WALLA WALLA, Wash. -- Christian DeBenedetti, a Whitman College senior and
native of Portland, Oregon, has watched with keen interest in recent years as the centuries-old art of brewing of beer has undergone a renaissance of almost staggering proportions in the
United States.More than 700 breweries, micro-breweries and brewpubs, many of them based in DeBenedetti's home town and surrounding areas, have sprung to life around the country.
DeBenedetti, who plans a career in brewing, will embark later this year on a 12-month trek from West Africa to Europe to study a variety of ancient, traditional brewing techniques. His overseas study project was chosen for funding recently by the Thomas J. Watson fellowship program.
DeBenedetti, an English major at Whitman and 1992 graduate of Oregon Episcopal School in Portland, will begin his Watson studies in Niger and other West African countries where sorghum and millet beers are brewed in a manner similar to that which was used in Mesopotamia thousands of years before the birth of Christ.
His Watson project proposal includes a reference to the "Hymn to Ninkasi," written in the 19th century B.C. in celebration of the ancient Sumerian Goddess of Brewing. The hymn contains a recipe for beer -- literally step-by-step directions -- and offers the following praise:
Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the
filtered beer of the collector vat
It is (like) the onrush of
Tigris and Euphrates.
DeBenedetti also notes that German authorities in the early 16th century had a recipe, albeit a simple and strict one, for the making of beer. According to the Rheinheitsgebot, or the German Purity Law of 1516, the "only ingredients used for the brewing of beer must be Barley, Hops, and Water. Whosoever knowingly disregards or transgresses upon this ordinance, shall be punished by the Court authorities' confiscating such barrels of beer, without fail."
A variety of ancient cultures, including the Inca, Aztec, Maya and Eskimo, also had strong brewing traditions that were centered in the home and of great importance to domestic and spiritual life.
After beginning his Watson trip in West Africa, DeBenedetti will travel to Europe, stopping in the United Kingdom, where wood cask-conditioned ale breweries dot the isles; Belgium, where breweries are operated in secretive monasteries by cloistered monks; and Germany and Bavaria, from which American brewing traditions are primarily derived and where beer and brewing are staples of life for everyone.
"Brewing is a passion and way of life for a great many people all over the world today," DeBenedetti noted. "It is an art form, a social uniter, medium for cultural differentiation and beneficiary to science. And it has become a major part of the culture in which I was raised in the Pacific Northwest."
DeBenedetti says his study will include analysis of several questions, including the ways in which brewing perpetuates social roles, and the nature of the relationship between religion and brewing. He notes that while the religion of Islam prohibits the use of alcohol in the former countries of Mesopotamia, Christian monasteries throughout France and Belgium have brewed some of the world's finest beers for centuries.
DeBenedetti will focus his studies on Africa's and Europe's small, traditional brewers, those who make only enough beer for a household or a local community.
"Studying and documenting the brewers and breweries who persist in 'outmoded' techniques is a way to raise awareness and concern, and to support an integral part of rural and old-world community life," he said.
"My closest attention in each place will be on the traditional brewing techniques, which to some extent have been supplanted by technology," he added. "The largest breweries in Europe and Africa have astounding production levels that span the globe. They are a far cry from the ancient brewers who produced only enough beer for the household, as the female "brewsters" of Bavaria traditionally did -- or even for the local community, as thousands of tiny breweries have and continue to do throughout all of Wales, for instance. Those are the brewers I am interested in -- those who continue to craft brews from generations-old recipes and millennia-old techniques."
DeBenedetti also observes that the art and science of brewing have "facilitated a tremendous cultural exchange between Americans and Europeans for centuries, and that the rising tide of American brewing entrepreneurialism has promisingly begun to result in more of a symbiotic relationship; that is, the old-world has begun to take notice of our own national interest in traditional brewing."
Last summer, after returning from a year of study in Italy, DeBenedetti visited a number of accomplished brewers in the Portland area, including Tony Gomes of the Saxer Brewing Co., who spent eight years in Munich, Germany, studying to be a brewmaster, and Brad Wymer of WIDMER. He also found a summer job as a brewery assistant through Jon Eliassen at Golden Valley Brewery.
DeBenedetti, the son of Ellen and Charles McClure of Newberg, Oregon, and Frank DeBenedetti Sr. of Eugene, Oregon, was raised on a hazelnut farm near Newberg.