Beer Witch

Why don’t more women like beer? Maybe it’s because they used to be burned alive for it. Or, more precisely—men accused them of ruining their beer, called them beer witches, and then tied them to the stake.

All of which is even more unfair than you might think. This is because without women, men wouldn’t have any beer. According to many historians, women not only were the first brewers, they probably invented beer. One theory about how beer evolved is that a wet piece of bread was left out and, after someone ate the fermented result, the inebriating effect of beer was discovered and hastily duplicated. Since kitchen work and making bread was a woman’s job, it is most likely that it was a woman who first imbibed said bread.

Though we don’t usually associate kitchens and women with beer today, Kim Kramer makes the connection, revealing how uncomplicated the brewing process can be. “If you can read a recipe, you can brew beer,” says Kramer, an attorney for the Environmental Protection Agency and part-time home brewer. 

Up until the Middle Ages, it was women who brewed almost all beer, usually in amounts large enough for family consumption. However, when monasteries turned their attention to beer making in the Middle Ages, men entered the brewing scene. Although the monks originally only made the beer for themselves, they soon realized its potential as a moneymaker, and began selling beer to outsiders, with some monasteries even opening up pubs. Still, women in Europe were able to keep the edge over men until the late eighteenth century. Records show women opening up their own inns and pubs, some single women even maintaining their maiden name while doing so, possibly suggesting that beer garnered them some independence and a livable income. In 1509, a list of the existing 152 brewers in Aberdeen records only women. During the 1700s, seventy-eight percent of registered brewers in England were women. 

But as demand and trade increased, ruling male governments soon passed laws to keep beer profits in their own hands by keeping women out of such a profitable trade. Aside from a brief period during World War I when women took over for their men (absent as soldiers), beer making has rested squarely with men ever since.