National Beer News: 5,000-Year-Old Barley Beer Found in China; Walmart is Getting Into Craft Beer Now

National Beer News: 5,000-Year-Old Barley Beer Found in China; Walmart is Getting Into Craft Beer Now

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5,000-Year-Old Barley Beer Found in China
By Dan Nosowitz, Modern Farmer

A new archaeological find, complete with a host of new analyses of the materials found therein, has shed some new light on the beer-making practices of ancient China. At a site in the Shaanxi province, in northwest China, archaeologists from Stanford University discovered some vessels and stone-heating equipment in a below-ground pit. Analysis of the interior of those vessels showed the presence of some materials never seen before in vessels from this time period—most importantly, barley.​

Malted barely is the most common cereal used to make beer. Not the only one, but certainly the most popular. It was first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, some 9,500 years ago, and used throughout that region to make bread and, yes, beer. But early examples of Chinese beer don’t usually include barley; it’s not native to China, and it’s more common to find traces of beer-like beverages made of rice and fruits.

Barley traveled in all directions after it was domesticated, but took thousands of years to make its way to China; the study’s authors say that it didn’t become a part of agricultural subsistence in that region until about 2,000 years ago.

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Walmart is Getting Into Craft Beer Now
​By Ethan Wolff-Mann, Time

It seems Walmart is going through some kind of midlife puberty. On Friday, the company announced that it was teaming up with Uber and Lyft for grocery delivery and preparing a test of drones to keeps tabs on warehouse inventory. Now it looks like the retail giant is also getting into beer. According to The Street, Walmart has been stocking fridges in 2,200 of its 4,600 stores nationwide with private-label craft brews.

For the past few months, Walmart has been selling 12-packs of private-label beers for $13. These aren’t simply Bud knockoffs; they’re craft-style beers with names like Cat’s Away IPA, After Party Pale Ale, Red Flag Amber, and ‘Round Midnight Belgian White.

The private-label beers are brewed by Trouble Brewery in Rochester, New York, which has now likely lost all its street cred with craft brewers. (Not that it cares, if we had to guess.)

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