Brewing Beer in Early Modern England Brewing Beer in Early Modern England Author Michelle Aikema Supervising Editor Melissa Walter Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England Encyclopedia EMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a

 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

Intellectual copyright in this entry is held by Kate McPherson on behalf of the contributors. Copyright on the TEI-XML markup is held by the University of Victoria on behalf of the LEMDO Team. The content and TEI-XML markup in this file are licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license. This file is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and /or data; (2) this availability statement must remain in the file; (3) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (4) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO. Neither the content nor the code in this file is licensed for training large language models (LLMs), ingestion into an LLM, or any use in any artificial intelligence applications; such uses are considered to be commercial uses and are strictly prohibited.

Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Michelle Aikema, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Born-digital Born-digital documents are anything other than primary texts Critical Critical material, such as a general introduction or a textual introduction. Responsibilities Responsibilities Author A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Editor A person, family, or organization contributing to a resource by revising or elucidating the content, e.g., adding an introduction, notes, or other critical matter. An editor may also prepare a resource for production, publication, or distribution. For major revisions, adaptations, etc., that substantially change the nature and content of the original work, resulting in a new work, see author. LEMDO uses the general term editor only in edition metadata and only to indicate when a person is responsible for editing all parts of an edition. Otherwise, use the more granular terms to describe the precise nature of the editorial role. Supervising Editor An editor who supervises the work of a student editor. Copy Editor LEMDO uses the term owner for the person who checks facts, quotations, and citations; may make formatting changes; may convert from one citation style to another; may suggest wording changes; and enforces conformity with the project style guide. Markup Editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Gloss needed. Copyright Holder A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. EMEE Keywords Culture Learn about the customs, beliefs, and daily lives of people in early modern England. Daily Life Beer and Ale Housewifery Recipes Gender Women Published file. Updated metadata proofed added figure. Review of article finished. Created File. Michelle Aikema Michelle Aikema

Michelle Aikema was a student at the University of Fraser Valley.

 Michael Best Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

 Leah Hamby Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

 Navarra Houldin Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

 Kate McPherson Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

 Melissa Walter Melissa Walter

Melissa Walter is Associate Professor of English at the University of the Fraser Valley. Her research focuses on early modern English drama and English and European prose fiction. She is the author of The Italian Novella and Shakespeare’s Comic Heroines (U of Toronto, 2019), and co-editor, with Dennis Britton, of Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Authors, Audiences, Digital Technologies (Routledge, 2018). Her work on English theatre and the European novella has appeared in several edited collections, including Transnational Exchange in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2008), and Transnational Mobility in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2012). She has also written about Translation and Identity in the Dialogues in English and Malaiane Languages (Indographies, ed. Jonathan Gil Harris. Palgrave 2012). At the University of the Fraser Valley, she is a lead coordinator of UFV’s Shakespeare and Reconciliation Garden.

 LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/
A cooper and his assistants making waterbutts and barrels for wine and beer. Woodcut from 1568 by Jost Amman (1539–1591). Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection. Public Domain.
Significance of Ale and Beer in Early Modern England

Fermented beverages, ale, and beer played a significant role in early modern England as a staple in most people’s daily diet, as well as being intoxicants. Historians such as Judith Bennet note that ale (a milder tasting drink without the slightly bitter botantical ingredient of hops) was consumed throughout the day, including at breakfast. Ale and small beer were considered a safer alternative to milk or water; we now know that they were safer due to mild amounts of alcohol, estimated by experts at between 1%–3%, that suppressed microbial growth. People of all social classes, from the nobility to peasants and laborers, consumed both beer and ale regularly. Food historians like Mary-Anne Caton have estimated that each English household would consume approximately one gallon of ale or beer per person, per day to quench their thirst.

Beer Basics

To create these important brews, the English traditionally used a cauldron or kettle, some malted grain, hops, yeast, a water supply, and fire. Food historian Frank Clark from Colonial Williamsburg notes that malting is the process of soaking grain, typically barley, until it just begins to release sugars and sprout, then gently heating it to stop the growth. Once the water, malted grain, and sometimes hops were added, brewers would boil the mixture, then add yeast before fermenting it in casks. The fermentation converts the sugars from the malted grain into ethanol and carbon dioxide, giving beer or ale its alcohol content and slight fizz.

Different grains were used in different parts of the world for beer brewing, according to A History of Beer and Brewing by I. S. Hornsey. However, in early modern England, barley was the primary crop used in the production of ale and beer because it was more receptive to malting. Other grains that were used were wheat, oats, rye, millet, and maize.

