Ancient suds in modern mugs

Acker samples the finished beer, slightly sour and ciderlike, this week. [Photo by Aaron Berkovich/China Daily]

Calling Indiana Jones

In 2004, in two pits at the Mijaya site on a tributary of the Weihe River, archaeologists found the wide-mouthed pots, funnels, and narrow-mouthed jars with pointed bottoms. Many had yellow residues on the inside surfaces, and there was also a primitive stove.

The clay vessels' shape and age dated them to the late Yangshao Neolithic period, between 3500 and 2900 BC. But when Stanford University professor Li Liu and doctoral student Jiajing Wang looked at a 2012 journal report on the findings, they saw a pattern in the artifacts: a pottery stove that could have been heated to break down carbohydrates to sugar, pots suitable for mashing and brewing, funnels for filtration, and storage vessels for the finished products.

Was this one of the world's first microbreweries?

The Stanford group teamed up with Shaanxi archaeologists for a new study. When their analysis of the starches, phytoliths and other residues in the vessels turned up both millet and barley, they were convinced their suspicion was right.

In her class titled Archaeology of Food: Production, Consumption and Ritual, Liu had students replicate the brew as a final project in a campus lab. Now professional craft brewers from Beijing's Jing-A and Hong Kong's Moonzen are eager to try making "ancient beer".