewers—and for Sustainability

For the independent brewer—driven not just by flavour but by values—the implications go beyond market segmentation. Understanding these two flavor-preference camps means you can direct your innovations with precision rather than experimentation by trial and error.

• Precision reduces waste: Instead of broad-spectrum small-batch trials that may fail to connect with any particular group, brewers can develop two focused lines—one punch-packed, one mellow. This avoids unnecessary ingredients, energy, and wasted product when a new flavor misses its mark.
• Optimize raw-ingredient use: By choosing hops, yeasts, and adjuncts aligned with the desired strong or gentle aroma profiles, brewers can minimize overuse of materials that won’t resonate with their audience.
• Lower carbon footprint: Fewer experimental brews means less energy used in trial runs, fermentation, packaging, and potential disposal. A streamlined, cohort-aware production system is leaner and greener.
• Elevated customer loyalty: Meeting your drinkers where their taste buds are fosters connection. When drinkers feel their preferences are acknowledged and catered to, they’re likelier to return—reducing overproduction of unsold kegs.

In short, this isn’t just flavour science—it’s sustainability in action. By embracing a more discerning approach to flavour and audience, craft brewers can stay inventive while cutting waste, preserving resources, and engaging consumers more meaningfully.

Digging Deeper: Related Green Prophet Beer Coverage

Hungry for more insights into sustainable brewing and beer culture? Here are some past Green Prophet stories that speak directly to the roots and evolution of mindful beer practices:

• All About Ancient Mesopotamian Beer – tracing the origins of beer in early sustainable agricultural systems, and how ancient brewers exercised remarkable resourcefulness.
• Visiting local breweries in The Netherlands: a guide – exploring sustainable beer tourism, including eco-friendly tours by bicycle through Amsterdam’s craft-beer scene.
• Make Tej – beer from honey
• Make White House honey beer

Israel and Palestinian beer? Which is better?

At its core, this study rewrites a long-standing assumption: that beer drinkers form a homogeneous crowd. Far from it—your audience may fall into flavor extremes. As craft brewers, you now have the tools to tailor your offerings, sharpen your sustainability goals, and deepen consumer engagement.

Imagine launching two flagship series: one designed around the energetic, bold strawberry-esque flavours, the other around the serene, pineapple-like calm. Each batch could be scaled according to real demand, reducing overproduction and cooling the carbon footprint of your brew house.

Related: why Muslims don’t drink beer

Innovation meets responsibility. When flavour science aligns with purpose and sustainability, the future of craft brewing shines bright—and green.

Karin Kloosterman is Founder & Editor of Green Prophet, covering sustainable culture and innovation across the Middle East.

The post The Two Types of Beer Lovers and What It Means for Sustainable Craft Brewing appeared first on Green Prophet.

Below is one of the oldest written texts known to exist: a hymn in praise of the Mesopotamian beer goddess Ninkasi. Archaeologists surmise that brewing goes back to 3500 to 3100 BCE at the Sumerian settlement of Godin Tepe in modern-day Iran. But It’s not known exactly when the first beer was poured into a jug and tasted.

The Sumerians brewed many kinds of beer. The cuneiform tablet shown below is dated from “The sixth year of Prince Lugalanda,” ruler of southern Mesopotamia circa 2370 BC. It reports the deliveries of three kinds of beer to the palace and as offerings to a temple. The quantities of barley and other ingredients needed for making beer are carefully noted for inspection.

Beer was the everyday drink of the masses and of the gentry, as necessary as bread. Its nutritional value was high. It was also safer to drink than plain water, as the basic fermented liquor had to be boiled.

Barley was the grain used to provide the nutrients and sugars needed to ferment beer. It was used in the shape of barley bread dissolved in water, plus sprouted barley grains. It was a labor-intensive process, each ingredient matured separately and added in stages. Emmer, an ancient wheat variety, was added as well. Emmer is still around and is known as farro today.

Our dandelion beer recipe also relies on natural ingredients, but is much easier to brew up.

