Lady brewers......

[PD]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25859552

The number of professional women brewers is on the rise in the UK and they are becoming increasingly influential, according to leading industry figures.


and they are very welcome too........

and.....



The Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) says there are now 1,000 breweries in the UK - the highest figure for 70 years.

Camra said 158 new breweries had opened in the past year alone, the highest number ever recorded by the lobby group's annual Good Beer Guide.

James Campbell from Marble micro-brewery told BBC News that consumers' desires for a quality product with distinctive characteristics had opened the market for small producers.

 

[LeithR]

Interesting about the lady brewers, I read somewhere a while back that at one time in history the vast majority of brewers in the UK were women.

 

[PD]

They were indeed, at one time it was the womens role to make the beer for the home.
Mainly because it was labour intensive and someone had to be with it all the time, women were at home to see to it.

 

[graysalchemy]

Nothing new in lady brewers, in times of old when knights were bold, brewing was the realm of ladies. :whistle:

 

[Aleman]

What a shame that CAMRA forget to include the stats for the number of small breweries that close each year

:whistle:

 

[evanvine]

What a shame that CAMRA forget to include the stats for the number of small breweries that close each year

You sure you've posted in the right thread ? :wha:

 

[graysalchemy]

What a shame that CAMRA forget to include the stats for the number of small breweries that close each year

You sure you've posted in the right thread ? :wha:

Don't think so :whistle: :whistle:

Camra said 158 new breweries had opened in the past year alone, the highest number ever recorded by the lobby group's annual Good Beer Guide.

 

[evanvine]

Damn it, I'm wrong again!

 

[nobyipa]

:drunk: :drink:

 

[TRXnMe]

Interesting about the lady brewers, I read somewhere a while back that at one time in history the vast majority of brewers in the UK were women.

Somebody posted some information on here about this. Apparently all housewives brewed beer for theo house, the ones who wanted the hassle could then apply for permission to legally sell their product, but were taxed on this and had to undergo regular inspection.

The theory being that most women bartered excess beer for other goods, or just sold it under the counter :)

 

[rosie]

They say that the Lady of the house kept her yeast in a besom broom kept hanging in the dairy,and only used to stir the brew, perhaps thats where the witch stories came from, the broom and the cauldron?

The stories made up to keep a traditional skill secret, would keep the superstitious away.


http://nature.pagannewswirecollective.c ... ches-brew/

From the above article.

The Divine Gift

This is ancient magick, women’ magick; the men will have their turn when it comes time to drink, for although the women will also drink and make merry it is the men who will drink again and again until the divine madness comes upon them and they begin to speak in rare words and images. The women have the magick of making but it is the men who have the magick of dying and rebirthing; they sacrifice their dignity and roles, and for a while are reborn to the world as skalds, storytellers and sacred fools. :drunk:

 

[TRXnMe]

They say that the Lady of the house kept her yeast in a besom broom kept hanging in the dairy,and only used to stir the brew, perhaps thats where the witch stories came from, the broom and the cauldron?

The stories made up to keep a traditional skill secret, would keep the superstitious away.


http://nature.pagannewswirecollective.c ... ches-brew/

From the above article.

The Divine Gift

This is ancient magick, women’ magick; the men will have their turn when it comes time to drink, for although the women will also drink and make merry it is the men who will drink again and again until the divine madness comes upon them and they begin to speak in rare words and images. The women have the magick of making but it is the men who have the magick of dying and rebirthing; they sacrifice their dignity and roles, and for a while are reborn to the world as skalds, storytellers and sacred fools. :drunk:

From what I remember of my medieval and renaisance (spelling?) history, witch craft was primarily an invention of a new male profession, the Doctor....

The old herbwives had the medical role tied up, from childbirth through to laying out the dead, with colds and broken bones along the way. The 'modern' Doctor of the 1600s couldn't have that, when you combine the fact that lots of medical Doctors were also Doctors of Divinity (Parsons, Vicars etc) then the simple solution to them was that anyone not using modern science must be using witch craft.....

You could view the burning of witches as one of history's most hostile take overs

The image of the crone tending the pot was Shakespeare at work, he got the image from somewhere but I'm not sure exactly where (can't remember, will go look..)

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

They say that the Lady of the house kept her yeast in a besom broom kept hanging in the dairy,and only used to stir the brew, perhaps thats where the witch stories came from, the broom and the cauldron?

It might be part of the source.

