Pour One Out For the First American Brewster

Spit out that beer right now!!! Before we enjoy our evening brew, we must thank your beer-brewing foremothers. They walked, so Bud Light could run, so you could sit outside after work enjoying the cold one of your choice. And the honorable foremother in question today is Mary Lisle, the first recorded brewster (or female brewer) in American history.

In 1734, after her father died, Lisle inherited the Edinburgh Brewhouse (which first opened in 1685!) in the ale-soaked city of Philadelphia. Lisle’s brewery was part of Philadelphia’s rich brewing tradition that at the time was home to over 100 breweries. The reason Lisle is awarded the title “first recorded brewster” or “first official brewster” is because female brewers were fairly commonplace across colonial America, but only behind closed doors. Women were known to manage home brewing in their husbands’ or fathers’ establishments or to continue the trade after widowhood. (As the saying goes, behind every successful man, there is a woman brewing his beer for him) And of course, we cannot avert our eyes from the reality of the slave labor that was exploited for brewing in the Americas around this time. But before the colonization of the Americas, during the European Middle Ages and dating back to Mesopotamia, brewing was considered women’s work.

“When I started working on brewing, I thought initially that the story I was going to tell was a story about how women were involved in a very respectable, lucrative trade and how men came in and took it away from them,” said Judith Bennet, author of Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World. “And what I found instead was, in fact, what happened is that brewing changed.”According to Bennett, in the Middle Ages, when women largely controlled the trade, brewing was considered low-status, unprofitable, and socially disrespected. Centuries later, the trade had gained prestige, and some of the most distinguished men in London were now brewers.

“I think it’s profoundly indicative of general trends in women’s work,” Bennet told Tides of History. Women remained in the industry as tapsters and alewives, but their roles became increasingly limited until colonization brought home breweries to the Americas. Lisle ran her brewhouse in Philadelphia until 1751, almost eight decades before Yeungling (America’s oldest operating brewery) opened its doors, and a quarter century before the U.S. declared independence from England. (File that in the useless trivia section of your brain!)

Although Lisle’s history is hidden deep in the troves of beer blogs and old random internet articles, her history has lived on through Miller Lite, which released a limited-edition 6-pack featuring her name and likeness for the Fourth of July in 2022. 

“Women have been written out of brewing history in America, and we want to remind people during the biggest beer-drinking weekend of the year that without women, there’s no beer,” said a Miller Lite spokesperson. “Mary Lisle is the first documented brewer in American history, but it took 100 years to record her name. There were countless women who came before her and played an incredibly important role in brewing beer in America.” Wish we could do better than the side of a Miller Lite can to honor these women, but such is life! 

If you’re not a “beer-girly,” that’s OK. Everyone’s gut microbiome is different, but we can still bask in the badass history of the brewsters who came before us. Cheers!

Keep scrolling for more great stories.