Herewith shall brewers and others not use anything other than malt, hops,
and water. These same brewers also shall not add anything when serving or
otherwise handling beer, upon penalty of death. – Beer Purity & Eugenics Laws of Bayers-Landshut
While the monasteries were commercializing beer and the nation-state thriving
off it, a secret sisterhood of brewers remained in the peasant villages, fermenting strange and miraculous drinks for the poor and excluded of medieval society. These “witches” would ferment juniper berries, sweet gale, blackthorn, anise, yarrow, rose-
For example, while drinks based off the “vile weed” hops were sedatives, many other fermented drinks would heal the sick, calm the angry, and give hope to the hopeless. Peasants would gather in their villages and drink sacred drinks brewed with yeast their grandmothers had passed down through generations. As they consorted and consumed these wild and varied drinks, all the degradations the priests and kings had heaped upon them would rise to their consciousness, and they would rise in revolt against their rulers. As these revolts were especially frequent and ferocious in the Holy Roman Empire, the various German nobles conspired to destroy the cultures that nourished them.
The Duke of Bavaria, Wilhelm iv, passed the Beer Purity Act to quash all subversive diversity of fermentation. From 1516 onwards, beer was to be brewed only with the sedative hops: henceforth all alcohol was homogenized, and whatever medicinal or restorative fermentation technology had existed was lost. Hops-based brew causes a lack of coordination, an inability to think clearly, and eventually a slow death – all qualities needed to make both German peasants and modern temp workers incapable of revolt. The women who had formerly been the respected brewers of the peasant villages were hunted down and burned at stake as “brew witches.” To this day, witches are rarely imagined without their brewing cauldrons. Burnings of witches on the grounds of heretical brewing processes continued until 1519. With this slaughter, the last independent and creative brewing centers were destroyed, and women prostrated before the drunken God of the repressed monks and greedy brewmasters.