We have a partial recipe for Sumarian beer. It’s preserved in the Hymn to Ninkasi. The lyrical poem with its rhythmic verses was probably sung by workers in the brewing facilities. It illustrates the religious respect with which the Sumarians regarded beer, precious gift of the goddess.

“Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of the Tigris and the Euphrates.”

The poem goes on to describe the effects of the goddess’s gift:

“Drinking beer, in a blissful mood,
Drinking liquor, feeling exhilarated,
With joy in the heart [and] a happy liver…”

The whole poem may be viewed here.

We’ve brewed our own ancient-style beer at home: Ethiopian Tej. The traditional procedure eerily almost matches the ancient Sumerian method as outlined in the Hymn to Ninkasi.

Women were the home bakers of the time, so the responsibility for beer brewing was first theirs. When beer became a commercial enterprise, men took over the production. As a home-brewer myself, it seems logical that the first beer was the result of water into which barley bread fell, making a new ferment. The alcoholic odor was tempting – someone dared to taste the liquid – and decided to make it again, on purpose. As good a theory as any.

What was ancient beer like? We know that although recipes varied from region to region, it was probably somewhat sour, although sweetened with dates whose sugar content would have boosted fermentation. Honey was included in some recipes for the same purpose. It’s thought that it usually had 2 to 4% alcohol by volume.

It was cloudy and rough, with floating husk particles of barley and wheat and field dust. People drank the beer through a straw, avoiding the gritty stuff at the bottom of the jar. Here’s an illustration from those times. Note the sideways smile of the second figure from the left.

The Sumarians’ brewing methods developed over the ages into the beer we know today. Yet making alcohol from bread mashed into liquid has never left people’s minds. We have a funny note on that: jailbird booze.

This story went around brewer’s forums for a while. It was said that convicts would fill a garbage bag with Kool-Aid left over from lunches, then floated a slice of moldy bread (great yeast) on it. The bag was stashed behind the toilet. After a while the sugary liquid had become alcoholic. Of course, today’s ubiquitous security cameras put a stop to that.

Not something I would recommend. But If you’re feeling ambitious, you can make Tej to sip while munching on Mersu candy. For that good old Mesopotamian feeling.

The post All About Ancient Mesopotamian Beer appeared first on Green Prophet.

? BEER: Did you know that beer can be greenified? Green ingredients such as matcha and spirulina have hit the international market. Spirulina, a blue-green algae superfood packed with protein, copper, and B vitamins, in particular is growing in popularity among international brewers. RedDot Brewhouse, located next to the Singapore Botanical Gardens, offers a spirulina-infused lager.

Japan’s Okhotsk Brewery created the highly popular Okhotsk Blye Ryuhyo Draft with unique local ingredients including spirulina.

? SLÁINTE!  Like so many people across the world, the Irish say “Health” to toast to one another’s well-being. Try this nutrient-packed six-seed soda bread to moderate your libations.

? SHAMROCK:  Four-leaf clovers are believed to occur every one in one thousand. For a shot at finding one of these rare shoots, consider cultivating a clover lawn. Decimated by the herbicide revolution in the mid-twentieth century, clover lawns are making a comeback as a sustainable alternative or addition to turfgrass. They are heat and drought-tolerant, able to thrive in partial shade, and attractive to pollinators.

? LEPRECHAUN:  Leprechauns are often depicted as cobblers. Ireland’s shoe-making traditions are increasingly innovative; Sampla is a sustainable Irish footwear brand pioneering designs made with vegan leather formed from apple waste.

? RAINBOW:  Check out these rainbow-wrapped pencils that are wood and plastic-free, using recycled paper instead. Eco-conscious retailer Friendsheep makes multicolor pom pom coasters out of natural wool.

? GOLD:  E-waste is glittering on the economic horizon after Cornell University researchers developed a non-toxic method for extracting 99.9 percent of gold from recycled electronic waste. As an added bonus, the process catalyzes carboxylation, or converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds.

The post Going green with Saint Patrick’s Day iconography appeared first on Green Prophet.

