21st Amendment in San Francisco recently won first place in the newly created Indigenous Beer category at the Great American Beer Festival, for a beer called HQT. And, in part because who cannot pass along a story like this and in part because emmer was involved, here’s their press release:

HQT was a type of beer brewed in ancient Egypt, which is credited with being the birthplace of brewing. So, how does one pronounce HQT? “Heck if I can say it,” said (Nico) Freccia, to which (Shaun) O’Sullivan replied, “I think you mean ‘heket.’”

The Egyptians made the beer in clay pots using local ingredients including raw barley, honey and dates, but no hops. To start the fermentation, they tossed in a bit of Emmer wheat bread leavened with local yeast cultures. The resulting brew was a staple of the ancient Egyptian diet. In fact, it was given to workers in vast quantities – up to a gallon or more per day – to sustain them.

21st Amendment followed the ancient Egyptians’ recipe as faithfully as possible, even going so far as to grow heirloom English Pinnacle barley and Emmer wheat in old barrels on the rooftop of their San Francisco brewpub. They harvested the barley and wheat, then germinated it and dried it in the oven. According to Freccia, “We would have roasted it over hot rocks like the Egyptians did, but all the hot rocks in San Francisco were already being used by the spas.”

When a couple of buckets of fresh dates fell into Freccia’s lap, he presented them to 21A’s head brewer, Zambo, who incorporated them into the Egyptian brew, along with the barley and wheat, some local organic honey, and spices carefully selected at the San Francisco spice market. Staying true to the original recipe, he added no hops.

GABF judges appreciated the resulting elixir enough to award it a Gold medal. Curious beer drinkers on the East Coast will have a chance to pass judgment on it soon at 21A events in New York and Washington, DC.

The photo at the top was taken at Riedenburger Brauhaus, which uses variety of ancient grains such as emmer, dinkel and einkorn, all wheat-like and all grown under contract with local farmers.

According to Theory and Practice of the Preparation of Malt and the Fabrication of Beer these grains were most common in the south of Germany and Switzerland in the late nineteenth century and known as “Swabian Wheat.”

Riedenburger Brauhaus produces 20,000 hectoliters (17,000 barrels) of organic beer a year, widely distributing a gluten-free beer. Its Historiches Emmer Bier contains 50 percent emmer in the grist, as well at einkorn, spelt, barley and wheat malts. The amber beer pours with a massive head, spicy vanilla notes leaping out of the glass. It tastes somewhat of a dunkelweiss with dark fruity notes.

Foreword By Yvan De Baets
Introduction
About the Book

Part I – Wheat, the Other Brewing Grain
1 Wheat, Beer, and Bread
2 Wheat Basics: Why Is My Beer Cloudy?
  - Partly Cloudy to Cloudy
  - Twenty-First Century Solutions
  - You Say 4-Vinyl Guaiacol, I Say Clove
  - The German View

Part II – The White Beers of Belgium
3 In Search of the Real Belgian White
  - Biere Blanche de Louvain
  - The Peeterman
  - Biere de Hougaerde

4 The Six Degrees of Pierre Celis
On March 13, 1966, Pierre Celis brewed his first official batch of Oud Hoegaards Bier. Brouwerij Celis was in business, and eventually that business would take him (and wit) to the United States.

  - It All Started With a White
     Visiting Allagash Brewing, where White accounts for 80 percent of production.
  - The Best-Selling American Wheat Beer Ever
     The story behind Blue Moon White.
  - Treating the Spices Right
     Bavik in Belgium approaches spice additions differently.
  - Acting Green and Looking White
     How Mothership Wit became new Belgium’s first organic beer.
  - Two Times White Is Still White
     A stronger version of White turned into Southampton Brewing’s most popular beer.
  - A Taste of Leuven?
     Jolly Pumpkin Calabaza Blanca takes wit to the wild side.

5 A Recipe for Wit
From Jean-Francois Gravel of Dieu de Ciel! in Montreal.

Part III – The Weiss Beers of Southern Germany
6 A Fallen Style Returns to Glory
The rise and fall, and rise again, of weizen in Southern Germany. The revival began at Private Weissbierbrauerei G. Schneider & Sohn. Brewmaster Hans-Peter Drexler provides a step-by-step tour through the very traditional production of Scheider Weisse Original.

7 Bavarian Tradition With a Wyoming Accent
Introduced only in 2005, Schönramer Festweisse also adheres to tradition, including bottle conditioning with speise.

  - Meet the Other Schneider
    “You brew the beer right, you serve it fresh, it is not a problem.”
  - The Beers Are Smoked, The Wheat Isn’t
    Perhaps all wheat beers were once smoky; Schlenkerla Rauchweizen still is.
  - An Open Fermentation Policy
    Sierra Nevada Brewing new Kellerweis uses “old” methods.
  - Making Adjustments in New Jersey
    Greg Zaccardi insists using a decoction mash still makes a difference.
  - Don’t Be Nice to Weiss
    “I treat it like a redheaded stepchild.”

8 A Recipe for Hefeweizen
From homebrewer Bill Aimonetti.

Part IV – The Wheat Beers of America
9 A Hefeweizen By Any Other Name . . .
America had little in the way of a wheat beer tradition before Kurt and Rob Widmer a game-changing cloudy beer that would help define a new style, American Hefeweizen.

10 Brewing in a Melting Pot
New Glarus Brewing in Wisconsin is well known for a variety of beers, but no American brewery is better equipped to brew traditional wheat beer.

  - Beer From America’s Breadbasket
    Wheat beers account for 70 percent of production at Boulevard Brewing.
  - A Midsummer Night’s Dream
    Although a “seasonal,” Oberon is Bell’s best-selling beer.
  - Summer Ale on the Oregon Coast
    Pelican Pub & Brewery takes a lesson from Great Britain.
  - Wheat Wine: The Beer
    A “style” born at Rubicon Brewing in Sacramento.
  - A Beer for the Punk Comic Crowd
    Gumballhead was brewed to prove “American wheat beer doesn’t suck.”

11 Two Recipes for Wheat Wine
Steven Pauwels of Boulevard Brewing and Todd Ashman of FiftyFifty Brewing take two different approaches in offering recipes for a wheat wine.

Part V – Wheat Beers From the Past
12 Beers the Reinheitsgebot Never Met
Berliner weisse and Gose from northern Germany have a long, sour and sometimes glorious history. A look at how they were brewed and how they are made today in Berlin and Leipzig.

13 The Care and Brewing of Relics
Nodding Head Brewery & Restaurant in Philadelphia has become the second largest Berliner weisse producer in the world. Granted that’s only 50 barrels (1,500 gallons) annually but interesting things are happening with old styles.

14 Four Resurrected Recipes
Recipes for Berliner weisse, for Gose, for Lichtenhainer and for Grätzer from homebrewer Kristen England.

Part VI – Putting It All Together
15 Judging and Enjoying, Brewing Tips Included
  - Belgian White/Wit
  - German Weizens
  - American Wheat
  - Berliner Weisse
  - Gose
  - Don’t Forget the Pour

Part V – End Matter
Appendix – Yeast charts

What would you like to know about Berliner Weisse, about Gose, about Grätzer or even some other historic style you are aware of?