When Brewing Was Women's Work Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600. By Judith M. Bennett. Oxford University Press, 280 pages, $49.95. During the Middle Ages in England, drinking ale was more common than drinking water for most people, even children. People avoided water because they knew it was contaminated, or simply because they liked the taste of ale better, says Judith Bennett, professor of history. "Brewing ale was something women did to provide for their families," Bennett says. In Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England, she traces how women dominated the brewing trade when it first began, then eventually were pushed out of it. Women who made ale were called brewsters, and men who took over the profession later were called brewers. Brewing gradually became commercialized because people wanted the option of buying ale rather than making it themselves. "Just like we go to McDonald's, you could go out into the streets of a medieval town and buy ale, pies, and other prepared food," Bennett says. Since brewing began as a household task, it was a natural business for women. Some started out by brewing a little extra, then selling it to neighbors. Though they sometimes had help from their families, women were the centers of the first brewing operations, "from hauling the water to brewing ale to selling it," Bennett says. Women brewed most of the ale drunk in the 13th and 14th centuries. After 1350, brewing became so profitable and prestigious that men slowly moved into the trade. Bennett's book contradicts some of the traditional theories for this change. "One historian in England said to me, 'once brewing became large-scale, women couldn't pick up the barrels," she says. "But my evidence shows definitively that biology has nothing to do with women leaving brewing." Instead, cultural ideas about women gradually gave brewsters a sleazy reputation, Bennett says. Hatred and distrust of women were rampant at that time. "There's a large literature in late medieval and early modern England that depicts brewsters as filthy, disgusting workers, as women who produce polluted ale and cheat their customers. There's no literature like that about male brewers." There were other reasons for women leaving the trade, including economic ones. As brewing began to expand, it required more capital, which men could obtain more easily. Bennett got much of her information from the detailed court records that were kept because brewing was so heavily regulated. Rulers wanted to ensure that ale was of good quality because it was the basic drink of most people. "We need to remember that most of these people were peasants, and they were very physically active," Bennett says. "They were drinking enormous amounts of liquid because they had to. The average daily consumption for an adult was a gallon a day. It was alcoholic, but it was weakly alcoholic." - Angela Spivey