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Dr. Schuyler, lover of both beer and rollerblading

Back in May ‘09, we first touted Science On Tap, a joint venture of scientific discussions held every second Monday of the month at National Mechanics (22 S. Third St.) by the Academy of Natural Sciences, the American Philosophical Society Museum, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, the MĂĽtter Museum and the Wagner Free Institute of Science.

Now this consortium is venturing into our territory with a Jan. 11 talk by Dr. Ernie Schuyler, Curator Emeritus of Botany at The Academy of Natural Sciences. His topic? The Origin and Evolution of Beer.

Schuyler’s talk, which is free and begins at 6 p.m., will examine the possibility that the first humans who cultivated barley did so with the intention of making beer, rather than simply eating grain-based foods. We got in touch with the fine doctor to find out more.

Meal Ticket: How do you know that humans cultivated grains primarily for the production of beer, rather than for food?

Dr. Ernie Schuyler: The driving force for cultivating grains could have been beer. We do not know for sure. I think human consumption of beer preceded the cultivation of grains. I will present two hypotheses: (1) the wet grain hypothesis and (2) the gruel-bread hypothesis.

In the first scenario, a hunter-gatherer went to a wet storage bin and tasted  a fermented beer porridge. A similar thing happened in the early 1980s in northwestern Montana when there was a grain spill on the Burlington Northern Railroad at the southwest edge of Glacier Park. The grain eventually fermented into a beer porridge and grizzly bears got intoxicated on it. They kept coming back for more, which made for many delays on trains running between Chicago and Seattle.

The second scenario involves soup (gruel) thickened by heating barley. One day somebody came back from the grain bin with barley that had germinated (malt) and discovered that the gruel was sweeter. From that day on malt was used  for gruel instead of grain. Somebody (Mel Brooks?) may have left the soup sit for awhile and wild yeast went to work. Wild yeast could have been on fruit added to the gruel, possibly figs. Wild yeast may also have been present on the ceiling of the structures that housed hunter-gatherers. Gruel may have been baked into bread that could be stored and eventually mixed with water and fermented. It is possible that we made bread to brew beer, not to eat. Bread beer is still made today in some places.

MT: Since beer was brewed long before humans understood the effects of a microorganism such as yeast, how were the first beers fermented? Was fermentation viewed as a sort of “magical” transformation?

ES: Your query about yeast is interesting because as recently as 1837 some reputable scientists thought fermentation was a chemical reaction that had nothing to do with yeast despite evidence to the contrary. Louis Pasteur eventually proved them wrong.

MT: Approximately what year were the first beers brewed?

ES: We know that beer was being brewed in the Fertile Crescent over 5,000 years ago based on chemical analysis of pottery vessels.  There also is a 6,000-year-old seal from northwest of Nineveh showing people drinking something, presumably beer, through straws out of a large pot. On 3,800-year-old Sumerian tablets we have the “Hymn to Ninkasi,” that describes making beer.

MT: What is your favorite beer?

ES: I have about 20 or so favorite beers. The search for the perfect beer is endless, but I keep trying.

SCIENCE ON TAP: Dr. Ernie Schuyler on “The Origin and Evolution of Beer”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 11:43 am and is filed under Booze, Food Events, barstool scientist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.