by Mallory Turner
No, seriously, where are you? I’m relatively new to the beer scene, but it doesn’t take a certified Cicerone to be able to notice the lack of female flavor in this batch. Craft beer is an overwhelmingly male-dominated industry. It doesn’t really make sense, does it? Aren’t we expected to stay in the kitchen, anyway? It seems like women and brewing should be a perfect fit. Oddly enough, there is truth to that statement; women were actually known as being the original brewers, sorry, I mean brewsters, the female counter-part to ‘brewer’ (how cute is that?!).
The history, no, herstory, the herstory of brewing actually began four thousand years ago in Mesopotamia with the Ancient Sumerians. Women were the only ones allowed to brew beer. They even had three female deities to watch over the whole process: Ninkasi, “the lady who fills the mouth”, and Siris were both Goddesses who would watch over the daily ritual of brewing, and there was Siduri, who was a very wise alewife, or brewster, from the epic Gilgamesh. Not only did Siris know her shit when it came to beer, she was also full of wisdom, which she imparted onto Gilgamesh. Continue reading
