Unpacking The Myths Connecting Beer, Alewives And Witches
Photo by Wellcome Library, London/Creative Commons Drink Features alewives
Outlets like Thrillist promulgate the myth that witches pioneered the art of brewing beer. Even an outlet as storied as the Smithsonian Magazine published a piece advancing this witch’s tale that later required multiple corrections.
The truth behind this witch’s brew of a tale remains murkier than a hazy IPA. True, women played an essential role in brewing beer from its inception around 3000 BCE until around the start of the Reformation in the early to mid-16th century. Brewing generally fell within the domain of women’s household tasks with men, women, and even children drinking low-ABV (1 to 3 percent) beer, as the water was deemed unfit for human consumption.
The first reference to brewing can be found in the Hymn to Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of beer, circa 1800 BCE, though this hymn references practices that had been in place for over a thousand years. Also, according to Irish lore, St. Brigid (451 to 525 CE) transformed bathwater into beer (similar to how Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding of Cana). Fast forward to the 12th century, when St. Hildegard Von Bingen’s (1098 to 1179 CE) saintly achievements included researching natural herbs, like hops, which were used in healing practices. In this capacity, St. Hildegard Von Bingen is credited as the first person to add hops to beer, thus improving its taste and preservative qualities considerably.
In a society that offered few financial opportunities for women, homebrewing represented an opportunity for part-time employment for women, which granted them a financial freedom that was rare at the time, according to the Museum of Oxford’s website. The Women in Theology blog expounded on how these home based businesses afforded medieval European women a rare opportunity to earn an income by selling any excess ale to neighbors and passers-by
In larger towns, women had a near monopoly on commercial ale production, and they sold the product to both public houses and private homes as well as colleges and churches. In addition, these brewers, called “alewives” or “brewsters,” would take their brews out onto the street, often advertising their wares by wearing a tall, pointy hat. To signify that their homes sold ale, they would place broomsticks—a symbol of domestic trade—outside of the door. Cats often scurried around the brewsters’ bubbling cauldrons, killing the mice that liked to feast on the grains used for ale.
The Demonization of Alewives
Despite this iconography now associated with contemporary witches, alewives weren’t called witches directly. That said, like Eve who tempted Adam with an apple, alewives were viewed as suspicious temptresses living on the fringes of society who led pious men into a life of sin and gluttony. As Judith M. Bennet observes in, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600, “Perhaps the earliest and most common representation of an alewife in English culture shows her condemned to eternal punishment in hell.”
On the Women in Theology blog, Allison Murray reports how male brewers were able to use this stereotypical negative image of the alewife to their advantage:
When churches were built, local guilds often provided a large portion of the funds needed for construction. These contributions gave the guilds some degree of authority when it came to the artwork and decoration placed in the church. Scattered throughout England are several pre-reformation churches whose decorations depict alewives being carried off to hell, tankard in hand, by demons. These overtly negative portrayals are found where professional guilds were strongest. These carvings, tapestries and paintings convey a clear message: alewives are immoral, hell-bound and worthy of reproach. This church-sanctioned propaganda, combined with the shifting economic landscape, proved effective in marginalizing traditional female brewsters.
With the church’s demonic characterization of alewives, the male-led commercial brewer’s guilds forced them to exit the brewing industry. As the Black Plague subsided, beer sales and consumption moved slowly from homes to public ale houses. This move shifted the beer industry from a home-based business run by women to a male-dominated tavern culture ruled by commercial beer guilds. Additionally, although the increased use of hops produced beer with a longer shelf life, investment in hops also required significant capital, which most alewives could not access.
Historian Christine Peters documented in Women in Early Modern Britain, 1450-1640 how the making and especially the selling of ale strengthened the idea of women as deceivers of men: “The stereotypical alewife served poor quality ale in false measures and tempted men into drunkenness and immorality. Such associations conspired to diminish the social status of the alewife and also prompted authorities to periodic attempts at greater regulation.”
Once brewing became associated with public taverns and not private homes, women became subject to laws like the incorporation charter of the brewers of London in 1639, which proclaimed that women “are not fit” to sell ale or beer. Peters illuminates how the gradual displacement of women in the brewing business represented the redefinition of the role of women in Reformation era European society.
Simply put, a woman’s place was in the home, tending to the household and raising children. not brewing beer. Over time, the perception of those alewwives who defied the laws and societal expectations by continuing to brew beer shifted from mischaracterization to persecution. The first tapster (a female taverner) was sentenced to die in 1692 as a result of the Salem witch hysteria.
Even today, although it’s possible to find a smattering of female brewers among the masses of bearded beer bros, the Brewers Association’s latest demographic breakdown reports that only 2.9 percent of craft breweries are fully female-owned, with 58.6 percent of breweries surveyed having no women on their ownership team. Organizations such as the Pink Boots Society aim to flip this paradigm by assisting, inspiring and encouraging women and non-binary individuals in the fermented/alcoholic beverage industry to advance their beer careers through education. Despite their struggles, alewives’ legacies live on.