@Sheril they were known as ale wives...

@Sheril witches Brew?

@Sheril what about brooms?! They must have had brooms! 🧹

@Sheril I’ve always lived the word alewife

@Sheril Much local brewing in medieval English villages was done by "ale wives" as a means of earning money. They often hung a sign outside when the brew was ready, which later developed into what we call pub signs today.

@Sheril Adding this to list of things I wish I had known, but do now.

@Sheril

That's an interesting video. I didn't know women fermented beer.

I'd thought monks in some monasteries made beer.

The accusations men made against women is also a tragic reminder of the horrors caused by misogyny.

The women who sold beer at the market not only lost their livelihood, but having been accused of witchcraft were condemned to death.

#Misogyny

@Sheril this history shits me so much. I wonder the amazing brewing culture we could have had if some thin skinned blokes hadn’t felt threatened by female brewers. I’m grateful to know so many amazing female brewers and beer industry professionals and grateful that the modern industry, while still not great, is at least slowly improving and is less of a sausage fest

@Sheril while some of this is true, the portrayal of witches with pointy hats didn't show up until ~17C, long after brewing had been taken over by men. In medieval times, witches were more portrayed as naked and doing orgies with demons.

@Sheril

In medieval times, The church, controlled women by condemning and burning those who were in any way ‘different.’

Progressive and liberated women, well these were the witches weren’t they?

@Sheril that’s so interesting! Thank you for sharing!

@Sheril These brewer women had widely varied formulas using all kinds of field herbs as bitters to prevent spoilage. Soporific hops were introduced by the church so that the whole herbal "superfun sexy time" or "trippin balls and sacking the next village" thing would quit happening

@Sheril The word for witch in Spanish is Bruja - brewer.

@Sheril this is the best historical fact I’ll learn all day! Thanks for sharing.

@Sheril what you speak is heresy's haha jk they were known as Brewster's a very interesting topic.

@Sheril There's a really well done episode about this on the podcast, Dig.

@Sheril the hashtag #beer may help people find this post. #witches too.

@Sheril Soooo “Witches’ Brew” is a literal thing?

@Sheril is this of interest to @Braciatrix ?

@Sheril interesting info

@Sheril fascinating stuff.
My wife is producing a podcast that may be of interest, looking into the witch trials that occurred in the north of England in the 1600s.
https://anchor.fm/the-newcastle-witches

@Sheril A very interesting discussion. The theory that men used the accusation of witchcraft to get rid of inconvenient women is pretty well accepted in academia today. This is the first time I have heard a theory connecting witchcraft specifically with beer brewing. It is certainly easy to believe, but if you can cite any specific material supporting this theory I would like to see it.

@Sheril wow I never knew that. I’m struck by the similarity to the history of women in the computer programming profession and wishing that these things were more widely taught/known. Thanks very much for sharing that.

@Sheril May have, but this person presents a different argument. I think it's well worth a read as she dissects the history and the claim.

https://braciatrix.com/2017/10/27/nope-medieval-alewives-arent-the-archetype-for-the-modern-pop-culture-witch/

@Sheril holy shit, what

Use to give beer to kids too, as it was safer than giving them water..

@Sheril My lovely German grandmother was a woman of many talents - dressmaker, amazing cook, baker of cakes that were good enough to grace the counter of any French patisserie, gardener and preserver of foods. The thing that amazed me most about her, was her ability to roll my grandfather's cigarettes and brew his beer.

@Sheril very interesting. Credible.

@Sheril Mainly because water was poisonous so only drinking ale or beer was safe. It wasn't primarily to make money, it was simply to be able to drink without dying.

@Sheril Klingt ja fast wie die Drogenprohibition ausgehend von den USA.

@Sheril

Female chefs aren't really a brand new thing, either. I don't know what screwed up our preconceptions on that one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugénie_Brazier

@Sheril i thought the cauldron motif came from Ceridwen?

@Sheril wow! That is fascinating!

@Sheril sorry and hope this isn't mansplaining, but the Witches/Brewers thing is popular history, not factual history. I too used to believe it until a historian on a beer podcast set me straight
.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/taranurin/2021/10/30/no-that-halloween-witch-probably-does-not-represent-a-persecuted-beer-brewer/?sh=76195dbe1dba

@Sheril
I want to believe this... but it sounds like there aren't any sources for this.
@NurseStacey

@Sheril it mentions Hildegard of Bingen first writing of hops, but would these changes in England have taken place at the same time hopped beer became more commonplace?

Just coincidence or part of the story?

@Sheril Well this explains a lot. @quinncy

@Sheril it will never not be weird how witches and wizards managed convergent evolution on the pointy hats thing.

@Sheril great article, thank you! Shared with all my beer drinkers and witches.

@Sheril pairs well with "Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers" by Barbara Ehrenreich

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24453.Witches_Midwives_and_Nurses

@Sheril It could be the case but as the editor of the article states:

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to acknowledge that it isn’t definitively known whether alewives inspired some of the popular iconography associated with witches today...

The history of witches in Europe is not homogeneous i.e. people in different counties had very different views negative and positive e.g. Germany, bad for those accused but Hungary had no witch trials.

@Sheril It's mentioned in one of my research books that when a woman had brewed more ale then she needed she would shove a broom into the thatch of her roof near the door indicating she had some to sell. Another connection to witches lore perhaps.
-Tippling Guide to the Mid-16th Century

@Sheril maybe silly question. Does this coincide in any way with German/HRE being the epicenter for Witch burnings during that period?

@Sheril

I've heard this story before. Amazing how fragile egos lead to this.

