Many thousands of years ago, before the time of brewing beers from grains, on every continent across the world, ancient cultures were creating sacred medicinal beers. Not beer as we know it today but beers that were solely made for sacred ceremonies to communicate with the ancestors, for healing, or for reaching altered states. Beers that were psychotropic, aphrodisiacs, and highly inebriating!

Between 10 and 30,000 years ago, the art of fermenting was developing independently in different places throughout the world, from Mexico to New Guinea, from Tanzania to the Amazon. Not discovered as such but, it was believed, given to humanity from sacred beings as a reminder of the essence or sacred life-force that is in everything. Some ancient legends tell how the Goddess took pity on the miserable plight of humanity and in her deep love of her daughters gave them the gift of beer for their sole keeping. In most of the ancient cultures it was the women who were the brewers, with feminine deities blessing the brewing vessels.

It may appear strange in this time of wine connoisseurs and whisky aficionados to talk about beer with such reverence, but beer was so much more than just a social beverage for the less developed palate! Don’t get me wrong for beer has certainly gained back some of its sacred status in the past decade or so and is far from being bland, but the scope and styles of these ancient beers was different.

There were globally thousands, utilizing various basic sugar sources such as tree sap, fruits and honey, which ever was locally available, and over 200 different plant species, producing brews, which enhanced sexual drive, revealed the divine mystery and were used to heal many diseases and ailments.

Then between 6 to 10.000 years ago the knowledge of grain fermentation was developed. Unlike honey and most fruit sugars, the sugars in grains are not readily fermentable by yeasts, so an extra step is needed, malting of the grain, where the stored sugars, usually starch, are converted to fermentable sugars. Over the years, it has become more widely believed that this process of malting, together with brewing itself were the main reasons for tribes to settle and cultivate grains. Civilization! This theory is substantiated by certain peoples of Africa and the Himalayas, whose ancient irrigation systems were built to grow millet, a grain they rarely ate but used for sacred fermentations.

The ancient Egyptians and Greeks looked upon various grains with great reverence, using fermented grain beverages and plants in fermented brews for various religious ceremonies. By the Middle Ages, these techniques to produce sacred healing beers had spread to become an important part of European life, with plants and herbs being added to brews, not just for their healing properties but for taste and to compliment the mind altering properties of alcohol.

One of the common of sacred plants used for brewing in the middle-ages was Mugwort, literally meaning “beer-plant”. Traditionally used by indigenous peoples in sweat lodges, and for prayer offerings, Mugwort possesses powerful healing properties, and apparently the resulting beer is pretty tasty. One of the most powerful of the European brews was made using the Henbane plant, also known as Pilsen, hence pilsners were traditionally henbane ales, being reputed as a strong aphrodisiac when drunk in moderation but leading to confusion and madness when drunk to excess.

However, the most common herbal brew was Gruit, made from Mead (fermented honey and water) with the addition of Wild Rosemary, Yarrow and Sweet Gale which produced a psychoactive, intoxicating aphrodisiac brew that was popular throughout Europe for over a millennium.

During the 14th and 15th centuries more and more beers using hops were being made despite huge opposition from Gruit producers and makers of non-hopped ales in England. The use of hops, which had a preservative effect on the brew, produced a soporific beer that quelled sexual desire, quite the opposite effects to Gruit. Eventually a movement of Protestant reformists succeeded in making hops the given herb used to flavour beer and the many millennium tradition of medicinal herbal brews slowly disappeared, leaving us with the hopped beers we know today.

Despite a several thousand-year history and tradition of these sacred herbal beers, their demise came about in the blink of an eye. But what goes around does come around and maybe one day in the not too distant future we’ll be able to purchase a six-pack of Gruit or Mugwort Ale down at the local liquor store.

Last modified on: 2006-02-19 22:30:10

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