Women on the European continent had for centuries been brewing for their household. When rural alewives moved to urban areas they often continued brewing on a larger, more professional scale.
Because of their expertise in brewing ale, beer, coder and cordials for home consumption, many women earned their living by making and selling ale and other brewed beverages.
This art in turn led to one of the first “respectable” profession in Europe for women. This first appeared in the early Middle Ages as the alewife.
Alewife differed from beer seller of Babylon in that they usually did not own establishments where they worked, but were often hired by a business owner.
They were hired because in most of Medieval Europe women could not own property. While women weren’t allowed to own land, alewives were allowed to brew ale, and did so for many commercial and religious institutions.
Some monasteries hired alewives to help in their beer brewing. It appears that some monks in the Middle Ages did not have brewing skills on par with those on an alewife. The skill women brewers continued on through the Renaissance and into colonial era.
In the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries brewing passed increasingly from the alewife to the professional brewer, who sold his ale or beer to outlets such as inns, taverns and ale-houses.
Who is alewife