The stone-mound site near Galway had puzzled scholars for years. However, Billy Quinn and Declan Moore heated the stones with a roaring fire to produce a pungent ale that samplers said was actually pretty tasty.

"People drank it by the liter," Quinn told the German magazine Der Spiegel Monday.

The Gaelic site is estimated to be about 3,000 years old and had been though to be anything from a blacksmith forge to a sauna.

Quinn admitted that subsequent batches, which were produced mainly through trial-and-error, weren't quite as successful, Der Spiegel said. The main thing, however, is that the purpose of the site and scores of others like it scattered around Ireland may have been identified.