Ninkasi was the Sumerian goddess of beer and brewing.
Her name appears in Mesopotamian religious and literary texts connected with beer’s production, consumption, and effects. She is especially associated with the brewing process and was sometimes described as the brewer of Ekur, the temple complex of the god Enlil. Her cult center was Nippur, an important religious city in Sumer.
The best-known text involving her is the Hymn to Ninkasi, a Sumerian composition that poetically describes making beer. Its imagery refers to ingredients, fermentation, vessels, and the enjoyment of the finished drink. Mesopotamian beer was commonly made from fermented grain and was a major part of daily life, temple offerings, and feasting.
Ninkasi is sometimes confused with Nisaba, who was associated with grain and writing, or with Siraš, a related beer deity. Older popular accounts also connect Ninkasi with wine, but modern scholarship generally considers her primary association to be beer. Some late sources even give her masculine traits, showing that Mesopotamian divine identities were not always rigid.