If we could all go back in a time machine and be better prepared for scary times. I’ve joined a number of forums for off-grid living. Off-grid means not connecting to the local electricity or water supply. It means relying on Mother Nature, luck, your wits and a lot of common sense and technology to get electricity power, water, work, and stuff done.

So since most of us did not see into the future with a consult from our astrology charts or fortune-teller before this corona outbreak, I talked to a pile of homesteaders, people who have been living off the grid for a while now to see how people –– with the time you have now, can be better prepared and less scared for hard times. 

Teach your kids and yourself these skills and you know you will be able to survive. 

1. How to light a fire. Sounds trivial. I was reading a Farley Mowatt book about when he went to visit the people of the deer in 1947, the first white guy to do it. His matches got wet and he didn’t have fire until he met the Inuit up north who showed him how to do it. 
2. How to grow zucchini. Why zucchini? This is a plant that is easy to start with, it’s hard to kill, and when you do it you can get a bonanza of zucchini that let’s say in hunger mode you can turn into bread, flour, stir fry, something stuffed. Best case scenario you leave them on the porch of your mothers-in-law.
3. A toilet paper alternative: Remember that most bathrooms also contain a shower head. If you run out of water, you can easily wash your bottom in the shower. No big deal. Like the Bedouins do with their squat toilets.  Most of the world uses bidets. You can too. 
4. Grow micro-greens on your windowsill. You can order kits from the internet or simply make your own. You just need the seeds. When they sprout they are packed with nutrients.
5. Learn how to bake bread without a machine. Tortillas or flatbread are a good way to start. If you are more ambitious you can go all-natural by following our sourdough recipe. People have relied on wild yeasts to ferment their bread doughs, beer, and wine for thousands of years. By contrast, commercial yeast has only been around for about 100 years. It only became possible to culture-specific strains of yeast after Louis Pasteur discovered how yeast works. While commercial yeast yields safe, predictable beer and wine, mead, sourdough breads, with their delicious tang, still work beautifully in a modern kitchen.

The post Know these 5 skills to survive appeared first on Green Prophet.

A 5,000 year old brew is resurrected using yeast pulled from ancient Egyptian pottery. Researchers say: “Now know what Philistine and Egyptian beers tasted like.”

What kind of beer did Pharaoh drink? In ancient times, beer was an important ingredient in people’s daily diet.  Great powers were attributed to beer in the ancient world, particularly for religious worship and healing properties.

Israeli researchers examined the colonies of yeast that formed and settled in ancient pottery from Egypt. Ultimately, they were able to use resurrect this yeast to create a high-quality beer approximately 5,000 years old.

Many cooks were invited into the scientific “beer kitchen” to isolate the yeast specimens from the ancient debris and to create a beer with it. First the scientists reached out to vintners at Kadma Winery. This winery still produces wine in clay vessels, proving that yeast may be safely removed from pottery, even if it had lain dormant in the sun for years.

The yeast was then photographed by Dr. Tziona Ben-Gedalya at the Judaea Region Research and Development Center.  Following her initial examination, the team reached out to archaeologists Dr. Yitzhak Paz from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAI), Professor Aren Maeir at Bar Ilan University and Professors Yuval Gadot and Oded Lipschits from Tel Aviv University.

These archaeologists gave them shards of pottery that had been used as beer and mead (honey wine) jugs back in ancient times—and miraculously, still had yeast specimens stuck inside.   These jars date back to the reign of Egyptian Pharaoh Narmer (roughly 3000 BCE), to Aramean King Hazael (800 BCE) and to Prophet Nehemiah (400 BCE) who, according to the bible, governed Judea under Persian rule.

The researchers, with the help of HUJI student Tzemach Aouizerat, cleaned and sequenced the full genome of each yeast specimen and turned them over to Dr. Amir Szitenberg at the Dead Sea-Arava Science Center for analysis.  Szitenberg found that these 5,000-year yeast cultures are similar to those used in traditional African brews, such as the Ethiopian honey wine tej, and to modern beer yeast.

