Finally, another guest post by none other than the infamous beer buddy Jamie (click here for his previous post and here, here, here and here for his many prior appearances)! Jamie is currently finishing up his PhD in Western European Archaeology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His thesis research seeks to reconstruct the ancient agricultural economy of farmers living at the border of the Roman Empire in the Netherlands. Jamie is also trained as an archaeobotanist, so we might call in his help in the future to talk about the cereals and botanical adjuncts used in ancient beer!
Brewing Classical Styles has changed the way I drink beer. The quantity of beer drunk remains the same- as much as sanctioned by the NHS (or other national health agency) plus a fair bit more for good measure. I still have a preference for hoppy pale ales and IPA’s with relatively low ABV (see the previous sentence regarding quantity). But now I check out the names of beers in case a classically-themed or archaeological name is on the menu board. In August, I returned briefly to Amsterdam to attend the Planet Oedipus festival which aimed to combine the ethos of the international beer festival and the Kimchi festival organized by the brewery in years previous. One beer, Vogelen, invoked the name of Aristophanes’ comedy but was no longer available by the Sunday of a two-day festival. Damn! No reviews from that festival then.
I left Amsterdam in January of this year to return to my hometown of Wimborne Minster. The beer scene has developed a lot since I last lived permanently in the town. Two micro-breweries, Brewshack and Eight Arch Brewing, and two bars specialising in serving a variety of beers have been set-up in recent years. There is enough to keep this beer fan happy therefore. Plus, the annual Wimborne Beer Festival took place on October 13 & 14, so I popped down with my father on Saturday evening. Whilst not as a large as festivals I have attended in the Netherlands, at least 40 beers were on offer during the weekend which was more than enough for a few hours on Saturday evening. A quick glance through the programme and my first tipple was chosen. Thanks to Brewing Classical Styles, my first beer could not have been anything but Flint Knapper.
Flint Knapper is brewed by Ramsbury located in Aldbourne, Wiltshire. The beer was described as a bitter in the programme but the dark brown colour is presumably why the brewery has called it a ‘chestnut real ale’ on the bottle. At 4.2% it is a potentially good session beer but the overall taste was lacking. Flint Knapper has malty and caramel aromas and flavours, with only very weak hints of hops. I missed the fruitiness that many others have noted in reviews elsewhere but a slight sourness was definitely there. The mouthfeel was a little more carbonated than I expected from a standard bitter. An unexciting but not unpleasant beer although halfway through half a pint I was already eyeing my next.
Background
But, how does flint knapping fit in with a blog devoted to beer in the classical world? Flint knapping is a technique by which a lump of flint (lithic core) is hammered to produce flakes of stone that can be used as different tools. Both the discarded lumps of flint from where the flakes were taken and the flakes themselves are often encountered in prehistoric sites. The technique is characteristic of Stone Age technology and not the classical world therefore. But I enjoy writing the occasional piece for this blog and I was determined to find a link, no matter how tangential.
And so, I learned* that despite the emergence of metal in the Mediterranean, stone tools are still attested in the archaeological record throughout the Bronze Age and beyond in the Greek world. An expedient and cheap alternative to metal especially for users economically or geographically distant from producers of metal tools, the continued use of stone tools after the emergence of metal reminds that new technologies do not have to supplant old ones. In fact, relatively recent use of stone tools such as gun-flints and threshing sledges may represent an unbroken tradition from prehistory, through the Classical and Medieval worlds to the modern age of technology. There is something quite reassuring about such constancy.
Facts
Draft pour
4.2% ABV
Ingredients: Kennet Valley water, barley malt, Goldings hops, yeast
Brewed by: Ramsbury Brewing & Distilling Co. Ltd., Aldbourne, Wiltshire, UK
* Source: C. Runnels 1982, Flaked-Stone Artifacts in Greece during the Historical Period, Journal of Field Archaeology, vol. 9.3, 363-373.
BREWING CLASSICAL STYLES 