Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that’s pretty sure you’re a witchy woman… yoo-hoo witchy woman… It’s a written joke. About chocolate milk. Patrons will get it… I’m your host this week, Aaron, and with me is Shea: I’m Shea, and this week I learned that you can legally kill uninvited guests on your property in Texas but they wont let you get an abortion… This is weird because they are basically the same thing. Single Fermented Belgian Golden Ale – Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat NV Donated by Steve E Style: Blonde Ale – Belgian Ranked #6 * ABV: 6.8%* Score: 88* Aaron- 9* Shea- 9 Thanks to long-time listener, Steve-E! Seriously, if you’re Steve-E this is episode like… 400… Witchy Brewer We talked about women being, historically speaking, the brewers of our species until very recent history. And we talked about sexist assholes assholing it up assholishly in print. This week, we’re talking about medieval brewing and why it makes you a witch. A brew witch. Not the origin of “brew wench” so, sadly, no corsets in the patron section, but lots of beer fun… if you’re a guy. So sign up for that… I guess. A few weeks ago, 57 I think, we talked about sexism in brewing and at some point we talked about how brewing used to be “women’s work” but like… in the not-degrogitory way. That is, until the industry was stolen from them wholesale by the patriarchy. And I’m even kidding. I talked before about the fact that it happened, today I’m going to talk about one of the tools in the sexism-brewer’s tool belt: calling ladies witches! So, for nearly 5500 years women have been brewing along just fine. Brewsters, as they would come to be known went from being the tribal matriarch, to the village’s sole source of water that didn’t make you shit yourself to death. In the 1300’s the women of a home considered brewing one of their key house-hold duties. It was related to food, and therefore “women’s work”, ugh. Around this time they were also called Alewives, a common term for the women who also made beer for other households like Mr. and No-one Incel down the street. By the 16 and 1700’s what was once for domestic consumption had become a consumer industry. Brewsters were often the center of the town, certainly the market, and it was steadily becoming a profitable position if done at scale. With that realization came competition. And with competition came… “business practices” not all terrible… yet anyway. Some of these practices were created by the women. Such as wearing ever-taller hats to stand out in the market. Or using broomsticks above the doorway to signal that a home was also an alehouse. Signs often included the image of large boiling cauldron, an indicator that beer was made therein. They used symbols like a 6-sided star to indicate the highest quality ale. And of course cats were a necessity to prevent the grains from being eaten by mice. Hopefully, you’re starting to get what I’m laying down. If not, take a look at your phones… tell me Mother Louse there isn’t a bride of Satan, I dare you! Add to all of this, of course, that the church hates everything fun and booze makes people happy and want to f**k, and you’ve got a perfect recipe for accusing someone of being a witch!