The cottage smelled of burning malt and damp straw. Margery Kempe stirred the steaming vat with a birch rod, her sleeves rolled past elbows scarred from years of boiling spills. This was holy work—though the parish priest called it something else. “Alewife,” they whispered when she passed through the market square, clutching their rosaries tighter as if her very touch might sour their wine.
How Brewing Became Bewitching
For a thousand years, the making of ale had been women’s domain. Every village had its brewster, every cottage its small-batched fermentation. The work was unglamorous but vital—turning spoiled grain into something safe, even nourishing. The women wore tall hats to be seen at market, kept cats to guard their grain stores, and carved notches in their stirring sticks to mark good batches. Practical choices all, though later these would be twisted into evidence of darker crafts: the hat became a witch’s cone, the cat a familiar, the stick a wand.
The trouble began when men noticed the money. As towns grew, so did ale’s profits. Suddenly, the guilds took interest—those brotherhoods of barrel-makers and bakers who barred women from their ranks. New laws required licenses few women could obtain. Churchmen decried alewives as temptresses, their brews the devil’s work. The very herbs women had used for flavor—rosemary for preservation, mugwort for bitterness—were recast as “witch’s botanicals.”
By the burning times of the 16th century, the transformation was complete. What had been respectable labor became evidence of heresy. A woman selling her own ale might find herself accused of poisoning a neighbor’s husband with her “potions.” A widow brewing to survive could be hauled before the magistrate for “seducing honest men” with her strong drink. The tools of her trade now damned her: the cauldron became a witch’s vessel, the yeast bubbling in her vats proof of demonic fermentation.
Yet something of their craft endures. The pointed hat lives on in our Halloween witches, the cauldron in our fairy tales. Modern brewers—male and female alike—still use the same basic processes those women perfected. And if you look closely at the label of certain craft beers, you might spy a broomstick-crossed barrels emblem, or a witch astride the moon. Small rebellions, these. But Margery would have understood.
Beer is Magic
Next time you lift a glass of some artisanal IPA, consider this: the citrusy hops that dance on your tongue are descendants of herbs once grown in convent gardens. The crisp carbonation? An echo of fermentation spells muttered over wooden vats. Beer has always been magic—the kind wrought by calloused hands and sharp wits, not devil’s bargains.
Ale and Cider Served at the 2025 Renaissance Festival
There is no need to go thirsty with the ale and cider on hand for this year’s festival. Here’s what we will have on tap:
Alesmith Brew Speedway Stout
Angry Orchard Crisp Apple (Cider)
Coors Light
Lagunitas Hazy IPA
Modelo Especial
New Belgium Fat Tire
New Belgium Voodoo Ranger Juicy Haze IPA
Pacifico
Truly Wild Berry (Seltzer)
Woodchuck Pineapple Cider
We ask that you please drink responsibly.
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