Women were the first brewers - and there’s pictures !

[Sadfield]

In my experience, the brewing industry is far more diverse than homebrew, and not very representative of the picture painted by the author.

 

[hoppyscotty]

We’ll on the basis that the modern mass producers in the beer industry is really just marketing then there probably are a good representation of women. In the company I work for in departments like marketing and finance women tend to outnumber the men but the e engineers and shop floor the other way around. Would be interesting to know how many women in the brewing industry are actually on the brewhouse floor. I keep trying to get my youngest daughter into brewing but she much prefers the tasting side of things!!

 

[foxy]

https://brewhoppin.com/2015/10/women-and-beer-viking/

 

[Dutto]

Ok I thought this was worth sharing. Looks like we were first with the brewing and it’s just taken a few thousand years for you lads to catch up

Er … maybe it took a few thousand years for men to realise that women were doing it wrong?

Incidentally, where were these women when the (now run by men) brewing companies started to brew rubbish, but managed to sell it by freezing our taste buds?

 

[DocAnna]

Er … maybe it took a few thousand years for men to realise that women were doing it wrong?

Incidentally, where were these women when the (now run by men) brewing companies started to brew rubbish, but managed to sell it by freezing our taste buds?

I present the case of the St Austell brewery which I recently visited - Hester Parnell, daughter of the founder, in charge for 23 years that built the company up from a local to national company. Also Georgina Young, head brewer at Fullers, locally to Stirling- Amy Cockburn head brewer at Harvistoun, and Emma Gilleland director of brewing at Marston's.

Thing is we've always been around in brewing, just a wee bit quieter about it than some people

 

[Jim Brewster]

If a woman that can cook is a keeper then a woman that can brew certainly is

I would assume at one time way back beer would have been brewed in the home. Ancient Egypt, Sumer etc I would have thought so, and probably by the woman of the h̶o̶u̶s̶e̶ clay hut. Probably.

I'm fairly sure I heard that beer used to be brewed commonly by the wife of the pub landlord. I'm sure I heard that on the Adnams tour, but I might be wrong as my memory is prone to embellishing

 

[jof]

I don't know if it's still the case, but years ago (about 20 if my memory is correct) Hoggs Back brewery had a female brewer.
Hence the Brewster's Bundle beer to commemorate the arrive of her offspring.

Not sure if they brewed a batch for each sprog, as I can see more recent reviews on untapped than its initial release.

 

[DrunkMaker]

If i'm not wrong Egypt's females was the first brewers right XD?

 

[chthon]

If i'm not wrong Egypt's females was the first brewers right XD?

From Wikipedia:

The earliest archaeological evidence of fermentation consists of 13,000-year-old residues of a beer with the consistency of gruel, used by the semi-nomadic Natufians for ritual feasting, at the Raqefet Cave in the Carmel Mountains near Haifa in Israel.[15][16]

The first written records of brewing come from Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq), with the oldest in the Sumerian language from approximately 4,000 BC.[17] These include early evidence of beer in the 3,900-year-old Sumerian poem honoring Ninkasi, the patron goddess of brewing, which contains the oldest surviving beer recipe, describing the production of beer from barley via bread.[18]

"Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the filtered beer of the collector vat... It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates."[19]

I also suppose that it's women who discovered brewing, as in hunting-gathering societies they would gather and process food stuffs, like wild cereals. However, I think that pottery would also be needed to discover brewing. Without a vessel to keep things for a longer time, discovery of changes to food will probably also not be done.

 

[DocAnna]

If i'm not wrong Egypt's females was the first brewers right XD?

A fair bit earlier 7000BC

Looks like ancient China prehistoric chemical archeology.

McGovern PE, Zhang J, Tang J, Zhang Z, Hall GR, Moreau RA, Nuñez A, Butrym ED, Richards MP, Wang CS, Cheng G, Zhao Z, Wang C. Fermented beverages of pre- and proto-historic China. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 Dec 21;101(51):17593-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0407921102. Epub 2004 Dec 8. PMID: 15590771; PMCID: PMC539767.

EDIT - looks like I was late to post and it was even earlier!

 

[Sadfield]

I wonder how long they managed to keep "tots and shots" morning a secret from the hunter gatherers.

 

[531Man]

At the Bergenhus bryggeri, Norway this evening, all the male Viking brewers had gone off duty.
It was a sole female brewer checking the gauges making sure that the day's brewing was progressing properly.

 

[user 43495]

Ok I thought this was worth sharing. Looks like we were first with the brewing and it’s just taken a few thousand years for you lads to catch up .
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...-double-shot-of-sexism?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

That's right and it's also why the annual licensings were called The Brewster Sessions.

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

If a woman that can cook is a keeper then a woman that can brew certainly is

I would assume at one time way back beer would have been brewed in the home. Ancient Egypt, Sumer etc I would have thought so, and probably by the woman of the h̶o̶u̶s̶e̶ clay hut. Probably.

I'm fairly sure I heard that beer used to be brewed commonly by the wife of the pub landlord. I'm sure I heard that on the Adnams tour, but I might be wrong as my memory is prone to embellishing

I have a third talent too!

 

[Stevieboy]

Let's not forget that alcohol was discovered, not invented - some old grapes lying around in the back of a store, a bucket of grain left in the rain in the summer - whatever - we'll never know who, but let's just be thankful for this happy little accident........

 

[Sadfield]

The act of intentionally and repeatly fermenting something was though.

 

[Stevieboy]

The act of intentionally and repeatly fermenting something was though.

Agreed. And I don't care who did it the most!

 

[Cwrw666]

Terrible article typical of modern journalism where you take someone whose only qualifications to write on a subject is that they've a degree in journalism. They try to fill all the blanks by a quick internet search and then join it all together into an article by large amounts of uninformed bias.

 

[Bernie]

Women also discovered that beer made them more beautiful to men.