The beer prehistoric «Alcalar», which is already a registered trademark, is about to be launched on the market and is another idea developed by the master brewers of «Marafada», the most active producer of craft beer in the Algarve.
this beer prehistoric it was produced for the first time two years ago, in a joint effort between archaeologist Elena Morán and master brewers André Gonçalves and Ruben Silva.
The result of this experience, which required a lot of research and previous experimentation, was given to prove in the Days of Prehistory that, in mid-April 2016, took place in the megalithic monuments of Alcalar.
After that, every time there are heritage animation activities in this national monument in the interior of the municipality of Portimão, there is a couple of brewers.
And what is special about this beer? If today it is the wine that is most recognized as a drink in the South, 5000 years ago, when its primitive inhabitants lived in Alcalar, beer would be the drink of choice.
For this reason, Elena Morán, André Gonçalves and Ruben Silva, with the support of António Pereira, from the Portimão Museum, began researching and experimenting to try to recreate a beer, with the methods and ingredients that would have been used by the Alcalarenses. from five millennia ago.
Elena Morán explained to Sul Informação, on 2016, that the ingredients (cereal and fruit) used in the beer «correspond to those that were collected by us, by flotation, and identified in the laboratory by our botanist, Prof. Hans-Peter Stika, University of Stuttgart».
Among these seeds that are thousands of years old, the botanist identified the myrtle and the hawthorn, that is, the berries of the common myrtle (myrtle common) and the hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), which are known to have been used in brewing beer, long before hops from the Black Sea reached Western Europe in the Middle Ages.
In the first experiences in the production of prehistoric beer, myrtle and pillito were used to flavor the beer.
But, as André Gonçalves told this week to Sul Informação, «we learned of new data regarding products other than cereals, and we decided to replace the hawthorn with the shrimp».
The chamber (Chorema album) is a white, sweet and semi translucent berry, when ripe, which grows on shrubs, especially at the seaside, in the Algarve. It has been used for a long time to make jams, but now it will also be part of the «Alcalar» beer, who knows if it happened in prehistoric times.
«This beer, with the camarinha, is something that we believe will be even closer to what was made in those times», added André Gonçalves.
One of the problems of this craft beer prehistoric fashion is that it does not use hops, a plant that stabilizes beer and gives it flavor, but which only arrived in Western Europe millennia later, in the Middle Ages. Without hops, and despite all the experiments that André Gonçalves has been carrying out in his production unit located in Algoz, the new brand «Alcalar» will always have «a short shelf life», therefore it cannot «be kept for long seasons» and forcing to keep it and transport it “always in the cold”.
The new brand «Alcalar» was to be launched to the public next Saturday, April 14th, precisely in those megalithic monuments, during the inauguration of the rehabilitation made to tomb 9, and in the launch of another edition of the program for the Disclosure and Valorization of Monuments in the Algarve (DiVaM), promoted by the Regional Directorate of Culture.
But André Gonçalves prefers to be cautious: «we'll have some bottles to show and taste», but the launch should only take place a week later, at the Prehistory Day, set for April 21, also in Alcalar.
«We have already made three batches, small, between 100 and 250 litres, but we are still fine-tuning some details. We are determining the necessary fermentation times and making some adjustments”, explained the master brewer.
"We want to reach a result that allows launching the beer on the market, albeit in small quantities, due to the unique characteristics of the product," he added.
Therefore, «only at the end of next week, the beer will be ready, in terms of cleaning and decanting», he stressed.
And is this «Alcalar» beer, now with a registered brand to be launched on the market, the same as what many have already tasted in the activities of the Museum of Portimão in those monuments? André Gonçalves says no, first because it will have a new ingredient, shrimp. Then, because «we only work with natural yeasts, which are living organisms, and from one year to the next, these yeasts undergo mutations and produce different products».
Connoisseurs of good craft beers are more grateful for this innovation from the Algarve «Marafada» and are looking forward to a journey through time…and on the palate.
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