The Great Beer Experiment
Introduction
The following is a summary version of a forthcoming article in Archaeology Ireland. The full text will be posted after publication of the article. The majority of Irish field monuments are defined by their names - a standing stone is a standing stone and a ringfort is a ringfort - but not so the fulacht fiadh, characterised by its horseshoe-shaped mound and associated trough.
One hungover morning at breakfast, discussing the natural predisposition of all men to seek means to alter our minds, coupled with our innate inquisitiveness (and more mundane preparations for the excavation of a fulacht fiadh), Billy Quinn of Moore Group came to a sudden and startling conclusion: fulachts were Ireland’s earliest breweries!
Immediately we set out on a journey of discovery. This quest took us to Barcelona to the Congres Cerveza Prehistorica, and later one evening in Las Ramblas in the company of, among others, an international beer author, an award winning short story writer, a world renowned beer academic and a Canadian Classical scholar - all of whom shared our passion for the early history of beer. In pursuit of the early Northern European brewing evidence we travelled to the Orkneys and the welcoming arms of Merryn and Graham Dineley, an archaeologist and home brewer who taught us more about Neolithic brewing and the basic manufacturing process. Hot rock brewing technology brought us to Belgium and thence to Bavaria and Rouchenfeld’s brewery in Marktoberdorf. We also had to follow the clues to Canada, all of this culminating in a failed attempt to enter Iran via Basra.
So having discovered that brewing and beer drinking was prevalent and widespread throughout The Levant and The Far East with growing evidence of the same from Late Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe and Britain, and given our prodigious reputation for alcohol consumption (even in Roman Times), where and how did the Bronze Age Irish people brew?