News — beer industry

Women used to dominate the beer industry – until the witch accusations started pouring in Three women dressed in Middle-Age period garb as alewives. Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis via Getty Images Laken Brooks, University of Florida What do witches have to do with your favorite beer? When I pose this question to students in my American literature and culture classes, I receive stunned silence or nervous laughs. The Sanderson sisters didn’t chug down bottles of Sam Adams in “Hocus Pocus.” But the history of beer points to a not-so-magical legacy of transatlantic slander and gender roles. Up until the 1500s, brewing was...