Another is that, up until the usurpation of healthcare by men during the Tudor/Stuart era, women used herbal pastes to relieve discomfort of their period, and some of the herbs and fungi used contain hallucinogens - things like bay, salvia divinorum, psylocybin mushrooms, ergot, etc. One method used for applying the herbs was to smear them onto the handle of a broom, then "ride" the broomstick with the herbs pressed against their genitals - they would be flying on a broomstick.

Running on from what TRX said, the witch trials hold a particularly sick irony all of their own. Many occurred after incidents of poisoning where several people died, and it's now known that in some cases, such as Salem, they died of ergot poisoning. Ergot contains a powerful hallucinogen similar to LSD, but unlike LSD* it is quite toxic. and the fungus was used in safe quantities by women healers during the medieval period and earlier, and by pre-Christian priests and mystics, all of whom understood its danger. Ergot also only grows under quite specific climactic conditions, so it can be quite rare, and therefore unfamiliar. The inquisition had effectively killed off this knowledge, in part because three of ergot's main medical uses - to induce labour, reduce blood loss during childbirth, cause abortion, or provide relief during a woman's period - were a particular anathema to the Catholic and Protestant fundamentalists behind the witch trials, being so closely associated with women's reproductive health. So by the time of the 17th century witch trials there were few people who could recognise the fungus when it appeared in fields of rye, and then warn people not to eat it. So while the deaths were blamed on witchcraft, it was actually the lack of witchcraft which had allowed the deaths to happen.

*actually LSD is amongst the most toxic drugs known, but only if you're an elephant.

 

[DirtyCaner]

My understanding of witches riding on broomsticks - similar to what Tim said, but it is believed the women were actually seeking a spiritual/hallucinogenic experience.

The traditional witches 'flying ointment' was a concoction of fat infused with hallucinogenic herbs, mainly those containing tropane based alkaloids, such as the daturas, henbane or nightshades. Sometimes other more toxic herbs were also incorporated. This ointment was applied, as Tim says, to the mucous membranes of the genitals where they would be ingested. The resulting hallucinations, have been noted to give a sense of flying, and so the myth of the witch flying on the broomstick.

Don't be tempted to try this at home, several people have died in recent years trying to replicate these experiments, or maybe just get a cheap buzz.

The ethnobotanist Christian Ratsch claims to have made a beer using henbane seed, which was powerfully intoxicating. Interesting from a cultural point of view, but potentially lethal...

DirtyC

 

[rosie]

Yes all historically interesting, Ergot (Ergometrine) continues to be used post childbirth given IM as the anterior shoulder of the baby is delivered- used to cause the uterus to expel the placenta and contract to prevent excessive blood loss. Modern women continue to seek sexual satisfaction with out the risk of pregnancy, but there are few mysteries anymore.

Feet up and a nice drink by the fire a cuddle from my dog and a new brew in the making is my idea of heaven these days.

 

[Eli_D]

Funnily enough I wrote a post on women in brewing on my blog in December basically about the origins of brewing and how it was traditionally something the women did but the industrial revolution came along.

interesting about the witches and cauldrons theory, I had never considered that.

 

[rosie]

: shandy pants

 

[critch]

What a shame that CAMRA forget to include the stats for the number of small breweries that close each year

You sure you've posted in the right thread ? :wha:

Don't think so :whistle: :whistle:

Camra said 158 new breweries had opened in the past year alone, the highest number ever recorded by the lobby group's annual Good Beer Guide.

think alemans spot on meself....

have a gander at this.....http://www.quaffale.org.uk/php/closed.php

i guarantee this list will be longer by the end of the year....

 

[Maysie]

I like the fact that the woman in the BBC clip at the start of this thread studied biochemistry initially and then decided to take up brewing rather than a career in some highfalutin lab somewhere. I know the two things are clearly linked, but it cant be a very 'typical' route into brewing I wouldn't have thought...?

I have a vague recollection that females generally have more acute tastebuds, so are supposed to make better tasters too - seem to remember it was on a TV article about tea tasting. It is probably nonsense though like most of the reports they come out with nowadays....

 

[MacKiwi]

Well, SWMBO certainly has sharper taste-buds than me. And she's a brewer, who, according to my friends, brews "better balanced" beers than me. So there may be something to it :)

She has a micro-biology background, so I've bought her a microscope and hemocytomer and set her to counting yeast cells. That should let me claim my brew shed back...