SISTERS ARE BREWING IT FOR THEMSELVES

Together, a new generation of women brewsters are changing the face of the beer industry

- Norman Miller

Back when water supplies could be pretty yucky, a lot of people drank beer as a much safer option. And that beer was mainly made by women. In fact, women brewers—brewsters—remained in charge of our beer industries for centuries, up to the Industrial Revolution when Victorian societal constraints and growing industrialisation untied to push them out of the brewing front-line.

Now women are back at the helm at an ever-growing number of British brewers, large and small. People like Emma Gilleland, head brewer at major Midlands beer-maker Marston's since 2007, who was once described by the BBC as “the most influential woman in beer today”.

“When I took the role of head brewer at Marston’s I was the first female head brewer in its 175 years— and the first female head brewer in England. But women have been brewing beer for a long time, and it's reported they invented beer,” says Gilleland. When she first entered the brewing industry 26 years ago, though, she didn't have much sisterly company. “I was one of just two women working in production at the time. But in the early 2000s that started to change.”

At the forefront of driving that change was Sara Barton, who set up her own brewery (aptly named Brewster's) in the Lincolnshire town of Grantham back in 1998. She's gone on to brew gold-medal-winning beers, and in 2012 became the first woman to win the prestigious Brewer of the Year Award from the British Guild of Beer Writers.