Beer-making always a woman's domain

FRITZ KUCKUCK AND MARIA GRAU

A good while back, we wrote a column about women drinking beer, looking at how the context of women and beer is changing in New Zealand. We concluded that with the beer landscape expanding, it made sense that more women would find more beers they liked, and would become more enthusiastic about drinking beer.

After the hullabaloo recently created by Rachel Beer trying to enter her homebrew into the Lake Hayes A&P Show's Blokes Only homebrew competition, it seems we need to take another look.

The thing that surprised us most was the insistence by many of the men commenting on Fairfax Media's online site, Stuff, that brewing was for blokes, and their resentment that women had to butt into every male domain.

Maybe these guys aren't from Nelson. While it's true that Maria is the only regular female participant in our local informal homebrewers' group, everyone in that group certainly respects Tracy Banner of Sprig&Fern as one of the more experienced and rewarded professional brewers in the region.

Further to that, Totara Brewing from Wakefield, which makes very traditional Kiwi beers, named a fresh hop beer Ninkasi, not because they thought this goddess was some pin-up girl for beer, but because she was known as the first beer maker in written history.

Brewing history is going through a bit of a revolution at the moment, with loose oral histories being supplanted by serious primary source research. So even if our beer library might not include the most definitive sources, we have consistently learned that brewing was the domain of women for most of known history. Beer was a staple in the diets of men, women and children alike. It makes common sense that it would have been a part of cooking and food production, because brewing isn't all that different from making bread or yoghurt or cheese.

Looking at the English language, we have historic terms like "ale wives" and "brewsters" that reinforce the idea of women as beer makers.

Women often sold excess ale from their homes, and often ran pubs. Records from the 1700s reveal that in one English town 78 per cent of licensed brewers were women.

It was only with the Renaissance and the rise of centralised powers in the form of the Church and State that brewing began to move into the realm of men. While nuns continued to make beer in some countries, the rise of commerce meant the right to brew was more and more concentrated in the hands of the powerful. Through taxes and the control of key ingredients, beer and brewing were slowly removed from the home. By the industrial revolution the shift was nearly complete.

The history of brewing in New Zealand, then, starts in the more commercial, male-dominated era. Even so, there is scant evidence that our pioneers included homemakers – women – who made beer before there were reliable commercial sources.

The last half century isn't devoid of women brewers, either. We met a Nelsonian in her 80s who talked about having to roast her own malts 50 years ago to make ale for her English husband. Last weekend's Golden Bay A&P Show homebrew winner, Janet Huddelston, has brewed for over 30 years.

As brewing moves back into the home in New Zealand, with the rapid expansion of craft beer and home brewing enthusiasts, it makes sense that we will see more brewsters on the scene.

Beer News

The Sprig & Fern pub chain will be going "offshore" soon, with the opening of a Sprig & Fern on Tinakori Rd in Thorndon, Wellington in about a month's time.

Nelson's newest brewing company, Dale's, has sold out of all but their bottled product of both the Belgian and the American Amber. Pent up demand for riggers and kegs will have to wait until the next batch is ready.

- © Fairfax NZ News