An electrifying yet bizarre piece of news comes from Turin. In celebration of the bicentennial of the opening of the Egyptian Museum of Turin, a beer has been recreated following a recipe found in a 5000-year-old sarcophagus belonging to the ancient Egyptians.
This beer has a truly remarkable story…
The Pharaohs’ beer 5000 years later
When a supposed recipe for beer from the Egyptian period was found on the lid of a sarcophagus, the idea struck like a lightning bolt. Mauro Mascarello, owner of the “Torino” brewery in Turin, was intrigued by the idea of recreating the beverage using production methods as close as possible to those of the past.
The pharaohs’ beer has been given a new name: Rufus. From the Latin, it evokes the heroism of Cleopatra, referring to its meaning: red or tawny. The perfect occasion for the realization of this project could only be the bicentennial of the Egyptian Museum, the oldest in the world (1824). It is considered the second most famous dedicated museum globally, second only to the one in Cairo, which was only opened in 1902.
The secret recipe: natural fermentation Egyptian Kamut
If you want to remain as faithful as possible to the customs of the past, you must also use the same ingredients. The pharaohs’ beer had a reddish color similar to blood and was very thick due to the addition of clay.
The recipe calls for Kamut wheat grown along the banks of the Nile River, and it appears that the long natural fermentation is one of the factors responsible for the reddish color of the beer. Rufus is thus a deliberately faithful recreation of the original recipe, with a low alcohol content and little foam: the Egyptians certainly did not add carbon dioxide.
The story of the Pharaohs’ beer
The world of the pharaohs is in some ways magical and surreal, with stories often a mix of reality and legend, just like the story of our beer.
Indeed, it all began with the wrath of the god Ra, who, irritated by the indifference of his subjects, sent the goddess Sekhmet to Earth to punish the disbelievers. With the body of a woman and the head of a lion, she went far beyond Ra’s plan. Her extreme ferocity and destruction frightened Ra, who, fearing annihilation, offered the goddess 7,000 cups of red beer to calm and intoxicate her.
