Description
Bronze Age Babylonians loved beer. References deciphered from third millennium BCE cuneiform texts show that the Mesopotamians were as sophisticated in their tastes as today’s hipster craft-brew fans, choosing between several different types, including golden beer, sweet dark beer and red beer.
In Mesopotamia, the oldest evidence of beer is believed to be a 6,000-year-old Sumerian tablet depicting people consuming a drink through reed straws from a communal bowl. A 3,900-year-old Sumerian poem honouring Ninkasi, the patron goddess of brewing, contains the oldest surviving beer recipe, describing the production of beer from bread made from barley.
The ‘Alulu beer receipt’ is an ancient stone tablet which is actually a 5,000-year-old beer receipt. It records the purchase of the “best” beer from a brewer in 2050 B.C., from the Sumerian city of Umma in ancient Iraq. It is a dated and signed receipt written by a scribe called Ur-Amma for the delivery of beer, by a brewer named Alulu. The text translates as "Ur-Amma acknowledges receiving from his brewer, Alulu, 5 sila (about 4 1/2 liters) of the 'best' beer."
