Talk:Alewife (trade)

Proposal to include ancient Mesopotamian alewifes
This article does not touch on the original history of brewing and alewives, which date back to ancient Mesopotamia. I propose these missing elements should be included in this article. Wiki-proofer-and-tagger (talk) 23:49, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Over-reliance?
This article seems to rely too heavily on one source (Bennett). Even so, it contains contradictions, such as the claim that brewing was "only marginally profitable" (in the Background section) and that it gave "good profits" (in Ale brewing as a career for women). --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 17:16, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Witch accusations because of drunk conduct
It seems relevant to mention that sometimes a female brewer of alcohol was accused being a witch because some of her customers drank too much, became drunk, and when that customer did something offensive under the influence of alcohol, they believed that she put a magic spell on them. For example, in the Shakespeare play "Macbeth", alcohol was used to get guards drunk so some crime could be committed and the alcohol in question had been purchased from a witch. For centuries after (and probably centuries before as well) if someone got drunk they might accuse the brewess of being a witch. 2600:1700:8830:8DF0:1D47:AAC4:5E21:F0E1 (talk) 16:15, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

I've seen that idea recently in popular writing. Do we have a credible research source for it? David (talk) 23:36, 25 February 2023 (UTC)