BY JULIE SEYLER

The other day I came across an article in The New York Times about a craft brewery relying on a 19th century B.C. poem called, “Hymn to Ninkasi,” from Sumeria to create a new brew.

As a subscriber to the theory that everything old is new again, I was intrigued. Not because alcohol was part of the menu thousands of years ago. This is a well-known fact since every movie set in ancient Rome has a scene devoted to drunken debauchery and endless goblets of flowing wine. But I had no idea that there was a recorded document dedicated to a goddess of beer. Her name was Ninkasi, and according to one translation of the mysterious pictograms found on the clay tablet, Ninkasi was worshipped for her beer-making skills. She handled the dough with a big shovel, watered the malt, and spread cooked mash on large reed mats. The poem ends with this stanza:

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

So the cradle of civilization was also the source of the first craft beer.

An Internet search revealed Ninkasi is not obscure amongst the brewing set. So let’s raise a cold one to those on the quest to perfect her recipe.