OnTap Magazine

EDITOR'S LIBRARY This is a new section intended to showcase a book, podcast or any other form of media on a beer-related subject that comes highly recommended by one of our Editors, or submitted by a reader. Have a book or podcast on all-things-beer that changed your life – or simply that you would recommend to fellow On Tap readers? Drop us a line at editor@ontapmagazine.com ! AN INTRO TO THE EDITOR'S LIBRARY F or this first installment of the Editor’s Library, I’d like to recommend a book that changed my understanding of beer’s ancient history, and introduced me to the important role that spirituality played in early fermentation. The book is called “Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation,” written by Stephen Harrod Buhner. Here is a quote to whet your appetite: “The ancient beers came from cultures that, on every continent on Earth, say that human beings did not discover fermentation at all. They say it was given to humankind through the intercession of sacred beings, and they insist that these ancient beers contain within themselves some of the essence of the sacred source from which they come. So when we look beneath the surface of ‘beer’ a world entirely different from our own begins to be revealed.” Not just a history text, the book also contains many ancient beer recipes, although as written they are more like guides than a step-by-step how-to. I can say that I am not alone in finding this book intoxicating; friend and head brewer at Woodstock Brewery Tinus Lottering has borrowed it from me twice now and has had to be chased down to return it! Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation Author: Stephen Harrod Buhner ontapmag.co.za | Summer 2023 | 63