Get a tej recipe here! 

Now it was time to recreate the ancient brew.  Local Israeli beer expert Itai Gutman helped the scientists make the beer and the brew was sampled by Ariel University’s Dr. Elyashiv Drori, as well as by certified tasters from the International Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP), under the direction of brewer and Biratenu owner Shmuel Nakai.  The testers gave the beer a thumbs up, deeming it high-quality and safe for consumption.

Dr. Ronen Hazan, Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Dental Medicine: “The greatest wonder here is that the yeast colonies survived within the vessel for thousands of years—just waiting to be excavated and grown. This ancient yeast allowed us to create beer that lets us know what ancient Philistine and Egyptian beer tasted like. By the way, the beer isn’t bad.

“Aside from the gimmick of drinking beer from the time of King Pharaoh, this research is extremely important to the field of experimental archaeology—a field that seeks to reconstruct the past.  Our research offers new tools to examine ancient methods, and enables us to taste the flavors of the past.”

Dr. Yitzchak Paz, Israel Antiquities Authority: “We are talking about a real breakthrough here. 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. Yuval Gadot, Tel Aviv University’s Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures: “We dug at Ramat Rachel, the largest Persian site in the Judaean kingdom, and found a large concentration of jugs with the letters J, H, D – Yahud – written on them. In a royal site like Ramat Rachel it makes sense that alcohol would be consumed at the home of the Persian governor.”

Prof. Aren Maeir, Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology: “These findings paint a portrait that supports the biblical image of drunken Philistines.”

The post Scientists remake 5,000 year-old brew from Pharaoh’s yeast appeared first on Green Prophet.

In Cuba, guarapo is simply freshly-pressed sugar cane juice, and is drunk on the spot, without waiting for it to ferment. But in Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and Mexico, they homebrew guarapo from pineapples or oranges, and the fragrant fluid sits on the kitchen counter top to ferment until it’s bubbly.

I learned to make guarapo de piña – pineapple homebrew – when I lived in Venezuela. It’s the most refreshing drink there is on a torrid summer day, and it has all the flavor and perfume of fresh pineapple. And it’s all natural, with a slight fizz that owes nothing to industrial additives. Venezuelan mothers used to ferment it only one day, and give it to their kids after school while it was still mild and non-alcoholic, to help them withstand the afternoon’s heat. It’s like ginger beer, but made from pineapples. Read below for the easy recipe.

I like to let guarapo de piña ferment for several days and drink it as a mildl tipple. But watch out. If ferments more than three or four days, it gets strong. You won’t notice it, relaxing and quaffing along…till you get up from your chair.

Traditionally, guarapo is made with papelón, aka panela or rapadura; a chunk of unrefined cane sugar. But lacking papelón, I’ve made delicious guarapo with brown sugar. The surprising part of guarapo de piña is that it’s made with the pineapple rinds, not the fruit itself. It’s a clever way to use every part of those expensive pineapples you buy as a treat, thus avoiding food waste too.

Related: make honey wine 

It couldn’t be easier to make guarapo de piña. Take a ripe, sweet-smelling pineapple, and scrub it, the rind still on, with water only. You want to get rid of any dirt, but not to destroy the natural yeast on the rind. That yeast is what will start the fermentation.

Now stand it on its flat end and slice the rind off, taking some flesh with it. You may want to cube and freeze some of the fruit to drop into the drink instead of ice cubes.

Related: Make pea pod wine

Place the rind pieces in a large bowl or jar with 2 liters (8 cups) of fresh, filtered water.

Stir a cup of brown sugar in.

Cover the jar with a clean kitchen towel. Preferably, the jar should sit in a dark corner. But covering it entirely with the towel will protect the contents from the light and keep houseflies off.

Stir the rinds and water once a day. White bubbles will form on the surface; that’s fine.