They look like very fine, young Welsh ladies to me! 😉 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @Sheril

@Sheril Is this real? Interesting concept.

@Sheril
Very cool bit of history. Thank you.

@Sheril ale houses were the Domain of women for hundreds of years, when beer became more common with its longer shelf life it started to displace ale and became more the industry of merchants, taking it out of the hands of “ale wives” from my understanding

@Sheril I didn’t know this. Rings true to me now that you’ve shared this. Thank you.

@Sheril

@Sheril Hi, thanks for posting this. This and the article you reference, are very interesting and something that I hadn't known before. Also, "The Conversation" (https://theconversation.com/us) is also new to me and looks like a site worth visiting often. I've bookmarked it.

@Sheril

It was natural for women to make beer because they were the curators of all things fermented. That was the primary means of preservation before refrigeration. Women kept the yeasts alive so bread could rise, pickles soured, & barley & grapes converted to beer & wine.

Women bleed profusely and don’t die, their bodies are transformed in pregnancy, and they cause men to tingle with a look.

Of course they saw our magic. It’s not like we hide it.

@Sheril very interesting! I wonder how that relates to what Michael Pollan wrote on witches: "The medieval apothecary garden cared little for aesthetics, focusing instead on species that healed and intoxicated and occasionally poisoned. Witches and sorcerers cultivated plants with the power to 'cast spells' — in our vocabulary, 'psychoactive' plants. Their potion recipes called for such things as datura, opium poppies, belladona, hashish, fly-agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria)... (continued)

@Sheril interesting!!

@Sheril never knew that! That’s great

@Sheril fascinating.

@Sheril and they were called Brewsters! Ala sisters

@Sheril

Is that so or is this again a deceiving anglo-universalism?

@Sheril there is a woman owned brewery near LAX in case you have a stopover 🍸😺

https://www.threeweavers.la/

@Sheril bewitching!

@Sheril Thanks to shortsightedness and dyslexia I thought this toot began "For thousands of years, fomenting fear was considered a household task for #women."

@Sheril luckily these days there are excellent microbreweries run by women, such as this. Cheers! https://www.gebrouwendoorvrouwen.nl/

@Sheril

Of course men did. Herstory was much richer in substance so History replaced her with their narrative.

@Sheril thew witch symbols might be a myth but the exclusion of women once a job becomes a profession is classic https://www.vice.com/en/article/xw9egk/witches-hats-alewife-brewster-history

@Sheril So could we say some 16th century overlord(s) afraid of being assassinated by woke women beer brewers coined witch hate speech meme?

@Sheril The Republican Party is modernizing this tradition of usurping female independence. Since they can’t get away with burning or hanging, they will now force women into the role of breeding stock so we have no time or money to go to college, thereby ending competition in the workplace.

@Sheril interesting! Thanks for sharing this!😃

@Sheril This is so interesting! Women healers / midwives were also accused of witchcraft when medicine became an established professional field dominated by men in the 17th/18th century.

@Sheril Awesome history lesson. Love this!

@Sheril Margery Kemp was well-respected for her ale. St. Bridget was a brewer

@Sheril I bet they didnt have silly hipster beards and put far too many hops in either… ;-)

@Sheril of course the men forced the women to brew the beer, most definitely drank it heartily, & then as usual used some extreme religious BS to oppress (and kill) them.

@Sheril
Women who fermented beer were called ALEWIVES (alewife, singular).
In the Middle ages the word “wife” simply meant “woman,” it had nothing to do with marital status. Hence a woman doing a job was called alewife, fishwife, midwife etc much like fireman, postman etc,

@Sheril so I’ve been drinking pints of witches brew? Lol

@Sheril witches welcome here

@Sheril I think my wife and I are gonna hafta wear pointy hats the next time we brew (we have two batches in the fermenter as I type.)

@Sheril I bet the women brewed better beer. Women were traditionally the ones who mended gardens. It wouldn’t be a surprise if they infused their ales with produce from their gardens. I can’t explain the cats so that’s definitely witchcraft.

@Sheril Didn't the witch persecutions also originate in some hallucinogenic mushrooms/molds associated with said women?

@Sheril learned about this too while watching BBC’s Inside the Factory. Thanks for sharing!

@Sheril any free thinking women back then got labeled as a witch. Crazy times those were back then

@Sheril
So, basically Macbeth just got really drunk?

@Sheril fascinating! I never knew this

@Sheril Now we need an updated Hansel & Gretel (Gruitel?) where they are teens trying to break into the old lady's beer supply...

@Sheril Wow!

@Sheril TIL that men were threatened by female brewers, so they accused them of witchcraft, AND the classic witch attributes are taken from the clothes these women wore. Whoa. Thank you for sharing.

@Sheril Oh my God. The men are still afraid of women. Thank you for sharing this interesting nugget.

@Sheril

@Sheril

My BREWITCHES! It's so good to see the history of my people #herbalism #nature #brewcraft

TY for reposting this one

@Sheril Women are great! 🤪👍

@Sheril A friend and local ale aficionado just conveyed to me that "There’s an effigy in norwich cathedral of an ale wife riding on the back of a daemon, holding a jug of ale and laughing as the demon scoops up mortal souls to take to hell"

@Sheril this is explains so much about the history of men and beer.

@Sheril and with less cats around to control rat populations, the Black Death happened
Delicate cis male ego caused like 200million deaths 😳

@Sheril wow! Very interesting

@Sheril unfortunately there is no truth to this, as much as I would like it to be.

@Sheril holy Crap! Is that a credible source?

@Sheril @Braciatrix I think Christina can help dispell the myth