The History of Beer II – Classical Antiquity: The Celts
From a modern perspective, beer is commonly associated with the peoples of Northern Europe, and historically it certainly appears that the Celtic and Germanic people of Iron Age Europe held it far higher regard than their southern cousins.
We’re going to start with the Celts, for no reason better than that they knew beer as either kormi or korma, and I’m in the mood for a curry.
Across Celtic Europe, archaeologists have founded plentiful evidence of a rich history of beer production and consumption, and thanks to the wonders of modern technology and more specifically Organic Residue Analysis (ORA), we know a great deal about these practices.
Celtic brewers made heavy use of wheat, barley, and millet, and evidence for the malting of these grains has been found across the region, from France to the Czech Republic. They also showed great ingenuity when it came to flavouring their beers. Unlike the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Sumerians who mostly used fruit to sweeten and flavour their beers, the Celts used honey to boost sweetness and alcohol content, and herbs and spices for flavouring. The use of local botanicals created distinct regional brews, long before similar ideology was applied to wine and cheeses.
This is where the hipsters might want to start paying a little more attention. Yes, it’s finally time for hops to make an appearance. While most of the historical record seems to suggest that they were first adopted by medieval monks, who we will get to soon enough, Max Nelson of the University of Windsor, Canada, and author of the fantastically titled The Barbarian’s Beverage: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe, writes in The Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies (Nelson, 2018) that ‘in a sixth-century bc grave in Pombia near Milan (right by the Ticino River, a tributary of the Po) an earthenware cup sealed in a cinerary urn was found to contain residue of both barley pollen and hops, demonstrating that hopped beer existed already among ancient Celts in northern Italy.’1
Hops would have been added to beer for a variety of reasons, but again we turn to Nelson who, in the same paper, wrote ‘It has been usually assumed that hops were first added in the making of beer to act as a preservative [and it] should be noted that besides its preservative function, the bitterness of hops could help balance out the taste of an ancient beer, which might otherwise have been overly sweet from malt, sour from bacterial contamination, or smoky from fire-brewing.’
Thanks to these ingredients and processes, Celtic beers would have provided a cornucopia of styles and flavours that any modern craft beer bar would be proud to offer.
Countless movies have familiarised us with the sight of medieval and pre-medieval feasting. Fictional feasts like those from the Lord of the Rings and Beowulf are particularly good at leaving lasting impressions of feast both large and small alike. In addition to large portions of meat, what ties these scenes to each other? Why, drinking of course! The Celts loved nothing more than a good feast, and these events which were often conducted with the aim of displaying wealth through conspicuous displays of generosity and debauchery featured plenty of beer, mead, and occasionally wine. When I say plenty, I really mean plenty. The Vix Krater, although of Greek origin and primarily used for mixing wine and water, was found in the tomb of the (Celtic) Lady of Vix 2which dates to 600BCE could contain 1,100 litres, clearly setting her up for a good time in the afterlife3.
As well as being a way to display one’s wealth, your choice of beer could also tell the casual observer about your social standing. For example, ORA implies that the upper classes probably drank beers made from barley and wheat, whereas warriors opted for millet-based brews.
All of this alludes to the significance of these beverages in Celtic life, a fact borne out by the nature of the drinking vessels of the time. From drinking horns to cauldrons, and bowls to tankards, the artifacts that we have found are not merely functional, they are works of great craftmanship reflecting the importance ascribed to their contents.
As Dr. Jones has just reminded me, we should also look at the spiritual nature of beer for the Celts. As is to be expected, the Celts had a god of beer, Κυρμιληνός (Kurmilēnos). Furthermore, there are Celtic names based upon his name, including Curmi-Sagius which rather beautifully translates ‘beer-seeker’, or ‘he who searched for beer’. I plan on using this as a name for one of my friends as IT reflects quite beautifully the extent to which beer did, and still can, become part of one’s personal identity.
As Dr. Jones has just reminded me, we should also look at the spiritual nature of beer for the Celts. As is to be expected, the Celts had a god of beer, Κυρμιληνός (Kurmilēnos). Furthermore, there are Celtic names based upon his name, including Curmi-Sagius which rather beautifully translates ‘beer-seeker’, or ‘he who searched for beer’. I plan on using this as a name for one of my friends as IT reflects quite beautifully the extent to which beer did, and still can, become part of one’s personal identity.
- Nelson, M. (2018). Celtic and Egyptian Beer-Production Traditions and the Origins of Western European Monastic Brewing. The Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies, 7, 47 – 77. ↩︎
- Vix is about 6 km north of Châtillon-sur-Seine, in the department of Côte-d’Or, in northeastern Burgundy, France ↩︎
- Dr. Bettina Arnold, Professor of Anthropology at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, describes the practice of burying the dead with drinking vessels as a “BYOB (Bring Your Own Beverage) afterlife”, which certainly raises questions about our modern wakes. http://bit.ly/3YFth7p ↩︎
