The Museu de Menorca, the Talayotic Menorca candidacy and Grahame Pearce unveil the
Talaiòtica beer, a Talayotic inspiration beverage. Born out of an exhaustive research and investigation into one of the most emblematic objects left behind by Talayotic culture: the high bottom cup, a unique and exclusive object of Menorcan prehistory, dated in the Final Talayotic period, which is to say, between the IV and II centuries BC.
The
conseller of Culture, Education, Youth and Sports, Miquel Àngel Maria; the director of the
Museu de Menorca, Carolina Desel, and the chief and master brewer of
Grahame Pearce, Roger Vila, presented this original brew to the public at the Museu de Menorca.
The ingredients that inspired the making of the Talaiòtica beer were selected based on the aforementioned analysis and other studies that looked into the usage of plants during the Menorcan Talayotic period. Water, wheat and Menorcan barley, sagebrush, chamomile, rosemary, thyme and honey combined to create this brew inspired by our prehistoric ancestors, the custodians of a powerful, original and imaginative island culture.
The enigma of Flaquer’s 400 cups
The high-bottomed cup is a ceramic container, usually very decorated, with the bottom above the foot, which creates an air chamber below. The bowl is raised so that its containment capacity is very reduced. This morphology led the scientific literature to interpret this container as a censer, meaning, as a burner for aromatic herbs. These vessels are found within symbolic spaces, such as taula sanctuaries and funerary necropolis.
Stemming from the
Joan Flaquer and the enigma of the 400 cups exhibition, the Museu de Menorca started an investigation into a deposit of more than 400 cups that came from the
Sa Mola necropolis (Alaior) in 2019. This was the beginning of a new excavation project in which a group of objects related to funerary rituals were discovered. The majority were high-bottomed cups, which were linked to commensal ceremonies in honor of the deceased until now never documented in Menorca.
Since the high-bottomed cups had never been analysed before, and it was still considered that the correct theory was that they were censers, the Museu de Menorca decided to carry out sample analysis for possible contents: on the one hand, the Institut Milà i Fontanals de Investigación en Humanidades (IMF-CSIC) analyses phytoliths to identify traces of organic remains and, on the other, the organic residue is analysed by the Prehistory and Archaeology departments and the department of Analytical Chemistry of the Universidad de Granada. The results confirmed that the cups had contained cereals, mainly wheat, barley and traces of lactates, elements compatible with a beverage such as beer.
From there on out is when work with the Menorcan brewery Graham Pearce began with the aim of producing the Talayotic inspiration beer which today we present to you and will be available at the Museu de Menorca and some specialised shops.
In this
video you can watch the process.