Beer‘Beer is food’ certainly applies to the many varieties of highly nutritious Babylonian
barley beer (sˇikarum). Most of our sources for the brewing process predate the Old
Babylonian period (Powell 1994 : 93 ). Barley was moistened, allowed to sprout and
dried, thereby forming malt (buqlum). The malt was ground and mixed with another
malted product called bappirum, probably a powder rather than a bread. The resulting
dry mixture (isimma ̄ num) was, in effect, powdered beer and travellers carried it as part
of their provisions. Beer was brewed by adding water and letting the liquid mash
ferment. This resulted in dense beers that needed straining or filtering, long straws
being one solution. Herbs, spices and sweet date syrup were among possible additions
during brewing. Sumerian types of beer included golden beer, dark beer and ruby
beer and people blended different beers (Powell 1994 : 91 – 119 ; Stol 1995 : 497 ; Sasson
2004 : 191 – 92 ). Four of the Yale recipes include beer (Bottéro 1995 : 161 ).
WineWine (kara ̄ num) was imported into Babylonia from the north down the Euphrates
and was a luxury item, much less widely drunk than local beers. Not surprisingly,
wine is more in evidence at Mari, and Zimri-Lim, King of Mari, records that he sent
ten jars of his favourite wine to Hammurabi, King of Babylon. As with beers, herbs
and spices could be added to wines and different wines could be blended to suit
personal taste (Dalley 2002 : 90 – 91 ; Sasson 2004 : 191 – 92, 206).
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— Frances Reynolds —