Craft brewers love to experiment. They’ve made beers using wastewater and food waste, as well as yeast extracted from belly button lint (yes, really). They’ve turned a 1,790-pound pumpkin into a keg. They’ve made a porter from yeast found on a 220-year-old shipwreck, brewed with hops flown in space, sought guidance from artificial intelligence and designed beer specifically for breast cancer patients.
The latest quirky project? A beer made from yeast that’s nearly 3,000 years old, with a recipe derived from a 3,500-year-old Egyptian papyrus.
The man behind the historic brew is Dylan McDonnell, a homebrewer and nonprofit operations manager with a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies, who lives in Millcreek, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City.
During the pandemic, McDonnell heard about a man baking sourdough using a 4,500-year-old yeast strain. …