Wait 1 day for a mild drink that’s safe for kids to drink. Allow it ferment 2 to 3 days if you want an alcoholic kick to it. Taste the guarapo after 2 days and decide if it’s strong/sweet enough for you. Don’t let it go longer than 4 days, especially in the summer, or it will ferment out and become vinegar.

Strain into a pitcher and sweeten again if needed. Serve with plenty of ice. Transfer it to a clean bottle and store in the refrigerator, but drink it up over the next couple of days. And don’t close it hermetically; it will continue to ferment, even in the fridge. I found that out at dinner once when I opened a tightly-closed bottle of guarapo that fountained all over my lasagna.

Guarapo’s delicious – enjoy!

The post Guarapo De Piña recipe (it’s fermented pineapple juice) appeared first on Green Prophet.

Hey Brooklyn and your micro-breweries – turns out you’ve got nothing on Tel Aviv!

Evidence of an Egyptian brew-house dating to 5000 years ago is being dug up in Tel Aviv. Archeologists there have found pieces of ancient pottery vessels used to make beer. See above and below for how they did it back then.

Apparently Egyptians were drinking the beverage, young and old:

“Now we know that they also appreciated what the Tel Aviv region had to offer and that they too knew how to enjoy a glass of beer, just as Tel Avivians do today,” says Diego Barkan, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

He adds: “Already thousands of years ago Tel Aviv was the city that never sleeps!”

RELATED: Make Tej, an ancient Ethiopian honey beer!

The evidence indicates that there were Egyptians at the site, living and brewing beer. Not a beverage typically associated with the Middle East. So think again.

The site was located on Ha-Masger Street next to the Ma‘ariv Bridge in downtown Tel Aviv and is part of a salvage operation done before any new construction is done in Israeli cities and towns.

Barkan relates: “We found seventeen pits in the excavations, which were used to store agricultural produce in the Early Bronze Age I (3500-3000-BCE). Among the hundreds of pottery shards that characterize the local culture, a number of fragments of large ceramic basins were discovered that were made in an Egyptian tradition and were used to prepare beer.

“These vessels were manufactured with straw temper or some other organic material in order to strengthen them, a method not customary in the local pottery industry.

RELATED: Lost Tribes Brew restores ancient beers

It is interesting to note that although Muslims shun alcohol (read here why Muslims do not drink) beer was the “national drink of Egypt” in ancient times. It was considered a basic commodity like bread and it was consumed by the entire population, regardless of age, gender or status.

Bones (below) were also found suggesting that beer and barbecues were the combination of choice.

The ancient beer made from a mixture of barley and water that was partially baked and then left to ferment in the sun. Various fruit concentrates were added to this mixture in order to flavor the beer, the experts say. “The mixture was filtered in special vessels and was ready for use.

Strange timing for release of the news. Later this week starts the Jewish holiday of Passover, a time when Jews are forbidden to eat leavened wheat or products made from yeast and leaven – like beer.

The post Archeologists unearth 5000-year-old micro-brewery in Tel Aviv! appeared first on Green Prophet.

Which is why the NGO Food Enthusiasts Recycling Nutrients (FERN) is taking matters into their own hands. On the first Thursday of every month the group hosts an awareness and fundraising event at Tawlet – a restaurant in the Mar Mikhael neighborhood to promote the speedier uptake of both organic and non-organic recycling.

FERN teaches restaurants and hotels around Lebanon how to separate recyclable and non-recyclable waste, a process that is not well understood. Knowing which materials can be recycled and which can’t can be a nebulous process – even for the most experienced recycler.

Once processed, FERN collects the recyclables twice a day.

Eventually they will also collect organic waste for composting, which will be transformed into organic fertilizer. But they won’t do that until they are certain that the scraps have not been contaminated.

The organization teamed up with Tawlet in order to generate awareness about recycling and to raise funds. $25 gets participants a barbecue dinner  with beer and wine aplenty. The beer is provided by the 961 microbrewery and the wine by Ixsir winery.

Roughly 63% of Lebanon’s organic waste piles up in landfills, where it generates heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere, Daily Star reports.

