The next time you loft an icy cold one, propose a toast to those who refined the brewing process, and made it a household staple as far back as 7,000 years ago. They would be witches.
They weren't called witches way back then though, the witching accusations didn't pop up until around 1500 or so. Before that they were just women who brewed beer at home for their families as a source of grain nutrients and protein.
Some, in order to make a little cash on the side, would take their brew to the marketplace, and that's where the typical image of a witch came from. They wore tall pointy hats so their customers could spot them in the crowd. They carried their batch to market in large cauldrons, occasionally stirring the brew while they were there. They also would often have a cat with them. Not a sinister, black magic type of cat, just an ordinary cat to keep mice away from their grain.
Fast forward to present day, and if you have ever brewed up a batch of what we now call 'craft beer', you were actually stirring up an ancient witch's brew. Double, double toil and trouble...
There's a good in-depth article at the Conversation, linked below.
#witch #beer #witchcraft
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