Ale refers to the mixture of malt, water, and yeast and has now become synonymous with beer. However, before the end of the sixteenth century and the introduction of hops into the brewing process mainly by Dutch immigrants to England, ale was an unhopped beverage, according to historian Richard Unger. Hops add a slight bitterness but also makes beer less likely to spoil than ale. Some early modern brewers used gruit, a mixture of herbs and spices to flavour their traditional ale.

Women as Brewers

Brewing ale was a common practice in many English households and was typically the responsibility of single, married, or widowed women, as noted by Judith Bennett. Many things could go wrong in the brewing process; for example, a household could have a shortage of ingredients due to drought or floods, the yeast cultures could die, or the brew would simply not taste right. According to experts at the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Folgerpedia, women brewers faced significant amounts of pressure from their husbands or masters to ensure that their household ale was adequate for consumption. Women, including Shakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway, played a significant role in brewing ale up until the introduction of hops and the inception of commercial brewing in the 18th century. Judith Bennet claims that it was at this time that England saw the masculinization of the beer brewing industry, which was historically known as women’s work. A search of the Folger’s Digital Collection reveals dozens of handwritten recipe books by women that feature advice about how to brew beer and ale.

Ale vs. Beer

Before hops, ale brewers struggled to store their brew as it spoiled quickly and only lasted roughly a week, making it insufficient for export and thus not able to keep up with consumer demands. Historian Kirsten Burton notes this and other facts about how the introduction of hops changed the brewing industry: The introduction of hops in the 1500s was not well received in England as most citizens preferred traditional ale. Beer brewing flourished and quickly replaced ale as the primary brew throughout 17th-century urban England. Brewing beer required more equipment, a greater knowledge and skill set, and it was more labour intensive than ale. Therefore, many ale brewers hesitated to switch to beer brewing due to the added cost of hops, labour, and equipment.

Towards the end of the 17th century, entire books were published that assisted both commercial brewers and home brewers, such as Cerevisiarii Comes: or, the New and True Art of Brewing: Illustrated by Various Examples in Making Beer, Ale and Other Liquors, published in London in 1692.

Beer in Shakespeare’s Plays

Many early modern plays feature references to beer or ale. Shakespeare’s plays offer a commentary on beer and ale in the changing environment of the early modern period. He mocks drunkards like Falstaff in The First and the Second Parts of Henry IV and Christopher Sly in The Taming of the Shrew by having them call frequently for ale while appearing already intoxicated onstage. He also shows the gendered aspects of brewing in Othello when Iago scornfully references women making an accounting of beer in their household. Moreover, by referencing small and double beer, Shakespeare evidently understood its significance and popularity in English households and amongst English drinkers. Mentioning beer throughout his plays serves to connect his audience who doubtless consumed beer to the characters who enjoy it as well. Scholar Christina Romanelli suggests that Shakespeare’s character Mistress Nell Quickly, alewife and owner of the Boar Head Tavern in the play The First and Second Parts of Henry IV, serves as a representation of the early modern English countrywoman belonging to the working class, and that Shakespeare would have been familiar with women as brewers, since the historical record notes his own wife brewed beer.

Key Print Sources Bennett, Judith M. Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300–1600. Oxford University Press, 1996. Burton, Kirsten D. The Citie Calls for Beere: The Introduction of Hops and the Foundation of Industrial Brewing in Early Modern London. Journal of the Brewery History Society, 2013, pp. 6–15. Hornsey, I. S. A History of Beer and Brewing. The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2003. Romanelli, Christina. Sour Beer at the Boar’s Head: Salvaging Shakespeare’s Alewife, Mistress Quickly. Humanities vol. 81, 2019, pp.1–15. Unger, Richard W. Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Key Online Sources Best, Michael. Brewing Beer. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, 18 Oct. 2022. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/city%20life/trades/brewer.html. Caton, Mary-Anne. Fooles and Fricassees: Food in Shakespeare’s England. Folgerpedia. 2018. https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Fooles_and_Fricassees:_Food_in_Shakespeare%27s_England. Herbert, Amanda E. et al. First Chefs: Fame and Foodways from Britain to the Americas. Folgerpedia. 2021. https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/First_Chefs:_Fame_and_Foodways_from_Britain_to_the_Americas.
Image Sources Amman, Jost. A Cooper and his Assistants Making Waterbutts and Barrels for Wine and Beer. 1568. Woodcut. Wellcome Collection. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/utq3uycu/images?id=f22k3pbt.