Glass, metals and plastic are rarely recycled, laying waste a perfectly good resource that can be re-used in a number of applications.

But sorting the waste prior to collection cuts costs, which is why FERN is devoting so much energy to training new partners.

So far, Tawlet, Casablanca, Lux, Couqley, the Angry Monkey, Hotel Gabriel and the Gefinor Rotana Hotel have signed up for the service and FERN hopes to raise that number to 30 within a year.

The group has also reached out to various schools throughout the country to further reinforce the mandate to recycle.

“Schools are an essential intervention for recycling,” president and co-founder of FERN Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli told Daily Star.

“It’s hard to quantify the potential environmental and economic benefits of instilling knowledge of the importance of waste as a collection of valuable organic and recyclable materials, rather than thinking of ‘garbage’ as a burden to individuals and municipalities.”

:: Daily Star

Image of waste training via FERN Facebook Page

The post Mixing Beer and Wine With Recycling in Lebanon appeared first on Green Prophet.

The authentic flavor of Tej or t’ej beer made according to a centuries-old process. It’s sweet, funky, perfect with injera.

An Ethiopian friend supervised my making Tej at home. It’s a time-consuming and labor-intensive process. It requires Gesho, a dried leaf used instead of hops (Rhamnus prinoides, a relative of buckthorn).  But it’s as authentic a recipe as ever you’ll find, for  my friend’s mother and grandmother, first amazed, and then tickled to help this non-Ethiopian, made sure that every step we took was accurate.

There are no modern ingredients in this recipe. The one concession is equipment. You will need a coffee grinder or similar device, a plastic bucket, a sieve, a siphon and a carboy.

Autumn and winter are good times to make Tej, Mrs. Makonen told me, because in the heat of Middle Eastern  or African summer,  the brew might spoil before it’s finished.  Nowadays, it’s mostly elders who brew the Tej for weddings and other celebrations. Younger folk just buy bottled beer. Still, most of the ingredients are easily available, with the exception of Gesho, which you can find online here or in spice stores where Ethiopians shop.

I give you the recipe just as I received it from Mrs. Makonen (and her mother, and her grandmother).

Ethiopian Tej, Honey-flavored Beer Recipe

Ingredients for Tej:

1/2 kg – raw, unhusked barley grains

1 level disposable plastic cup full of Gesho leaves

1 – 1/2 kg. semolina flour

500 grams whole wheat kernels

Water

2 to 4 cups honey

Tej begins with unhusked, sprouted barley, which is dried and ground. The Ethiopian name for this is Bikil.

1. Prepare the Bikil: sprout 1/2 kg. barley in its husk. If you don’t have sprouted barley, take half a kilo or a pound, soak in water overnight. Drain water, then let sit for about 12 to 25 hours, cleaning them with water every six hours or so. Or when you see them This may take a week or more, or only 2 days, depending on the season and the ambient temperature. Take care that the sprouts don’t go moldy. That would spoil the Tej and possibly make it toxic.

Then grind up the sprouted barley in a coffee grinder or strong blender. Air-dry it and put aside.

2. Mix Gesho with 1 liter- 1 quart room temperature water. Allow to steep, tightly covered, 2 days.

3. On the third day,  mix semolina with enough water to make a loose dough. Semolina soaks up a lot of water; make sure that the dough is quite loose and sticky, not like conventional bread dough. Cover with cling film or put the bowl into a plastic bag, tie, and leave out overnight.

4. Next morning (fourth day), dry-fry or bake cakes from the semolina dough. Take a large frying pan and drop in enough dough to cover the bottom. The dough will be sloppy and flexible, more like pizza dough than bread dough. This will make 5 large, heavy semolina cakes. Cook each cake on both sides till covered in dark brown spots and the cake seems cooked through. Set aside and allow to cool thoroughly. Cooling off will take hours, as the cakes are very thick and will continue cooking the dough while hot. Plan on doing the next steps in the evening.

Note: allow each cake plenty of time to cook. Each side takes about 20 minutes on a medium flame. Mrs. Makonen would not turn them over or remove them from the frying pan till they were very, very brown and well baked.

