The World’s Oldest Brewery (No, it’s Not Budweiser)

If you have ever favored beer with an extra kick, a German brewery founded 2,550 years ago had just the brew for you. Archeologists leading a recent dig at an Iron Age party site in Germany discovered the remnants of a huge malt-making operation, probably built around 500 B.C., according to a report in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. Archaeobotanist Hans-Peter Stika believes that the so-called “Hochdorf malt” began with the process of soaking barley in ditches until it sprouted. Then the “growth of lactic acid bacteria stimulated by slow drying of grains added sourness to the brew,” writes Bruce Bower of Science News. Unlike the mild hops used today, Iron Age beer was fortified with other flowers and spices, including mugwort, carrot seeds—and most notably henbane, a poisonous and psychedelic plant. Stika speculates that henbane offered an extra oomph to the brew, which turned out like an early form of pilsner, with a bitter taste and a smoky yellow color. This henbane beer even has a name: Pilsenkraut (from pilsen: imagine, to fantasize, to have a vision; and kraut: plant, shrub).