Malt’s journey from ancient Mesopotamia to modern craft beer

Brewing devotees love to hype their craft’s August tradition by referencing clay tablets more than 4,000 years old depicting ancient Sumerians gathered around vessels drinking what’s purported to be the ur-beer through straws.

And while contemporary scholarship now casts doubt on the theory that what they were drinking was, in fact, beer, the curious presence of the straws offers clues as to what it might actually have been. (If you were guessing an early Boba tea, guess again.)

Rather, our tippling ancients were probably using those straws to siphon a syrupy, slightly fermented supernatant off a mash of malted barley and emmer.

Yet even with the straws’ help, their drink still would’ve been a thick, murky porridge replete with bits of husk and gunk lending it little resemblance to the crisp, clean lagers of today.

That said, they deserve some props for their semi-apocryphal origin story, as the malting process responsible for this sludgy brew remains a fundamental step in contemporary beer production.

And as for that syrupy supernatant siphoned through Sumerian straws? It’s the progenitor of another contemporary food and beverage ingredient with an August tradition all its own: malt extract. And it’s time we pay more attention to it.

No accident

The fact that ancient Mesopotamians enjoyed fermented beverages was no accident; Cuneiform texts from the era document busy breweries receiving regular shipments of grain and malt for their many production runs.

“It’s almost uniformly agreed that the discovery of malting itself would’ve been an accident,” said Jack Lorimer, senior food scientist at Mattson, a Silicon Valley-based food and beverage insights, strategy, innovation and development firm that works with clients large and small to help them generate insights and strategies to drive concept development and then turn the winning concepts into products they develop and commercialize for them.

As Lorimer recounted the story, “A quantity of stored grain probably got wet from rain and the grains became sweeter, or the liquid that pooled around them fermented into alcohol. My brewing professor even takes the case further and argues that humans went from hunting and gathering to agricultural societies for the express purpose of cultivating grains to make alcohol.”

Harnessing nature

Either way, malting offers an object lesson in how humans thrived by following nature’s lead. But what exactly is malt?

In essence, malt is germinated or sprouted cereal grain, while malting is the process that creates it, Lorimer explained.

As breweries practice it today, malting involves repeatedly hydrating dried barley grains at controlled temperatures until they germinate. The grains produce amylase enzymes that break down the plant’s carbohydrates into simple sugars for growth, whereas “we humans have harnessed the process for the enzymes and the readily available sugars it produces,” per Lorimer.

Once germination has progressed to a predetermined point, brewers dry the malted barley to halt further germination, using low temperatures to preserve the enzymes. In cases where maintaining enzyme activity isn’t important, “the malts may be stewed or roasted to develop different characteristics, like the dark color and slightly acrid roast flavor of a stout, or the sweeter, chewy caramel quality of an amber ale,” Lorimer explained.

From malt to mash

Strictly speaking, brewers can malt any grain besides barley — with wheat and sorghum (prized for its lack of gluten) as common examples. “But when someone refers to ‘malt,’ they generally mean ‘malted barley,’” Lorimer said.

So with their malt now ready to go, brewers then mash it, which Jason zumBrunnen, co-founder of Ratio Beerworks, described as a process of steeping and lautering — or filtering — intended to extract the malt sugars, proteins and nutrients dissolved in the malting water while leaving behind the husks and bits of grain (a step Mesopotamian brewers apparently skipped, hence the straws).

“Typically, we’ll extract a 12% sugar water [also known as wort] from the grain to boil for beer,” zumBrunnen said. Becoming beer isn’t this liquid’s sole fate, however. “That sugar water can also be concentrated or dried, producing a shelf-stable syrup or powder — malt extract,” he explained.

Starring role

While malt itself takes more of a lead role in brewing than does malt extract, according to Lorimer, brewers still use the latter for several purposes, including for the supplementary fermentable sugars malt extract can contribute to a brew. Home brewers, he added, appreciate malt extract for how it simplifies the brewing process.

Though some brewers use certain corn sugar extracts to achieve similar ends and “bump up alcohol concentration,” zumBrunnen said he considers malt extract “a better starting element for yeast health,” thanks to its protein and nutrient profile.

To wit, malt extract — being made from whole grain — contains approximately 6% protein, along with plenty of free amino acids, vitamins and minerals, according to Briess Malt & Ingredients Co. Also, because the barley enzymes convert its starch into sugars, the carbohydrate composition of which approaches that of a high-maltose corn syrup, malt extract will contribute more maltose to a brewing beer than pure glucose or its isomer dextrose.

Malt extract’s advantages

This has its advantages, zumBrunnen said. For example, dextrose-based sugars produce a beer flavor that he described as “neutral and dry” relative to malt extract. “And those sugars can disrupt fermentation if used in too high a percentage, requiring additional nutrients for yeast health,” he added.

That said, alternative fermentable sugar sources can be cheaper than malt extract, per Lorimer, which may explain why corn or rice syrup replaces a portion of the malt in most American light beers.

In an echo of zumBrunnen’s comment, Lorimer acknowledged that malt flavor is indeed stronger than alternatives sugar sources, but that brewers may want a lighter beer flavor. For example, “Belgian brewers will often use sugar syrups to boost alcohol content without creating a heavier flavor or they’ll use caramelized sugar syrups to lighten the body, darken the color and change the flavor profile,” he explained. “In addition to being cheaper,” sugar sources other than malt extract “produce a lighter-flavored beer, which can be an advantage or disadvantage depending on the application.”

All of which is to say that malt extract is a handy brewing ingredient, albeit one with a complex set of use cases. As a food and beverage ingredient, however, malt extract’s uses — and those of its liquid sibling, malt syrup — are far more straightforward, and surprisingly widespread.