5. Put Gesho water into a clean bucket. Add 1 1/2 liters water to the Gesho in the bucket.

6. Break the cooled semolina cakes up into pieces about 2 inches big, and add them to the Gesho water  Note: figure on about 1/2 hour to do this. The cakes are heavy and hard to rip up. Or take a  big knife and chop it all up.

7. Add about 3/4 of the Bikel. Stir with something strong, like a rolling pin, and allow all to dissolve and ferment for 2 1/2 days. The semolina cakes should be mostly disintegrated by that time. Cover the bucket well; the odor of the fermenting Gesho and semolina cakes will quickly become strong.

8. Cover the bucket and stir once daily for 2 days.

9. On the third day, you will have a something resembling spinach soup with coarse cornmeal floating around in it. This is as it should be; do not be put off. Strain out the big pieces of un-dissolved semolina cake  with a seive.

By this time, you will see fermentation and get a head full of alcoholic odor from the dark green, grainy brew. I tasted the brew at this point; it is reminiscent of beer. Not unpleasant, but somewhat thin.

10. Wash the wheat grains. According to my friend, the wheat makes the drink more alcoholic. Dry-fry the wheat, still moist, till dark brown. You need to stand over the grain in the frying pan, stirring constantly. As it dries and toasts, it turns quite dark and a smell something like popcorn rises from the pan.

11. Grind the toasted wheat coarsely – a coffee grinder works well. Add the ground wheat to the Gesho water, plus remaining Bikil.

12. Stir and cover the bucket tightly. Allow to ferment another 2-3 days.

13. Two or three days later, add 3 liters water to the contents of the bucket. The ladies directing me say to add the same amount of water as the contents of the bucket. I think that in Ethiopian kitchens this is done almost intuitively and that it won’t make a major difference if there is 1/2 liter or so difference. Leave 1 1/2 days.

14. At this point, what you have is “Tallah”, the beer upon which Tej is based. The honey is for added fermentation and for flavor. The drink isn’t called Tej till the honey is added and fermented. There will be plenty of sediment at the bottom of the bucket. It will look unappealing, like a thick pea soup.

15. Now strain the Tallah; use as fine a sieve as you have. This is a long and tedious process because of the great quantity of fine and coarse sediment. Allow the Tallah to settle for the rest of the day.

16. Siphon off the clear liquid and put into a clean bucket. You can drink the Tallah now if you wish, leaving some with which to make Tej.

17. Add honey to taste: I added 3 cups and it was on the sour side, although not unpleasantly so. Mrs. Makonen was concerned that I use good quality honey; her mother uses honey with the honeycomb still in it, as they did in Ethiopia. She says that some people prefer their Tej much sweeter.

18. Cover the bucket again, or put the Tej into a demijohn with an airlock. Either way, leave it 2-3 days.

The Tej is finally ready to drink.

Its taste is unique, somewhat like Western beer but more sour, with the Gesho and semolina cake tastes coming through. The color is a cloudy yellow, like pineapple juice. My vinometer says that it has 16% ABV; I can say that Tej packs a nice little punch

Note: if kept more than a day in the fridge, the Tej will turn green. Ethiopian grandmothers make Tej to be drunk young and not stored for the future.

Serve chilled, and after all that hard work, enjoy!

Lift a mug while reading more about beer:

• White House Honey Beer Recipes
• Lost Tribes Brew Company Restores Ancient Beers
• Beer Expo in Tel Aviv

The post Make Tej, Ethiopian Honey Beer appeared first on Green Prophet.

Whatever your reason, or taste, the White House has caught the home brew fever and has just released a couple of recipes for its White House Honey Porter, and the White House Honey Ale. Both use honey which is appropriate for the upcoming Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah. Below we give you the recipes, and a downloadable printable recipe pack you can tape to your fridge. Use organic ingredients where possible for an organic brew.

