{"id":727,"date":"2016-04-02T16:15:40","date_gmt":"2016-04-02T16:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/brew\/?p=727"},"modified":"2025-12-17T21:24:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:24:33","slug":"circes-elixir-ancient-greek-ale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/brew\/circes-elixir-ancient-greek-ale\/","title":{"rendered":"Circe’s Elixir \u2013 Ancient Greek Ale"},"content":{"rendered":"

“And she mixed them a potion with barley and cheese and pale honey added to Pramnian wine, but put into the mixture malignant drugs to make them forgetful of their own country. After she’d given them this and they\u2019d drunk it down, next she struck them with her wand and drove them into her pig pens and they took on the look of pigs with the heads and voices and bristles of pigs, but the minds within them stayed as had been before.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Odyssey<\/a><\/p>\n

This passage from<\/span>\u00a0Homer’s Odyssey<\/i> (Book 10, lines 229-43) has long inspired me. Why was Homer so specific about the ingredients for Circe’s potion until we get to “malignant drugs?” Surely some off-brand, generic drugs. The barley, cheese, honey, and wine sounds to me like a recipe for an ancient alcoholic beverage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Circe's<\/a><\/p>\n

Turning to Pat McGovern’s research in Uncorking the Past<\/i> on the micro-residue analysis from beverage vessels found in the tomb of the semi-legendary Phrygian King Midas, we learn that this 8th century BC king (d. c. 700 BC) \u2014 and presumably his subjects \u2014 enjoyed an alcoholic “grog” consisting of fermented barley, grapes, and honey. I.e. a mixture of beer, wine, and mead. (C.f. University of Pennsylvania Midas Touch<\/a>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Except for the cheese, that sounds a lot like Homer’s recipe \u2014 well, and the malignant drugs, but I take that as Circe’s manipulation of a familiar alcoholic beverage as the delivery vehicle for her evil sorcery. Adding cheese to your beverage may sound a little odd at first, but think about it. We don’t bat an eyelash at wine and cheese pairing … or increasingly beer and cheese pairing.<\/span><\/p>\n

We see another similar recipe in that other work of epic poetry attributed to Homer, the Iliad<\/i>\u00a0(Book\u00a011, lines 628-43):<\/span><\/p>\n

\"So-called<\/a>“There was also a cup of rare workmanship which the old man [Nestor] had brought\u00a0with him from home, studded with bosses of gold; it had four handles, on each of which there were two golden doves feeding, and it had two feet to stand on. Any one else would hardly have been able to lift it from the table when it was full, but Nestor could do so quite easily. In this the woman [Hekamede], as fair as a goddess, mixed them a mess with Pramnian wine; she grated goat\u2018s milk cheese into it with a bronze grater, threw in a handful of white barley-meal, and having thus prepared the mess she bade them drink it.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ancient scholars date Homer (if there even was a Homer; don’t get me started!) to anywhere from 1100 to 850 BC. Precise dates don’t matter here. The point is that there’s both written and archaeological evidence across the Mediterranean World of the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of this potent potable potion.<\/span><\/p>\n

The term “potion” from the passages above in the original Greek is “kykeon,” related to cycle, circle, cyclone, and the like. Think of it as a hurricane of fermented goodness! Various translations use potion, mixture, and mess. I’m fond of “potion,” because that connects with the prevalent Ancient Greek equation of alcohol with a magical elixir.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Circe's<\/a><\/p>\n

One ingredient conspicuously absent from this ancient ale, of course, is hops! That’s not news to anyone familiar with the history of beer, though. Hops wasn’t utilized in beer until the Middle Ages.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, long in the short, I decided to brew it. It’s a reasonable assumption that all beer in antiquity was at least a bit tart due to fermenting from natural airborne yeast and bacteria. So I wanted to brew a t<\/span>art, wild, unhopped ale with honey and grape must. Taking a page from Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch, I used Muscat grape must. The initial fermentation was with Belgian Saison yeast to give it an extra rustic kick. Then I let it sit for a month on\u00a0Lactobacillus to flesh out the sourness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Circe's<\/span><\/p>\n