In Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England
Over time, brewer won out as a term for both sexes and brewster survived only in limited cases, mostly used by historians and as a surname.
The photo above was taken recently in Plymouth, Mass., a town with just a little history. The street, quite near Plymouth Rock, may have been around for going on 400 years but likely takes its name from a family called “Brewster” rather than because there was a brewery located on it (too bad).
If you’ve been following Teri Fahrendorf’s brewery trip across America (and if not, why not?) you know she’s assembling a list of woman brewers.
Her focus is the United States, but the news that a woman has become the only head brewer in the north of England seems relevant.
Michelle Bright has been promoted to the position of head brewer at Wentworth Brewery in South Yorkshire at the age of 26. She is an ex-army chef who has served in Kosovo.
There is only one other female head brewer in the country – Sara Barton in Grantham. That doesn’t mean it was always the same. Women brewed and consumed most of the ale consumed in medieval England, but after 1350 men slowly took over the trade by 1600. The book Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England
Back to America and the Road Brewer blog. Fahrendorf has asked for help building out her list. You can e-mail her (start here – I’m not going to post the address and add to her spam headache). And I’m going to go drop her a line about two New Mexico brewsters now.
A trifecta today of stories about the role breweries play in communities:
– Dale Katechis, founder of Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons, Colo., has been selected as the recipient of the Colorado Restaurant Association’s Cornerstone Humanitarian Award. The award is sponsored by the National Restaurant Association, and Katechis will be considered for the national Cornerstone Humanitarian Award.
Among Oskar Blues’ early fundraising efforts was a 1998 event that raised $25,000 for a local family whose husband/father was stricken with cancer. The following year, Oskar Blues raised a similar amount for two children who lost both of their parents within just a few weeks time.
For ten years Dale and Oskar Blues have hosted a local seniors group (The Golden Gang) each month, providing them with free meals and a meeting space for their gatherings.
Oskar Blues has also hosted local high school bands in its music room, giving young musicians the chance to raise money and play on the same stage that welcomes national and local bands.
“My mom raised my brothers and me with the message that helping out the community is a requirement,” Katechis said. “I’m trying to uphold her high standard. Thankfully I have a staff that shares my love for lending a helping hand. None of the good we’ve done could happen without their help, it’s a team effort.”
This year Oskar Blues donated several thousand dollars toward the building of a new weight room for the Lyons High football team, and a skate park in Lyons.
– Don Russell (Joe Sixpack) writes today about the pub as an urban tonic.
His column focuses on the newly opened Dock Street Brewery & Restaurant in Philadelphia’s Cedar Park section, which community leaders hope will bring new spirit to their neighborhood.
Beer as an agent for positive social change – can you believe it?
Well, yes, if you’ve been paying attention. Northern Liberties took off after the 700 and Standard Tap beer bars opened; the same thing is happening in Fishtown in the vicinity of Johnny Brenda’s, and in the newly minted Newbold section that surrounds the South Philadelphia Tap Room.
This is Community Infrastructure 101: People need a comfortable gathering place to meet and welcome outsiders. A brewpub is ideal in an urban setting because it attracts singles and young families who are in the market for affordable rowhouses. They come for fresh beer and hunker down for life.
Russell describes a pub designed to fit into its neighborhood, one much different than Dock Street’s now-closed original location next to the Four Seasons in Logan Square (long on polished brass and marble).
– The Pelican Pub & Brewery’s fourth annual Brewers Summer Games, held in June, raised more than $5,000 which will be distributed to two local charities: Nestucca Valley Boosters and Caring Cabin. These funds were raised from beer, root beer, food and clothing sales.
Last month I suggested it would be fun to conduct a Miller Chill Challenge, having participants taste Miller Chill, drinks (such as Chelada) with recipes Corona is promoting and the new Budweiser (and Bud Light) pre-mixed Chelada’s.
The tasting has been postponed, and likely canceled, due to lack of interest.
The people I hang out with – including many who seldom drink beer and some who drink light beer – are not members of the target audience. Almost every one I suggested this might be fun simply said, “Why?”
And they were right. Quite obviously there is a market for these mixtures – newspaper food sections that would carry stories about beer should be conducting this test – but we are talking about blends built on light lagers.
If I worked for one of them I might feel obligated to do this. I don’t, and there are too many better topics to discuss.
Here is a wonderful paragraph posted this weekend by Ron Pattinson at Shut up about Barclay Perkins:
Honest beer is what I want. Beer that can look me straight in the eye and not flinch. Beer with heart. Beer that’s like an old friend. Beer you can sit and drink by the pint in a pub with your mates.
Brilliant.
Pattinson writes about an epiphany he experienced while beer touring in Franconia: “The beers that I liked the best were the simplest.”
Makes perfect sense to me. The connection between the simple lives Trappist monks lead and simplicity of their beer recipes was apparent when I did the research for Brew Like a Monk.
Their beers – noted for their complexity – are Exhibit A that “Less is more.”
Simple is good. Simple is often the best choice. But, for the record, it isn’t the only choice.
European brewers are sometimes appalled when they look at the grain (and hop) bills of new wave American beers or – yikes! – efforts to duplicate continental classics. I’ve had interesting discussions about this with both commercial and home brewers (here’s one with Jamil Zainasheff) about this and even those who favor simple sometimes find something with more moving parts turns out better.
I’m don’t contend that complicated automatically results in complex, but I disagree with Pattinson when he writes: “A lot of microbrewed beer now seems frivolous to me. Like pretentious nouvelle cuisine. Too complicated for its own good.” And his conclusion: “Take a look at the beer in your glass. What is it? Honest, or a wee bit pretentious?”
Complicated is not a synonym for pretentious any more than simple is, well, simple.