people.
W hat do Jane Austen, St Brigid of Kildare and Sumerian goddess Ninkasi have in common? One way or another (Brigid did a nifty trick with her bathwater), they all made beer.
For centuries, putting a drink on the table was women’s work. Most medieval English ale was brewed and sold by women. By 1600 things had shifted, and female ‘brewsters’ had largely been replaced by men. That didn’t stop domestic brewers like Jane Austen making ‘small beer’ for household consumption, but it left a commercial legacy that was hard to shift. Today, however, there are around 1,700 breweries in the UK and the industry is peopled by powerful women, from Brigid Simmonds, head of the British Beer and Pub Association, to Melissa Cole, author of Let Me Tell You About Beer (Pavilion Books).