Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, at home by a homebrewer, or communally. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BC, and archaeological evidence suggests that emerging civilizations, including ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, brewed beer. Since the nineteenth century the brewing industry has been part of most western economies.
Homebrewing is the brewing of beer or other alcoholic beverages on a small scale for personal, non-commercial purposes. Supplies, such as kits and fermentation tanks, can be purchased locally at specialty stores or online. Beer was brewed domestically for thousands of years before its commercial production, although its legality has varied according to local regulation. Homebrewing is closely related to the hobby of home distillation, the production of alcoholic spirits for personal consumption; however home distillation is generally more tightly regulated.
The U.S. state of Oregon is home to more than 200 breweries and brew pubs that produce a large variety of beer.
Beer is manufactured by more than 7,000 breweries in the United States, which range in size from industry giants to brew pubs and microbreweries. The United States produced 196 million barrels (23.0 GL) of beer in 2012, and consumes roughly 28 US gallons (110 L) of beer per capita annually. In 2011, the United States was ranked fifteenth in the world in per capita consumption, while total consumption was second only to China.
BridgePort Brewing Company was a brewery in Portland, Oregon, in the United States. It operated from 1984 until 2019. Brewery operations ceased in February 2019, and the brew pub closed on March 10, 2019.
Mad River Brewing Company is a brewery established in 1989 and located in Blue Lake, California, known for its green production processes.
A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of beer has taken place since at least 2500 BC; in ancient Mesopotamia, brewers derived social sanction and divine protection from the goddess Ninkasi. Brewing was initially a cottage industry, with production taking place at home; by the ninth century, monasteries and farms would produce beer on a larger scale, selling the excess; and by the eleventh and twelfth centuries larger, dedicated breweries with eight to ten workers were being built.
Shmaltz Brewing Company is an American craft brewing company headquartered in Troy, New York, US. Originally primarily known for its He'Brew flagship brand, the company produces a large line of Shmaltz Brewing beers and numerous other brands including 518/838 craft beers and the Alphabet City Brewing brand. It also produced Coney Island Craft Lagers until that brand's acquisition by Boston Beer Company in 2013.
Bell's Brewery, Inc. is an American craft brewing company, with operations in Comstock and Kalamazoo, Michigan. Bell's brews acclaimed beers such as Hopslam Ale, Oberon Ale, and Two Hearted Ale. It operates a brewpub and a store selling merchandise and homebrewing supplies at its Kalamazoo location. Begun as a homebrewing store in 1983, and producing beer since 1985, it is the oldest existing craft brewery in Michigan and the oldest craft brewery east of Colorado. As of 2021, it was the 6th largest craft brewery in the United States, and was the largest independently owned brewery in Michigan when founder Larry Bell sold the company to Lion Little World Beverages - an Australian subsidiary of the Japanese Kirin beverage group at the end of 2021. The company also owns Upper Hand Brewery, a separately operated division in Escanaba, Michigan.
Annie Johnson is a brewer who won the American Homebrewers Associations' Homebrewer of the Year award in 2013. She was the first woman in thirty years, and the first African American person ever, to win the award. In 2012, she won Pilsner Urquell's Master Homebrewer Competition held in San Francisco, where Master Brewer Vaclav Berka ) said the beer tasted like he was home. After an extensive career with the California State Legislature she began working for PicoBrew, a product development company in Seattle, WA that specializes in automated brewing equipment. In addition to that work, she is a Nationally ranked judge for the Beer Judge Certification Program as well as proctoring and grading exams. Shortly after she had heard about winning the AHA 2013 award she quickly accepted her job offer to be part of PicoBrew’s recipe developer. She's an active member of Pink Boots Society which promotes women as beer professionals in the beer industry.
International Women's Collaboration Brew Day is an annual event that takes place each year on International Women's Day. The event gathers women brewers around the world who brew the same beer. All proceeds are donated to charity. It was established to raise awareness of women in the brewing industry, especially as beer brewmasters. It also networks women interested in brewing.
Women have been active in brewing since ancient times. Though Western societies have viewed brewing as a male-dominated field for the last 150 years, traditionally, it was an activity engaged in by women. Ethnographic and archaeological studies have shown that brewing was an outcropping of gathering or baking traditions, which were predominantly women's roles throughout the world. From the earliest evidence of brewing in 7000 BCE, until the commercialization of brewing during industrialization, women were the primary brewers on all inhabited continents. In many cultures, the deities, goddesses and protectors of brewers were female entities who were associated with fertility.
Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela is a South African brewmaster. Nxusani-Mawela is the first person from South Africa to earn a National Diploma in clear fermented beverages. She is also the first black woman in South Africa to found a microbrewery. Her company, Brewsters Craft, introduces students to the science of beer making through training and provides professional breweries a service through beer quality testing. She helped organize International Women's Collaboration Brew Day (IWCBD) events in South Africa.
The Pink Boots Society (PBS) is a non-profit organization with international membership which supports women and non-binary people working in the fermented beverages and allied industries. PBS started with women beer professionals and expanded that definition as its members and the industry have evolved. The majority of its members are involved with craft beer. The organization helps women fermented beverage professionals advance their careers through educational opportunities. Sub goals include mentorship, networking with other women in the profession, and raising awareness of women in these male-dominated industries. PBS also helps teach the skills needed to become beer judges. PBS raises money for scholarships for women to continue their education in order to break through remaining glass ceilings. There are around 2,500 members across the world. All members must be women or non-binary and have some type of career in the fermented beverages industries, which includes beer, wine, spirits, cider, saki, kombucha, and any other fermented beverage.
The Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives (OHBA), established in 2013, is a community archive in the U.S. dedicated to collecting, preserving, and sharing materials about the story of Northwest hops and brewing.
Rebecca Bennett has worked in various brewmaster positions at Anheuser-Busch InBev, most recently as a senior quality manager in Baldwinsville, New York. She also held the assistant brewmaster post (2015–2018) at the Baldwinsville facility and previously was a product development specialist (2010–2015) and group manager (2005–2010 at the St. Louis, Missouri, facility. She graduated from Purdue University with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 2005.
Celeste Beatty is the first Black woman to own a brewery in the United States. She established her brewery, Harlem Brewing Company, in 2000.
Sophie de Ronde is a British brewer. She has been head brewer of Suffolk-based Burnt Mill Brewery since 2017, and previously brewed at Brentwood Brewing Company between 2007 and 2014. In 2019, she was named "Brewer of the Year" by the British Guild of Beer Writers. De Ronde is the founder of the International Women's Collaboration Brew Day as well as being a co-founder of Beer Day Britain. Unusually for a brewer, she is unable to drink most beer as she is allergic to wheat and barley.
Alisa Bowens-Mercado is the founder and owner of the first Black-woman owned brewery in Connecticut - Rhythm Brewing Co. As of June 2022, Bownes-Mercado's brewery is also the only Black-woman-owned brewery in Connecticut.