According to the White House this is the first time beer has been brewed on the grounds: “As far as we know the White House Honey Brown Ale is the first alcohol brewed or distilled on the White House grounds. George Washington brewed beer and distilled whiskey at Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson made wine but there’s no evidence that any beer has been brewed in the White House. (Although we do know there was some drinking during prohibition…)”

WHITE HOUSE HONEY PORTER
Ingredients

2 (3.3 lb) cans light unhopped malt extract
3/4 lb Munich Malt (cracked)
1 lb crystal 20 malt (cracked)
6 oz black malt (cracked)
3 oz chocolate malt (cracked)
1 lb White House Honey
10 HBUs bittering hops
1/2 oz Hallertaur Aroma hops
1 pkg Nottingham dry yeast
3/4 cup corn sugar for bottling

Directions

1. In a 6 qt pot, add grains to 2.25 qts of 168˚ water. Mix well to bring temp down to 155˚. Steep on stovetop at 155˚ for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, bring 2 gallons of water to 165˚ in a 12 qt pot. Place strainer over, then pour and spoon all the grains and liquid in. Rinse with 2 gallons of 165˚ water. Let liquid drain through. Discard the grains and bring the liquid to a boil. Set aside.

2. Add the 2 cans of malt extract and honey into the pot. Stir well.

3. Boil for an hour. Add half of the bittering hops at the 15 minute mark, the other half at 30 minute mark, then the aroma hops at the 60 minute mark.

4. Set aside and let stand for 15 minutes.

5. Place 2 gallons of chilled water into the primary fermenter and add the hot wort into it. Top with more water to total 5 gallons if necessary. Place into an ice bath to cool down to 70-80˚.
Activate dry yeast in 1 cup of sterilized water at 75-90˚ for fifteen minutes. Pitch yeast into the fermenter. Fill airlock halfway with water. Ferment at room temp (64-68˚) for 3-4 days.
Siphon over to a secondary glass fermenter for another 4-7 days.

6. To bottle, make a priming syrup on the stove with 1 cup sterile water and 3/4 cup priming sugar, bring to a boil for five minutes. Pour the mixture into an empty bottling bucket. Siphon the beer from the fermenter over it. Distribute priming sugar evenly. Siphon into bottles and cap. Let sit for 1-2 weeks at 75˚.

WHITE HOUSE HONEY ALE
Ingredients

2 (3.3 lb) cans light malt extract
1 lb light dried malt extract
12 oz crushed amber crystal malt
8 oz Biscuit Malt
1 lb White House Honey
1 1/2 oz Kent Goldings Hop Pellets
1 1/2 oz Fuggles Hop pellets
2 tsp gypsum
1 pkg Windsor dry ale yeast
3/4 cup corn sugar for priming

Directions

1. In an 12 qt pot, steep the grains in a hop bag in 1 1/2 gallons of sterile water at 155 degrees for half an hour. Remove the grains.

2. Add the 2 cans of the malt extract and the dried extract and bring to a boil.

3. For the first flavoring, add the 1 1/2 oz Kent Goldings and 2 tsp of gypsum. Boil for 45 minutes.

4. For the second flavoring, add the 1/2 oz Fuggles hop pellets at the last minute of the boil.

5. Add the honey and boil for 5 more minutes.

6. Add 2 gallons chilled sterile water into the primary fermenter and add the hot wort into it. Top with more water to total 5 gallons. There is no need to strain.

7. Pitch yeast when wort temperature is between 70-80˚. Fill airlock halfway with water.

8. Ferment at 68-72˚ for about seven days.

9. Rack to a secondary fermenter after five days and ferment for 14 more days.

10. To bottle, dissolve the corn sugar into 2 pints of boiling water for 15 minutes. Pour the mixture into an empty bottling bucket. Siphon the beer from the fermenter over it. Distribute priming sugar evenly. Siphon into bottles and cap. Let sit for 2 to 3 weeks at 75˚.

The ingredients might be hard to place but do look online for beer kits and supply companies if you can’t find the right supplies near you.

Enjoy!

Print a PDF of the above beer recipes here.

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