Introduction
Ninkasi is the goddess of beer and brewing, celebrated in a Sumerian hymn that, unusually, doubles as one of the oldest surviving beer recipes in written history.
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A Recipe in Praise of a Goddess
The Hymn to Ninkasi describes, in poetic form, the actual process of brewing Sumerian beer from bread and malted grain — modern brewers and archaeologists have used the text to reconstruct and recreate an approximation of ancient Sumerian beer. Ninkasi's cult reflects the central social and religious importance of beer in Mesopotamian daily life, from temple offerings to ordinary household consumption.
Mesopotamian religion spans Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian sources composed and recopied across nearly three thousand years, so names, genealogies, and even a deity's role often shift between traditions (Sumerian An/Enki/Inanna alongside their Akkadian/Babylonian forms Anu/Ea/Ishtar); the account above follows the most widely attested version, usually as consolidated in the Babylonian Enuma Elish or the standard Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh.