Craft Beer Culture and Modern Medievalism: Brewing Dissent 9781641892186

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CRAFT BEER CULTURE AND MODERN MEDIEVALISM BREWING DISSENT NOËLLE PHILLIPS

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

© 2019, Arc Humanities Press, Leeds

The author asserts their moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Permission to use brief excerpts from this work in scholarly and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is an exception or limitation covered by Article 5 of the European Union’s Copyright Directive (2001/​29/​EC) or would be determined to be “fair use” under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act September 2010 Page 2 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC §10 8, as revised by P.L. 94—​553) does not require the Publisher’s permission. ISBN (print): 9781641892179 eISBN (PDF): 9781641892186

www.arc-​humanities.org Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� vi

Acknowledgements ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������vii Chapter 1. Chapter 2.

Introduction: Medievalism and Craft Beer�������������������������������������������������������� 1

Reading Beer in the Middle Ages����������������������������������������������������������������������� 21

Chapter 3. Resistance and Revolution: Craft Beer versus Corporate Giants����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 47 Chapter 4. Chapter 5.

Beer Heroes and Monastic Medievalism��������������������������������������������������������� 67 Militant Medievalism: Norsemen, Mythology, and Masculinity��������������� 97

Chapter 6. Pale Ales and White Knights: Craft Brewing, Whiteness, and Medievalism��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 115 Chapter 7.

Conclusion: The Alchemy of Alcohol ������������������������������������������������������������� 137

Select Bibliography������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 149 Index��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 153

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. The Black Abbey tasting room.����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 80 2. The Black Abbey tasting room.����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 82 3. The Black Abbey tasting room’s spacious ceilings. ��������������������������������������������������������� 84 4. The label for Driftwood Brewery’s Naughty Hildegard ESB.���������������������������������������� 93 5. Mythologized branding in the labels of Driftwood Brewery. ��������������������������������������� 94 6. The longship bar at Muninn’s Post.������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 104 7. The bricolage of Viking decor at Muninn’s Post.������������������������������������������������������������� 105

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THIS ODDBALL PROJECT was inspired by a session that Megan Cook organized at Kalamazoo’s International Congress on Medieval Studies in 2017 about craft beer and medievalism. When she invited me to present a paper, I couldn’t resist. The conversations and collegiality of that session – and its follow-up gathering at a local brewery – laid the fruitful groundwork for this book. My thanks go out to Megan, the audience members at that session, and my fellow participants, John Geck and Rosemary O’Neill, who also have my gratitude for kindly reviewing earlier drafts of my manuscript and providing feedback throughout this process. The anonymous reviewer also provided very useful and generous critique, for which I am grateful. I am thankful to those craft brewers who took the time to answer my questions, provide photos, and share why brewing is meaningful to them, and to all my friends who were sounding boards for me (sometimes over a pint) or who sent me emails or texts whenever they saw a medieval-themed beer. My colleagues at Douglas College and the University of British Columbia were sources of wisdom and moral support as I wandered through the maze of writing my first book while teaching a 4/4 course load. Special thanks go out to my office mate Richa Dwor, who lent me a listening ear on many occasions and always provided useful feedback. Finally, my greatest thanks—as always—is to my family: my parents who are always enthusiastically supportive of me, my siblings who laugh and drink beer with me, my children Riley and Bella who are fascinated that I will have my own book, and of course my husband Rich. He has put up with my hectic life of teaching, writing, homebrewing, and dancing, and remained steadfast, patient, flexible, and positive. I love you. Let’s grab a beer sometime.

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Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION: MEDIEVALISM AND CRAFT BEER IT IS A warm, lazy day in the early summer of 2018; with half an hour to spare, it’s the perfect time to hunt for a new craft beer to try. As I scan the labels in the craft beer corner of my neighbourhood liquor store, my eye is caught by bright green rows of bomber bottles at eye level on the centre shelves—​they are Driftwood Brewery’s Extra Special Bitter, Naughty Hildegard. On the label, the famous twelfth-​century abbess is pictured in profile against an emerald green stained glass window, gazing contemplatively at a hop cone in her hand. According to some sources (including the label of this particular beer), Hildegard was one of the first people to recommend hops as a beer preservative and flavouring agent and thus has become somewhat of a legend in beer history. Surveying the surrounding craft beers, I notice the localized nature of their branding; this particular store is on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada, so many of the craft breweries whose products are on display draw upon west coast history, public figures, or wildlife in their marketing strategies. Naughty Hildegard is, like many of the other beers on these shelves, produced in southwestern British Columbia, and yet its branding has no connection to the province. Instead, it is connected to the past—​a medieval, Western European past. And this connection is a relatively common one in North America’s craft beer industry. The neolocalism that characterizes craft beer in general—​its identity as the product of a small and distinct region—​manifests itself differently in one segment of the market. Despite the fact that it is actually in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia that we find the true origins of brewing, the European and medieval replaces the contemporary and local in the narratives woven around a subset of craft beers and breweries in both Canada and the United States.1 Modern medievalism thus informs, at least in part, the class and cultural identity formation processes at the heart of North America’s craft beer industry. It may not be coincidental that medievalism as an object of academic study emerged during the same time period (1978–​1979) in which President Carter legalized homebrewing in the United States and the craft beer industry rapidly expanded in both the United States and Canada. This book examines a growing subgroup of the Canadian and American craft beer industry—​medieval-​themed breweries and brews—​through the stories that craft brewers tell about themselves and their product. As a scholar of literature and book history, my interest is in how texts are transmitted, presented, and interpreted. In this case, the object of my study is how the discourse that has developed in the North American craft beer industry deploys medievalism in order to connect with consumers and to enhance product value. Such analysis reveals less about the craft beer industry itself or the Middle Ages, and more about North American cultural values and how we see ourselves in relation to an increasingly globalized world. Craft beer functions as another form of pop culture, even a strange kind of literature. 1 To make this project manageable in the space of a short book, the craft beer industry outside the United States and Canada is not included. For ease of reference, I sometimes use “North America” to refer to Canada and the US together, even though this book does not consider the brewing industry in other North American countries.

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INTRODUCTION

Craft beer “literature” encapsulates a range of different texts, from images and icons to interviews with brewers to official origin stories to flavour descriptions. It is through such texts that a craft beer identity is shaped, one that is articulated as a heroic foil to the global beer corporations, those behemoth businesses that dominate the market and consume smaller breweries. As these corporations went through mergers and takeovers in the 1980s and 1990s, until finally one company controlled more than 80 percent of the international beer industry, the very concept of craft brewing seemed increasingly important and remains so today. The production and consumption of craft beer has been construed as a way to resist corporate hegemony. It is through discursive connections and embodied experiences, such as tastings/​pairings, local fundraisers, and collaborations with local artists and vendors, that craft brewers are doing something different than the beer corporations, who by nature are disembodied and disconnected from local communities. The corporations exist in the market, as a generic term, but not in the community. Jeff Rice highlights the importance of connection and experience when he describes how craft brewers cultivate identity by “bypassing large-​scale delivery methods” that would allow them to distribute their product more widely, “opting instead for a networked delivery practice and the usage of Connectors”: When we retell the story of our first time drinking a beer with our dad on a hot day, we act as Connectors. When we aggregate styles or locations into a network of terroir, we act as Connectors. When I take a photograph of a beer I am drinking and upload it to a social media site, I am acting as a Connector. Connectors are a form of delivery.2

One of the primary Connectors in craft-​brewing discourse is neolocalism, which is discussed at length in Chapter  3. However, my specific interest is the role of medievalism as a Connector and the features medievalism shares with neolocalism. Indeed, as I  explore in more detail throughout this book, the desire to recreate, return to, or imagine a preindustrial past can evoke the same emotional response in a consumer as neolocalism does. Craft beer texts speak to our desire to belong and to escape—​to find a place and an experience through which we feel the world has been righted. The craft beer industry in general invites us to think about purity, resistance, return, and democratic accessibility, and all of these conceptual lynchpins align perfectly with modern medievalism. Such idealism, however, may prevent us from recognizing some of the systemic, often unintentional problems of the industry, such as its heroized version of various histories (both medieval and modern) and the ways in which it subtly gatekeeps participation or inadvertently makes certain groups feel that they do not belong. Medievalism, as the following section discusses in more detail, refers to post­ medieval representations and interpretations of the Middle Ages. It has become a formal subject of academic study in recent decades, but it has been practiced—​sometimes self-​ consciously, oftentimes not—​for centuries. It is important to recognize that a study of medievalism, in all its variant practices, is not a study of the medieval era itself. Similarly, this book is not a study of the taste, production, or distribution of craft beer. Rather, it is an analysis of representation: how the craft beer industry represents itself, how it uses 2 Rice, Craft Obsession, 149.

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INTRODUCTION

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models of the past to craft that representation, and what these strategies tell us about ourselves. Any kind of storytelling and illustration, whether it is in a children’s book, a novel, a cookbook, a news broadcast, or a craft brewery’s beer label, is a representation of reality that has been cultivated to evoke a desired response in the reader or viewer, and to invite a specific interpretation of that object, figure, event, or product. It may, to some, seem silly to “analyze” these kinds of texts or discourses, but I disagree. The skill of critical thinking begins with the willingness to read carefully and to interrogate our immediate responses to what we encounter. Craft beer may appear to be a rather flippant choice for analytical engagement, but it is a movement deeply imbricated with our assumptions about purity, revolution, social justice, and equality. I think it’s worth our attention.

Medievalism

The term “medievalism,” briefly explained above, comes with a plurality of definitions, but most have a shared foundation: the idea that many postmedieval societies have used the Western European vision of “medieval” as a concept through which to understand their own world. Within the cultural products that deploy medievalism, such as films, comic books, slang, fantasy novels, advertisements, common analogies, etc., “medieval” is not so much a chronological period as an ideological category.3 Western leaders regularly label the ISIS as “medieval” or from the “Dark Ages” to illustrate the terrorists’ failure to evolve morally or culturally. Pulp Fiction’s Marsellus Wallace famously used the phrase “get medieval on your ass” to convey the horrors to which he would subject Zed, his rapist.4 At the same time, the so-​called chivalric values of the Middle Ages and knight and castle metaphors are predominant in various types of storytelling, political commentary, and news media.5 In the 2018 trial of the Saskatchewan farmer Gerald Stanley (a Caucasian man) for the murder of Colten Boushie (a Cree teenager), the defense’s opening arguments presented Stanley as a man guarding his “castle,” thus rendering legitimate his violent response to Boushie.6 Countless animated films, from the Disney classics Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, to The Little Mermaid and Beauty 3 Ganim, Medievalism and Orientalism, 3. 4 For a thorough discussion of the medievalism of Pulp Fiction and this scene in particular, see the final chapter (“Getting Medieval:  Pulp Fiction, Foucault, and the Use of the Past”) in Carolyn Dinshaw, Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre-​and Postmodern (Durham:  Duke University Press, 1999). 5 In his forthcoming book Black Metaphors, Cord Whitaker summarizes some modern public appropriations of “medieval” (pages 187–​88). My thanks to Prof. Whitaker for allowing me to read portions of this book prior to its release.

6 Gina Starblanket and Dallas Hunt, “How the Death of Colton Boushie Became Recast as the Story of a Knight Protecting His Castle,” The Globe and Mail, February 13, 2018. www.theglobeandmail.com/​ opinion/​how-​the-​death-​of-​colten-​boushie-​became-​recast-​as-​the-​story-​of-​a-​knight-​protecting-​his-​ castle/​article37958746/​. Last accessed July 17, 2019. Lawyer Scott Spencer’s exact words to the jury were: “For farm people, your yard is your castle. That’s part of the story here.”

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INTRODUCTION

and the Beast, to the more recent Tangled, Frozen, and How to Train Your Dragon, set their stories in a vaguely medieval land with vaguely medieval clothing and architecture. Medieval historicity is discarded while the medieval aesthetic is embraced; medievalism is, as noted earlier, not equivalent to the medieval itself. Tison Pugh argues that this Disney version of the Middle Ages, in films as well as in Disneyland itself, uses the medieval to reflect and reinforce a sense of childlike innocence, a time and space without the problems of social injustice and class conflict.7 That innocence, however, has also been taken as ignorance in other contexts, with “medieval” used both to describe and condemn political foolishness.8 Indeed, “medieval” has come to represent a wide range of contradictory ideas and values:  origin, romance, brutality, old-​ fashioned values, faith in God, primitive logic, freedom, and oppression. There is never just one Middle Ages; there is a plethora. Umberto Eco, who identifies ten versions of the Middle Ages in his essay “Dreaming of the Middle Ages,” points out that we have returned to all of these Middle Ages ever since the medieval era itself ended. Because modern Western society is structured by systems inherited from the Middle Ages, the period is seen as a point of origin, as Eco elaborates: Thus looking at the Middle Ages means looking at our infancy, in the same way that a doctor, to understand our present state of health, asks us about our childhood, or in the same way that the psychoanalyst, to understand our present neuroses, makes a careful investigation of the primal scene.9

If the Middle Ages is a cultural origin, then it can be used either as a point of disavowal—​ our rejection of violence and our primal nature—​or as a space of purity to which we can perhaps one day return. These conflicting impulses both to reject and to elevate the medieval are not new; as discussed more fully in the next section of this chapter, they emerged immediately after the medieval period was over (once it was an era officially in the past), but were also prominent during the nineteenth century, when the formal study of medieval history and literature emerged as viable academic subjects as opposed to mere dilettante hobbies.10 This simultaneous love for and disparagement of “the medieval” continues to this day, as representations of the Middle Ages shift in response to rapid social, technological, and religious changes. The various Middle Ages represented in modern medievalisms reveal, of course, much more about the society producing the representation than about the medieval 7 Pugh, “Introduction,” 3–​5.

8 Neal Gabler, “George W.  Bush’s Medieval Presidency,” Los Angeles Times, October 5, 2003, sec. Worldview, http://​articles.latimes.com/​2003/​oct/​05/​opinion/​op-​gabler5. Last accessed July 17, 2019. 9 Eco, “Dreaming of the Middle Ages,” 65.

10 See the following sources for further information about the introduction of literary studies—​ particularly medieval literature—​into higher education:  Alan Bacon, ed., The Nineteenth-​Century History of English Studies (London:  Routledge, 1998); Ian Hunter, Culture and Government: The Emergence of Literary Education (London:  Palgrave, 1988); Noelle Phillips, “ ‘Texts with Trowsers’: Editing and the Elite Chaucer,” Review of English Studies 61 (2010): 331–​59.

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era itself. However, medievalism as a mediating layer of cultural information has been largely invisible in mainstream academic scholarship until relatively recently. Medieval scholars before the late twentieth century generally did not formally study how postmedieval societies construed the Middle Ages, focusing instead on the Middle Ages themselves, and scholars studying later periods were not particularly interested in how the concept of “medieval” was deployed in postmedieval eras. Leslie Workman is the scholar most often credited with directing formal academic focus to the study of medievalism. In the 1970s, Workman was a young historian teaching undergraduate history courses. The more time he spent introducing medieval history to his young students, the more he realized how much the contemporary understanding of the period—​and therefore the general sense of “medieval” overall—​was shaped by nineteenth-​century historians.11 In pursuit of this realization, he organized a session at the Tenth International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, titled “The Idea of the Middle Ages in the Modern World.” With Alice Kenney, one of his cohorts on that panel, he planned more conference sessions over the following year, and launched the academic journal Studies in Medievalism in 1979. In his editorial preface to that first issue, Workman proposed a working definition of medievalism that became a cornerstone of this newly recognized field: Studies in Medievalism is concerned with […] the study of scholarship which has created the Middle Ages we know, ideas and models derived from the Middle Ages, and the relations between them. In terms of these things medievalism could only begin, not simply when the Middle Ages had ended […] but when the Middle Ages were perceived to have been something in the past, something it was necessary to revive or desirable to imitate.12

Workman’s articulation of medievalism highlights a key feature that remains central to the study of medievalism today: the notion of difference that at once separates and links. Medievalism could not exist until “medieval” as a category existed—​until “medieval” was different from “now.” “Medieval” offers a point of reference and a contrast to “now,” whenever that “now” exists. At the same time, “medieval” can also represent an originary space, a time before the changes that transformed the Middle Ages into modern culture. While “medieval” must always mean different, sometimes that difference is one that symbolizes an earlier version of ourselves or our society, a version that is simpler and purer and easier to digest. In a strange form of nostalgia, we want to touch, recreate, and experience this past that is at once drastically different from our present and the ultimate source of it. The academic study of medievalism thus requires a somewhat uncomfortable level of self-​awareness, since we are constantly reliant upon and working with postmedieval interpretations and reconstructions of whatever the “true” medieval was. Workman and Kenney ardently toiled at dragging the concept of medievalism into academic visibility. They called themselves “not only enthusiasts, but crusaders,” thus visualizing themselves as conquering knights and (perhaps ironically) deploying the nostalgic 11 Verduin, “The Founding and the Founder,” 6.

12 Leslie Workman, “Preface,” Studies in Medievalism 1 (1979): 1–​3 (1).

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INTRODUCTION

imaginary that medievalism itself interrogates.13 Workman refined his understanding of medievalism during these years, moving beyond the observation that earlier scholars had shaped historical interpretation, and emphasizing the power of historical representation itself upon the expression of sociocultural values. In a 1978 memo—​in the midst of conference sessions being organized and the journal being launched—​Workman defined medievalism as “the post-​medieval study of the Middle Ages and the use of that study in a variety of contexts.”14 He stated it even more strongly in the eighth issue of Studies in Medievalism: “Medieval historiography, the study of the successive recreation of the Middle Ages by different generations, is the Middle Ages. And this of course is medievalism.”15 In other words, one could reasonably understand medievalism as beginning from the moment in which a writer, reader, or editor (the fifteenth-​century printer William Caxton and his prefaces come to mind) presented the Middle Ages as a time separate from their own—​a separation built into the very terms “Middle Ages” and “medieval.” The academic study of this field can therefore embrace cultural productions as old as Caxton or as recent as the Naughty Hildegard label or the newest Thor blockbuster. I have paid particular attention to Workman because of the extent to which his ideas informed later academic attitudes to medievalism and were conditioned by wider academic discourses at the time. Workman’s definition of medievalism, for example, aligns with Hayden White’s influential work on historiography in the 1970s and 1980s. In his book The Content of the Form, White emphasizes that the imposition of narrative on historical events—​historiography itself—​moralizes those events and creates history; history cannot be disentangled from how we narrate it.16 Although medievalism and historiography are not the same thing, medievalism nonetheless contributes to the interpretation of history. Indeed, medievalism has been an invisible influence shaping even scholarly understandings of the Middle Ages. In his consideration of both Workman and White, Diebold insists that we must question the “hierarchy of creation over reception” when exploring medievalism, and goes so far as to suggest that the representation of the Middle Ages (medievalism) is all we have; there is no true medieval.17 Other scholars deploy the term “neomedievalism” to distinguish between those representations of the Middle Ages that attempt to recover some sort of reality, and those that consciously reject such representation in favour of a medievalism based upon temporal and cultural play.18 Richard Utz connects such “play” to Jean Baudrillard’s idea of the simulacra, noting that medievalism entails the “creat(ion) of pseudo-​medieval worlds that playfully obliterate 13 Verduin, “The Founding and the Founder,” 7. 14 Cited in Diebold, “Medievalism,” 249.

15 Leslie Workman, “Preface,” Studies in Medievalism 8 (1996): 1–​3 (1).

16 Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 1–​26. 17 Diebold, “Medievalism,” 249.

18 See the 2010 issue of Studies in Medievalism (vol. 19) for a collection of essays focused upon neomedievalism. While I occasionally use the term in this book, I hesitate to claim there is a clear

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history […] with a simulacra of the medieval, employing images that are neither an original nor the copy of an original, but altogether ‘Neo.’ ”19 Many pop culture medievalisms, such as video games, the Medieval Times stage show, and Disney films, are more closely aligned with what Utz describes than with historical representations of the Middle Ages (which are still forms of medievalism, as stated earlier). These playful ‘neo’ versions of the medieval offer an emotional experience; they allow us to conceive of the Middle Ages as a time of reassuring simplicity. This is especially powerful in our current sociopolitical climate, as we see increasing resistance to dissolving boundaries that we have long taken for granted, such as gender identity, gender roles, sexual orientation, and the function and definition of marriage. Pop culture medievalisms give us reassuring Caucasian versions of masculine men and feminine women, nuclear heterosexual families, and easily distinguished heroes and villains. As Amy Kaufman argues, this form of neomedievalism erases difference and distinction (from among decades, centuries, cultures, countries, experiences) of the historical Middle Ages and isolates and combines elements into one “essentialized incarnation of the Western imagination.”20 I describe this phenomenon in Chapter  6 as “white medievalism.” White medievalism allows us to see the Middle Ages as a Platonic form—​a pure, original version of nascent Western culture, characterized by assumed yet unspoken whiteness. On the other side of this unspoken whiteness, of course, is medievalism’s racialized (often in the form of orientalism) representation of nonwhite people or activities. Finally, in pop culture medievalism’s essentializing of the Middle Ages we also often see the era reduced to a space of aggression that can be framed in a range of ways—​as frightening, admirable, or funny. This aggression is sometimes cast in positive terms (chivalry, skill, duels, manly men), while in other cases “medieval” becomes synonymous with the brutal and the primal, as suggested earlier. Even when the medieval is romanticized, it is conceptually energized by its ever-​present potential to collapse into violence. In some representations that violence is parodied or “gamified,” but the power of the parodic inheres in its reliance upon that initial presence of extreme violence—​perhaps so extreme we refuse to take it seriously.21 The conflation of aggression and masculinity in medievalism’s construction of the Middle Ages often emerges alongside its narratives of whiteness and heroism, as Chapter 6 explores in more detail. hermeneutic line drawn between medievalism and neomedievalism, and therefore I do not assume that these two categories are always distinct. 19 Utz, “A Moveable Feast,” v.

20 Kaufman, “Medieval Unmoored,” 8.

21 See just one example of violence made mild and palatable via gamification here: Paul Darvasi, “How Schools Spark Excitement for Learning with Role Playing and Games,” Mindshift, KQED News, February 20, 2019. www.kqed.org/​mindshift/​53071/​how-​schools-​spark-​excitement-​for-​learning-​ with-​role-​playing-​games. Last accessed July 17, 2019.

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INTRODUCTION

Medievalism through the Ages While medievalism has always been premised upon marking the boundary between the medieval and the current moment, it manifests differently across the centuries, from the mid-​sixteenth century until today. Before proceeding to a discussion of the place of beer in medievalism, this chapter briefly elaborates on the various ways in which medievalism has emerged since “medieval” became the past.22 Because this book in general focuses upon the way in which Canadian and American society tends to see the Western European—​and in particular British—​Middle Ages as emblematic of “the medieval,” the following discussion of medievalism primarily engages with British medievalisms. For similar reasons, and in the interests of space constraints, Chapter 2 primarily engages with British medieval texts. I have no doubt that additional insights will be, and have been, generated by others; work on non-​European and non-​“Western” medievalism and medieval histories will certainly enrich my limited discussion here. David Matthews is one of many scholars who have highlighted the significance of the term “middle” in our interpretation of what the Middle Ages was—​and is. Matthews points out that “the ‘middleness’ of the Middle Ages could […] only become evident when the period itself could be thought of as completed.”23 Correspondingly, medievalism itself could not emerge before the Middle Ages became “middle”; because of the complexity inherent in separating one era from another, there is no single clear point at which medievalism as a cultural practice (not the scholarly study) begins. Stephanie Trigg suggests that incipient medievalism was evident at the end of the Middle Ages with Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur. Malory’s Morte is, she argues, a nostalgic fantasy of an earlier medieval England that never really existed—​a version that has come to encapsulate one of the many Middle Ages that live in the modern imagination.24 Mike Rodman Jones has identified the Elizabethan era as a key moment in the development of medievalism, as writers such as Shakespeare and John Foxe turned the medieval past into a source of fairy tales or childish naïveté.25 Foxe’s 1570 Actes and Monuments referred to the “middle age” of the Church, thus suggesting that the Church had since advanced in understanding and reason, but also evoking the idea of “middleness.” Similarly, records from 1469 in Rome reveal the use of the phrase “media tempestas,” or “middle time.”26 Although there is no clear date that we can identify for marking the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the medievalism that attempts to recover or reproduce it, the 100 years spanning the late fifteenth to the late sixteenth centuries appear to be when the transition occurs. 22 Given the vast breadth of this field, however, the discussion here is of necessity limited and introductory. For a far more comprehensive interrogation of medievalism, I direct readers to David Matthews’ Medievalism: A Critical History and the 2016 collection A Cambridge Companion to Medievalism, edited by Louise D’Arcens. 23 Matthews, Medievalism, 32.

24 Stephanie Trigg, “Medievalism and Theories of Temporality,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism, ed. Louise D’Arcens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 196–​209 (204).

25 Jones, “Early Modern Medievalism,” 93–​100. 26 Matthews, Medievalism, 20.

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One might argue that fifteenth-​ and sixteenth-​century literary engagements with Chaucer—​that “auncient” medieval author—​are a key example of the early emergence of medievalism. Through his construction as a literary father by late medieval writers such as Hoccleve and Lydgate, Chaucer was seen as an origin point for English literature and culture, coming metonymically to represent the Middle Ages to the next generation of writers and editors. Megan Cook explores how in Robert Greene’s late sixteenth-​century account, his dream visitations from Chaucer and Gower embody at once the authority conferred by the past and an “ambivalent nostalgia” about that past.27 In his late sixteenth-​and early seventeenth-​century editions of Geoffrey Chaucer’s works, Thomas Speght prefaced the text with Speed’s full-​page illustration of “The Progenie of Geffrey Chaucer” that cast Chaucer as a paternal origin, both literally and symbolically.28 Speght’s editions were the first to refer to Chaucer as “Antient” and “Learned,” and Speght’s prefatory material and textual inclusions also constructed Chaucer as not only an auctor like Homer or Virgil, but as a literary courtier—​a figure to be respected in Speght’s time.29 Since Chaucer, as Speght’s 1598 preface states, was from “most vnlearned times and greatest ignorance” compared to the seventeenth century “wherein Learning and riper iudgement so much flourisheth,”30 there was anxiety regarding how his medieval origins could be reconciled with his high literary status.31 For this reason, Speght’s editions of 1598 and 1602 reinforce Chaucer’s courtly associations, to the extent that he presented Chaucer’s family tree in such a way that aligned Chaucer’s nonaristocratic lineage with the aristocracy. The medieval Chaucer therefore became the figurative root of contemporary nobility, and the reproduction of his oeuvre in the form of printed collections attempts to recover a “complete” Chaucer, a Chaucer whose legacy was fully visible once he was relegated to a past time. Due in part to these late medieval and early modern adaptations, Chaucer became one of the medieval icons, alongside Gawain and Arthur, around whom later notions of the Middle Ages developed. Late eighteenth-​ and early nineteenth-​century artists, writers, and readers, such as Walter Scott, the bibliophiles of the Roxburghe Club, and the pre-​Raphaelite Brotherhood, dabbled in reproductions of medieval texts and medieval figures for decades before would-​be scholars turned the Middle Ages into a subject of academic inquiry in the late nineteenth century. The renewed interest in a romantic Middle Ages at this time may have been, in part at least, a response to the developing fields of scientific inquiry; medievalism had a visual and moral appeal that science 27 Megan Cook, “Nostalgic Temporalities in Greenes Vision,” Parergon 33 (2016): 39–​56 (43).

28 I refer readers to Megan Cook’s recent discussion of this portrait in her book The Poet and the Antiquaries: Chaucerian Scholarship and the Rise of Literary History, 1532–​ 1635 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), 36–​38.

29 Derek Pearsall, “Thomas Speght,” in Editing Chaucer: The Great Tradition, ed. Paul Ruggiers (Norman: Pilgrim, 1984), 71–​92 (75).

30 Thomas Speght, The workes of our antient and learned English poet, Geffrey Chaucer. 1598. STC 5079. Early English Books Online. 31 Tim Machan, “Speght’s ‘Works’ and the Invention of Chaucer,” Text 8 (1995): 145–​70 (159).

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lacked.32 A vaguely medieval aesthetic thus became increasingly popular throughout the nineteenth century, becoming visible in the anti-​industrial arts and crafts movement, in neo-​Gothic architecture, in the pre-​Raphaelite paintings and poetry of mournful women and gentle yet strong armored men, and of course in public reenactments of chivalric events, such as the 1839 Eglinton Tournament in Scotland and the 1842 royal costume ball in which Victoria and Albert appeared as King Edward III and Queen Philippa. The latter event, in which medieval costuming was mandated for all members of the royal household, was intended to boost the English silk industry via its decadent clothing commissions.33 The replication of medieval arts and crafts, in this case, was deployed as an investment in modern industry. Similarly, the 1851 Great Exhibition in London featured a replica of a medieval court that essentially advertised the skills of English builders and craftspeople. Created by the famous architect and designer Augustus Pugin in partnership with firms such as George Myers of London and John Hardman & Co of Birmingham, the Medieval Court was at once an homage to preindustrial modes of craftsmanship and a display of contemporary skill.34 The Examiner’s review of the Medieval Court in its May 1851 issue is a breathless gasp of admiration at the overwhelming strangeness and sensuality of the exhibit, conveying a fascination with a time that birthed Victorian England yet also dwarfed it.35 William Morris also attempted to recover the lost majestic aesthetic of the Middle Ages by producing medieval-​style printed editions of medieval texts. As a socialist writer with interests in social justice, Morris was skeptical of the advances in science and industry and questioned how these would affect both workers and products. He therefore intentionally used “antiquated technologies” in his famed Kelmscott Press, a choice that revealed how aesthetics, politics, and economics intersected in the nineteenth century.36 He expressed his intentions in aesthetic terms that evoked a model 32 Marsden, “Medievalism,” 2.

33 “Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the Bal Costume of 12 May 1842,” Royal Collection Trust. www.royalcollection.org.uk/​collection/​404540/​queen-​victoria-​and-​prince-​albert-​at-​the-​bal-​ costume-​of-​12-​may-​1842. Last accessed July 24, 2019.

34 John Ganim, “Medievalism and Orientalism at the World’s Fairs,” Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: International Review of English Studies 38 (2002): 184. 35 From the introductory portion of the review:

Before we close our notice for this week let us step for a moment out of the nineteenth into the fifteenth century. Here stands the Medieval Court. Here gleams around the antique art of bygone ages. Here the Gothic element presides supreme. It was worshipped of yore in the great stone books of the middle ages—​the cathedrals. It reared itself in vast towers and fretted pinnacles—​ it flung itself into dark and shadowy aisles. It shaped vast arched and groined doors. It piled up, stone-​like, the vistas of forest trees, and made a counterfeit presentment of the solemn glades where the Teuton nations sacrificed to their deities. All was vast, grand in conception, and gloomily vigorous in execution.

36 Aaron Donachuk, “After the Letter:  Typographical Distraction and the Surface of Morris’s Kelmscott Romances,” Victorian Studies 59 (2017): 260–​87 (263, 268).

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of “recovery” medievalism common to much of the arts and crafts movement: “I began printing books with the hope of producing some which would have a definite claim to beauty. […] I have always been a great admirer of the calligraphy of the Middle Ages, & of the earlier printing which took its place.”37 Morris conceived of the Kelmscott Press’s “definite claim to beauty” as a contrast to the mass-​produced texts that were the result of late nineteenth-​century industrialization; in other words, his medievalism portrayed capitalism and economic interests as crushing taste and beauty.38 Elizabeth Miller, making a similar point, argues that Morris’ editions “construct[ed] themselves as utopian spaces outside the ‘march of progress’ narrative” that resisted the homogeneity and the economies inherent to so-​called social and technological advancement.39 The patriotic yearning for a preindustrial time of colour, passion, and simplicity that characterized the earlier amateur love for the Middle Ages was also incorporated into the burgeoning academic interest in the medieval. The Middle Ages became a site of moral purity and a model for nation-​building. This version of the Middle Ages, which coexisted along with conflicting visions of the medieval as barbarous, romantic, democratic, and innocent, is particularly evident in the Early English Text Society (EETS) and its editors, many of whom emerged from groups of amateur book lovers to become professional editors in new academic fields.40 The 1871 EETS Committee’s Seventh Report emphasizes this association of medieval English literature with modern English culture: “Classical studies may make a man intellectual, but the study of native literature has a moral effect as well. It is the true ground and foundation of patriotism.”41 The chief EETS editor, Frederick Furnivall, argued that it is not “dilettante Antiquarianism” but rather “duty to England” that motivates the amateur scholars of the EETS.42 The delight and pleasure that etymologically and practically informed the development of elite medieval book clubs, such as the Roxburghe, Bannatyne, and Maitland Clubs, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were soon overtaken by the science-​based field of philology that was being pioneered by German academics.43 Even within the rationalist framework 37 William Morris, A Note by William Morris on His Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press. https://​ archive.org/​stream/​ANoteByWilliamMorrisOnHisAimsInFoundingTheKelmscottPressTogether/​ MdUZ232M87M831898#page/​n0/​mode/​2up. Last accessed July 24, 2019.

38 Donachuk, “After the Letter,” 263.

39 Quoted in Donachuk, “After the Letter,” 269.

40 See Antony Singleton, “The Early English Text Society in the Nineteenth Century:  An Organizational History,” The Review of English Studies 56 (2005): 90–​118; Richard Utz, “Academic Medievalism and Nationalism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism, ed. Louise D’Arcens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 119–​34; Phillips, “Texts with Trowsers.” 41 Quoted in Singleton, “The Early English Text Society,” 94. Italics are original.

42 William Benzie, Dr. F. J. Furnivall: Victorian Scholar Adventurer (Norman: Pilgrim, 1983), 132.

43 Richard Utz points out that the use of the terms “dilettante” and “amateur” to describe the members of such clubs drew attention to the driving force behind the interest in medieval books: “Pleasure, delight, and curiosity have been among the main motivating factors for the reading and distribution of premodern texts” (“Academic Medievalism,” 120). However, he also argues that

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of Germanic philology, however, the English scholars of medieval texts remained preoccupied with origins and the nationalist values that attend them. The mythos of authorial genius permeated nineteenth-​century medieval philology. For example, the now common practice of constructing a stemma codicum—​essentially a textual genealogy in the form of a manuscript family tree—​was systemized by nineteenth-​century philologist Karl Lachmann, whose “common-​error” method of recension was predicated on the notion of a common textual archetype, often speculated to be the author’s holograph or a manuscript copied from the holograph.44 Such editorial practices, which were widely adopted by England and other countries emulating Germany, reveal an implicit investment in authorial purity and the value of origin, both of which reinforced English nationalism as the study of English literature developed.45 This infusion of nationalism into medievalism became even more powerful as it emerged in fascist ideologies of the twentieth century and in the white supremacist movements of our current time. The kind of recovery medievalism exemplified in so many nineteenth-​century discourses was one which strove to recover ideals that supposedly existed in the Middle Ages and to cultivate them for modern use; such ideals included beauty, craft skill, literary prowess, bravery, love, and respect for women. The chivalric code encompassed many of those ideals in its insistence upon courage, skill in battle, self-​sacrifice, and love of country, and the ethos of chivalry was popularized well into the twentieth century as two world wars destroyed the economies of countries and the lives of young men and women. Such medievalism is seen in various kinds of war poetry and war propaganda46 and continues to emerge even now, in discussions of war and even of the protection of property, as identified in the accounts of the Colton Boushie trial mentioned earlier in this chapter. Andrew Lynch has demonstrated how integral war is to our vision and recovery of the Middle Ages, suggesting that the medieval is essentially unimaginable to in the face of rapid developments in scientific fields, literary study required more “science-​like” methods in order to keep up, and thus the amateur antiquarians were no longer sufficient to the task of interpreting England’s ancient texts (125).

44 Bernard Coulie, “Text Editing:  Principles and Methods,” in Armenian Philology in the Modern Era: From Manuscript to Digital Text, ed. Valentina Calzolari (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 137–​74 (143).

45 In recent years, of course, scholars have become perhaps equally as interested in scribal activity as in the authorial text. Indeed, the goal of recovering the authorial archetype is sometimes seen as unrealistic, blinding us to useful information found in the process of textual transmission itself. In their introduction to their volume on the editing of medieval texts, Anne Hudson and Vincent Gillespie note that “there seems to be a consensus [in this volume] that the Lachmannian stemmatic approach should be abandoned as an unattainable ideal” (Anne Hudson and Vincent Gillespie, Probable Truth: Editing Medieval Texts from Britain in the Twenty-​ First Century [Turnhout:  Brepols,  2013], 1). On the other hand, however, Lawrence Warner’s recent book Chaucer’s Scribes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018) points out that scholars still desire connection with the author, to the extent that we overlook weaknesses in  logic and evidence when considering scribal attributions and their putative connections with Chaucer. 46 Matthews, Medievalism, 41.

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us without the presence of war.47 The traction of medievalism’s vision of medieval war is due to the former’s appropriation of “supposed age-​old and elemental antimonies of light and dark, good and evil, pure and polluted—​the basis of most popular genre fantasy fiction and film.”48 The temporal distance offered by medieval accounts of war allows readers from later periods to impose an ideological coherence upon the violence, to insert war into a teleology that interprets the good and evil for us. Nuance is lost, uncertainty is gone. Tropes of medieval war thus can serve an ideological purpose in later centuries by consolidating support for a cause through aligning it with ancient honour even amidst blood and chaos. For example, Winston Churchill’s 1956 account of the historical King Arthur uses language that allows readers to see the atrocities of World War II, from which Britain was still reeling, as part of the path to advancing Christian civilization, even though he does not explicitly reference contemporary events: [Scholars] believe that there was a great British warrior, who kept the light of civilisation burning against all the storms that beat, and that behind his sword there sheltered a faithful following. […] King Arthur and his noble knights, guarding the Sacred Flame of Christianity and the theme of a world order […] slaughtered innumerable hosts of foul barbarians and set decent folk an example for all time.49

Arthur here becomes an almost Churchillian figure, one who could be imagined as one of the Allied soldiers, who would (in Churchill’s words), fight the enemy on the beaches, on the streets, on the hills, and never surrender. Indeed, scholars have noted the increase in Arthur’s popularity as a national icon during twentieth-​century conflicts, including both World Wars.50 Narratives that identify a specific moment or individual who embodies the good of the Middle Ages—​such as the wartime lauding of Arthur or editorial yearnings for Chaucer—​perpetuate the idea that beneath the complexity of the Middle Ages, beyond its alterity, is a core of purity, a seed from which grows the goodness of the present; in Renée Trilling’s words, medievalism offers “a pre-​ontological wholeness and unity.”51 This is a particularly valuable concept during times of technological and social change or conflict, during which the present feels unstable and a connection to the past is reassuring. While war medievalisms present themselves as historically accurate, offering a connection with ancient heroes and a sense of stability within a teleological view of world events, the experiential or recreational medievalisms of the late twentieth and early twenty-​first centuries are self-​consciously playful with the Middle Ages. In medieval video games, distinctions between eras, countries, and cultures are usually

47 Andrew Lynch, “Medievalism and the Ideology of War,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism, ed. Louise D’Arcens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 135–​50 (136). 48 Lynch, “Medievalism,” 139.

49 Winston Churchill, A History of the English-​Speaking Peoples, Vol 1: The Birth of Britain, 2nd ed. (New York: Rosetta, 2013, 1956), 46–​47.

50 See Sørina Higgins, The Inklings and King Arthur: J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, C. S. Lewis, and Owen Barfield on the Matter of Britain (Berkeley: Apocryphile, 2017). 51 Trilling, “Medievalism,” 218.

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collapsed in order to make the medieval world more easily navigable. A simplified electronic Middle Ages allows people to create their own version of “medieval,” as is the case with The Sims Medieval, in which “you” (the gamer) get to “expand your kingdom and construct more buildings […] Your Sims live in the lives of monarchs, knights, spies, magicians and more as you choose whether—​or not—​to […] bring glory to the name of your kingdom!”52 There is a freedom here, an ownership over this imagined Middle Ages and what it can mean for the gamer. Through their interviews with gamers, Pugh and Weisl observe how the medieval games appeal because of their use of stock medieval concepts (“guys with big swords,” “knights on quests,” the “fun parts”); they offer a medievalized escape but “pose no questions of moral ambiguity that might disrupt one’s game play.”53 We can laugh at what cannot be laughed at—​violence—​without risk and without moral pressure. This playful violence characterizes some forms of craft beer medievalism, as Chapter 5 discusses. There are also embodied medieval recreational experiences across North America, such as the Medieval Times dinner show events, Renaissance Faires, Live Action Role Playing games (LARPing),54 and the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and other similar historical recreation groups.55 These embodied experiences, like medieval video games, collapse chronological, geographical, and cultural differences in order to create a unified Middle Ages in which participants can play. The ludic nature of modern medieval recreation—​its overturning of hierarchies and expectations—​is perhaps the most medieval thing about it. Even the SCA, which attempts to create historically accurate reproductions of medieval arts, crafts, and practices, nevertheless prioritizes inclusion and unity over accuracy. The SCA is commonly called “the Middle Ages as it should have been,” a motto that openly reveals the SCA’s intentional reimagining of the medieval period; it stakes a moral claim that elevates modern morality over medieval historicity.56 Shared social values, inclusion, and community are what make the SCA appealing, according to many participants. The Honorable Lady Jerusha Kilgore (her real name is Susan Farmer) is quoted on the main SCA website: “What is the SCA? Not only is it some of the most awesome fun that you’ll ever have, but the people you meet here will become the best family that you’ll ever have.”57 This sense of community is reinforced in Deborah Parker’s doctoral thesis on the SCA, in which she emphasizes that its utopian yearning 52 Quoted in Pugh and Weisl, Medievalisms, 126.

53 Pugh and Weisl, Medievalisms, 127.

54 Although I do not discuss LARPing in any detail, the central website for LARPers, www.larping. org, reveals that medieval and/​or fantasy/​medieval themes are extremely popular for LARPers.

55 I use the SCA as my primary example because it is arguably the largest and most widespread historical recreation group currently active in North America.

56 “Society Seneschal,” Society for Creative Anachronism Inc. http://​socsen.sca.org/​what-​is-​the-​ sca/​. Last accessed July 25, 2019. 57 “What Is the SCA?,” Society for Creative Anachronism Newcomer’s Portal. http://​welcome.sca. org/​about/​. Last accessed July 25, 2019.

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for an egalitarian Middle Ages is a valuable and legitimate expression of contemporary community and even a path to political resistance: Society members recognize that the ephemeral reality—​free from the economic demands of daily life—​makes it possible to take the time to engage with people differently, to emphasize the chivalric values. […] The SCA has one foot grounded in historical reality and the other hovering over creative possibility. The weekend experiences promote alternate visions [of society].58

The SCA attempts to balance its vision of a socially egalitarian Middle Ages with the hierarchies that must be acknowledged in any attempt to represent history accurately. However, its hierarchies are based on skill and hard work—​meritocracy—​rather than bloodlines; one can have a peasant “persona” but become a king or a knight, rather like Heath Ledger’s character in the neomedieval Hollywood film A Knight’s Tale. Shared democratic values as experienced through a shared imagined reality are integral to the SCA’s traction in modern society, and probably to most recreation groups’ ongoing popularity. The sense of community is crucial; as Renée Trilling says of popular culture’s imagined Middle Ages, “everyone may have been covered in shit, but at least it was communal shit.”59 As we feel increasingly isolated in an increasingly connected world of endless communication, being part of a “real-​life” community is incredibly valuable. Renaissance Faires are slightly different than the SCA or other recreation societies, since they require no membership and historical accuracy tends to be discarded in favour of a whole-​hearted embrace of imaginary neomedievalism. Although many of the larger Faires, such as the Valhalla Renaissance Faire and the Texas Renaissance Fest, identify their period as the sixteenth century, the aesthetics and activities of the Faires are rarely restricted to that era. Alana Bennett describes them as an “eclectic fusion of history, fantasy, and invention.”60 Unlike the SCA, whose members are regular participants who take time to develop a medieval persona and work to hone their skills in fighting or crafts, Renaissance Faires are populated by anyone looking for a weekend activity. Participants are encouraged—​and sometimes mandated—​to come in costume (anything vaguely medieval will do). Pugh and Weisl describe how the photos advertising the Medieval Fair in Norman, Oklahoma are comprised of a bricolage of objects and icons that collectively equate “medieval” with “not mainstream,” using alterity itself as a symbol of the Middle Ages: [The photos] feature ironwork forks and swords, people singing, jousters (male and female), Celtic jewellry, a giant stuffed bear, falcons, patrons dressed as pirates, women on stilts, and even fringed and coined scarves for belly-​dancing on sale. This eclectic

58 Deborah Parker, “The Making of a Princess:  The Role of Ritual in Creating Community and Identity in the Society for Creative Anachronism,” PhD diss., University of Oregon, 2017, 32–​33. 59 Trilling, “Medievalism,” 217.

60 Alana Bennett, “Reinventing the Past in European Neo-​medieval Music,” in The Middle Ages in Popular Culture: Medievalism and Genre, ed. Helen Young (New York: Cambria, 2015), 92.

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mix from traditions well beyond the Middle Ages and Renaissance […] shows an inclusionary and unifying past that allows everyone to “be themselves” by dressing up as someone else.61

While Renaissance Faires are unconcerned with historicity, they share with the SCA an embrace of community and acceptance of individuality. Jamila Salimpour, a renowned founder of North American forms of bellydance, discovered that the Berkeley Renaissance Pleasure Faire (and similar events) was one of the few large-​audience venues in the 1960s and 1970s that accepted bellydance as a form of entertainment.62 Salimpour followed the vague guidelines of the Faire, which directed that all entertainment acts should be “period,” and used her background with the Ringling Brothers Circus to create an orientalized version of medievalism—​or a medievalized version of orientalism—​that would entertain the crowds: “I patterned Bal Anat after a circus-​like variety show which one might see at an Arabian festival, or a souk in the Middle East […] which represented a cross-​section of old dance styles from the Middle East.”63 She was very conscious that her troupe was pastiche and not historical reenactment, however, and in her accounts of Bal Anat she made no attempt to hide this: “many people thought it was the ‘real thing’ when in fact it was half real and half hokum.”64 Indeed, the Renaissance Faire model itself could be described as “half real and half hokum,” but its value is not based upon its historical accuracy but its ability to unify its participants under the umbrella of an imaginary shared past, to create a temporary community based on nostalgia and alterity.

Craft Beer and Medievalism

So how does beer fit into the cultural spaces of medievalism? In the preceding brief sketch of the ways in which medievalism has manifested over the centuries, I have focused on modes of medievalism that most clearly intersect with the ways in which we identify ourselves and our communities. Some very popular types of medievalism that I do not really discuss in this book, such as films and neomedieval architecture, position the individual on the outside, as an observer, and are less clearly related to individual self-​ expression and identity formation. Identity and community are critical features of medieval historical recreation, medieval game-​playing, and the academic study of medieval texts, and I argue that our consumption choices also reflect or produce both individual identity and communal belonging. One’s choice of beverage is a particularly powerful 61 Pugh and Weisl, Medievalisms, 134.

62 Bellydance has had a long history of stigma in the United States, particularly among Caucasian audiences. Many Middle Eastern, North African, Turkish, and Greek clubs and restaurants had regular dancing in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, but these were generally not frequently patronized by what might be considered the “average” Caucasian American. Renaissance Faires were more likely to garner this kind of audience.

63 Jamila Salimpour, “From Many Tribes,” The Best of Habibi 17 (1999): np. http://​thebestofhabibi. com/​vol-​17-​no-​3-​spring-​1999/​from-​many-​tribes/​. Last accessed July 25, 2019.

64 Salimpour, “From Many Tribes.”

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marker of identity; consider the different assumptions we make about a person that arise from what they order to drink.65 Tea, wine, champagne, Coors Light, craft beer, whiskey, milk, espresso—​each of these choices would affect the external perception of the drinker in distinct ways. Drinking, whether alcoholic or not, is one practice of social connection common across many cultures, and therefore the beverage we choose is a performance of identity. This is not a new observation, of course; many sociologists and historians have explored the implications of drinking behaviour.66 Decades ago, Pierre Bourdieu pointed out the ways in which consumer tastes become “markers of class,”67 demonstrating the tautology inherent in the link between high-​culture products and the higher-​class consumers who purchase them. Don Slater similarly argues that the modern Western opposition of “culture” to consumption/​commercialism is fallacious, as it is predicated on the illusion that cultural value (in art, food, architecture, et cetera) exists objectively, apart from class hierarchies and economic systems.68 One’s social and economic identity is an integral part of one’s overall public persona. The research on beer consumption bears this out: as Flack states, “the beer that a person drinks has become a sociological marker or symbol of self-​ definition.”69 As Chapter 3 discusses in more detail, the drinkers of craft beer in particular see (and present) themselves as having discerning taste. The narratives that shape the craft beer industry are at the nexus of the various discourses outlined in this chapter: medievalism as a mode of identity formation; the race, gender, and class implications of consumption; the social role of beverages (and alcohol especially); and the concurrent desires for individuality and communal belonging in modern North American society. The cultural resonance of beer generally is far more wide-​ranging than that of wine; it encompasses the cheap, mass-​produced beer that self-​proclaimed “rednecks” swill with pride to expensive, small-​batch craft beer whose scarcity and uniqueness make it (and its consumers) appear valuable and interesting. Craft beer, while still being relatively affordable, has also become a high-​culture product, with beer tastings rivalling wine tastings in popularity and beer labelling and branding becoming its own art form. A 2017 article in The Guardian, for example, explored the recent UK intersections of the art world and beer branding, highlighting the collaboration between Textbook Studios and the Manchester brewery Cloudwater, and the beer art exhibition “Pumped” held at a bookstore in Leeds.70 65 Mick and Buhl describe beverages as “highly symbolic and richly connotative product classes” for advertisers seeking to reach consumers. See David Glen Mick and Claus Buhl, “A Meaning-​Based Model of Advertising Experiences,” Journal of Consumer Research 19 (1992): 317–​38 (320).

66 For example, see Spracklen, Laurencic, and Kenyon, “ ‘Mine’s a Pint of Bitter,’ ” and Gefou-​ Madianou, Alcohol, Gender, and Culture. 67 Bourdieu, Distinction, 2.

68 Slater, Consumer Culture and Modernity, 63–​99.

69 Flack, “American Microbreweries and Neolocalism,” 46.

70 Tony Naylor, “Brew Period:  The Craft Beer Labels That Are Works of Art,” The Guardian, September 3, 2017, sec. Lifestyle. www.theguardian.com/​lifeandstyle/​2017/​sep/​03/​brew-​period-​ craft-​beer-​labels-​works-​of-​art. Last accessed July 25, 2019.

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The subset of the craft beer industry that uses medievalism, or even a vaguely preindustrial theme, to market its product therefore taps into a powerful current in contemporary Western culture. Even as technological gains increase monthly and options for communication and self-​expression flourish, we are left wondering what we have lost. The utopian imagining of what we used to be but cannot fully become again is a Lacanian yearning that will never be satisfied. Medievalism purports to offer a partial recovery of that loss, a semi-​return to our former selves, to a time before social media paradoxically isolated us and the technology designed to reduce workloads actually increased them exponentially. Renée Trilling describes this nostalgic medievalism as one that looks to the past as an object that is both ever-​present and always-​lost, and that distances us from the object of longing even as it maintains that object, tantalizingly out of reach [it] can point both to a place of absolute alterity and a place that we recognize as our lost home—​and those places can be one and the same.71

Beer has been associated with medievalism and its attendant desire for a return home for centuries. In the early eighteenth century, an anonymous ballad lauded an England defined by its beer and its once and future—​and medieval—​king: Of good English Beer our songs let’s raise, We’ve right by our freeborn Charter, And follow our brave forefathers’ ways, Who lived in the time of King Arthur. Of those gallant days loud fame hath told, Beer gave the stout Britons spirit; In love they spoke truth, and in war they were bold, And flourished by the dint of merit.72

The virtues of those “gallant days” of our medieval “forefathers” are bravery, skill, and independence, all of which are owed to “good English beer.” These same medievalized values are central tenets of the modern craft beer industry, which is founded not just upon the courageous rejection of corporate globalization and mass production, but upon the idea of turning back—​going home, back to where we belong. This is, after all, an industry in which the products are defined by their locality and the close proximity between product and place of production. When craft brewers deploy medievalism in their branding, the geographical is often subordinated to the temporal or cultural; in other words, medieval becomes “local.” Instead of (or sometimes in addition to) regional origin, these brewers posit a cultural origin. Medieval-​themed craft beer invites its consumers to think of themselves as not just reaching back towards that tantalizing place of simplicity and origin, but as separate from modern society. Both modern and medieval become spaces of alterity for consumers of medievalism, and that tension offers unique possibilities for individuation. 71 Trilling, “Medievalism,” 218, 220. 72 Marchant, In Praise of Ale, 26.

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INTRODUCTION

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The following chapters explore various ways in which craft beer culture and medievalism align with and reinforce one another. Chapter 2 provides historical context by highlighting the social and economic functions of beer during the medieval period (approximately 600–​1600 CE). Because this book is an analysis of beer’s cultural representations, Chapter 2 focuses primarily upon various literary and historical references to brewing and beer from Britain’s early Middle Ages to the early modern period; it is an analysis not of economic records or recipes, but of how beer was conceptualized. Readers interested in a comprehensive history of beer in the Middle Ages will find references for further reading in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 begins by outlining the dual history of craft beer and corporate beer in Canada and the United States from the 1970s until the present. That history is then used to contextualize the exploration of craft beer ideology that follows, an ideology premised upon resistance, revolution, neolocalism, and independence. This ideology is particularly aligned with white masculinity within the beer industry (both craft and corporate), although that is slowly changing. Chapters 4 and 5, using specific examples from and interviews with various breweries, analyze different iterations of two major tropes in craft beer medievalism:  monastic medievalism and militant or Norse medievalism and the hero narratives shaping both. The analysis demonstrates how beer medievalism reinforces the craft beer industry’s vision of itself as identified in Chapter  3. Chapter  6 addresses some challenging issues:  the lack of racial diversity among craft beer drinkers and brewers and how this might align with the whiteness—​and the imagined white history—​that characterizes much modern medievalism, from the innocuous to the malevolent. This chapter evaluates the less obvious and mimetic manifestations of medievalism in the craft beer industry by connecting medievalism in its various forms to the development and reinforcement of colonial values. Finally, the brief concluding chapter considers why beer is important—​why is this book not about the growth of sewing or knitting as craft industries drawn from the past, or homemade soaps, or the popularity of Etsy as a revival of the arts and crafts movement? Why should we bother talking about it at all? The central role of beer in Western society over the centuries is due in part to the symbolic and transformative power of alcohol cross-​culturally. Alcohol has the potential to connect people; it can dissolve (or urge us to transgress) social boundaries. Through the theology of transubstantiation, alcohol can allow mortals temporarily to be one in body with God. It was thought to loosen the tongues of poets and inflame the courage of lovers. There is a mythology around alcohol that continues, regardless of our modern-​day understanding of the health risks of overindulgence, and it is worth recognizing the traction that mythology still has.

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Chapter 2

READING BEER IN THE MIDDLE AGES WHILE MUCH OF this book engages with the neomedievalism of the craft beer industry in North America—​its imaginings of a vaguely European, often fantastical, medieval origin for the beverage—​it is important to acknowledge the actual historical place of beer in medieval societies. The traction of medievalism in modern beer marketing is contingent upon the vague belief that the European Middle Ages is the geographical and chronological birthplace of beer. This is, of course, incorrect. Beer can be traced back to 3500–​4000 BCE in Egypt and Mesopotamia, where it was put to a wide range of medicinal, social, and religious uses.1 Evidence suggests that women did most of the brewing and named their beers creatively—​“Joy-​Bringer” and “Heavenly” are just two examples.2 While there is evidence for some kind of brewing activity on the British Isles shortly after this time, it is nevertheless clear that beer was first produced in North Africa and the Middle East and not in Europe, although it became an important feature of European society during the medieval period. Its modes of production and socioeconomic functions in the Middle Ages were varied and complex, as many histories of the beverage can attest. However, as I am primarily a textual scholar and not an historian or an economist, my focus in this chapter is upon textual representations of beer during the medieval period rather than upon an economic or archaeological analysis of its history. In addition, as explained in the first chapter, I generally restrict my analytical engagement to representations of beer in the British Isles, with occasional references to France and Germany. This choice is due in part to the fact that much North American medievalism imagines a Westernized, Anglicized version of the Middle Ages, and in part to the limitations of space within the scope of this book. Finally, I hope it goes without saying that my brief engagement with the medieval history of beer in this chapter in no way claims to be a comprehensive account, but instead a useful context for understanding the modern representations of beer’s early history.3 The imaginary casting of medieval Western Europe as the birthplace of beer, despite clear evidence to the contrary, is attributable to a combination of factors:  the long-​ standing association of beer with emerging regional and national identities in Western 1 Marek Marciniak, “Filters, Strainers and Siphons in Production and Drinking of Wine and Beer in Ancient Egypt,” Addiction Research 2 (1995): 241–​50 (241); Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages, 15–​18; Brigitte Lion, “Mesopotamia,” in A Companion to Food in the Ancient World, ed. John Wilkins and Robin Nadeau (Oxford:  Wiley Blackwell, 2015), 313; Delwen Samuel, “Fermentation Technology 3,000 Years Ago: The Archaeology of Ancient Egyptian Beer,” Society for General Microbiology 24 (1997): 3–​5. 2 Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages, 19; Lion, “Mesopotamia,” 313.

3 For more thorough and varied discussions of the ancient and medieval history of beer, and food/​ drink consumption more generally, see Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages; Cornell, Beer; Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England; Nelson, Barbarian’s Beverage; Martin, Alcohol, Sex, and Gender.

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Europe during the Middle Ages, and the traction of those connections in later centuries; the transfer of brewing power from women to men when the industry increased in scope and profit in the late medieval period; and the current beer industry, whose largely white male demographic shapes our perception of its history. Together, these factors serve to naturalize the vague idea that beer became an industry when European men—​monks, merchants, and lords—​took charge of it, despite the fact that women were the predominant brewers for centuries, even millennia, before, and even though Middle Eastern and African populations were the first to figure out the magic of sprouted grains. This chapter explores how the medieval history of beer in western Europe (and Britain specifically), as well as medieval attitudes towards its production and consumption as evident in both poetic and historical accounts, informs postmedieval imaginings of that history. This context establishes a foundation for the following chapters’ consideration of how modern beer medievalism effaces parts of that history in order to perform its own cultural work.

Medieval Beer as Culture

A plethora of research has documented that beer was the most widely produced and consumed beverage in the British Isles—​and Western Europe more generally—​throughout the medieval period.4 It was imbibed at all times of day, and by all ages, classes, and genders. While wine was often more readily available to those with greater financial resources, beer was truly a universal drink. It is therefore unsurprising that beer’s symbolic value was distinct from its economic value. How did medieval people think about beer? What did it represent to them? These questions cannot be answered without evaluating beer’s appearance in literary and political texts. The social and even spiritual centrality of beer is evident in early medieval narratives. An eighth-​century manuscript at the Burgundian Library in Brussels (MS Vol XVII) contains an Old Irish poem attributed to Brigid of Kildare, a fifth-​century Irish saint whose miracles often involved producing milk, bread, or beer. Brigid imagines hosting a great ale-​drinking celebration at her home, with God, the angels, and the saints in attendance: I should like a great lake of ale For the King of Kings. I should like the angels of Heaven To be drinking it through time eternal. I should like excellent meats of belief and pure piety. I should like flails of penance at my house. I should like the men of Heaven at my house; I should like barrels of peace at their disposal; I should like vessels of charity for distribution;

4 Since beer nomenclature, both medieval and modern, is often ambiguous, I use “beer” and “ale” interchangeably to refer to the beverage, with “beer” usually my primary choice. The standard (and older) distinction is that beer is brewed with hops and ale is not, but this is not always the case, particularly when it comes to modern brewing.

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I should like for them cellars of mercy. I should like cheerfulness to be in their drinking. I should like Jesus to be there among them. I should like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us. I should like the people of Heaven, the poor, to be gathered around us from all parts. I should like to be a rent-​payer to the Lord So that should I suffer distress He would bestow a good blessing upon me.5

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Brigid’s poem illustrates beer’s universality by imagining the lake of ale as a catalyst for bringing together God, the angels, Jesus and Mary, and regular people—​including the poor—​in her home. Ale allows Brigid to be a host through whom the mortal and the divine interact. The literal conviviality of the ale-​drinking is also imbricated with the symbolism of drinking with God. The “vessels,” “cellars,” and “barrels,” which are literally storage spaces for alcohol, become the symbolic housing of the spiritual gifts of charity, peace, and mercy. As is the case with modern craft beer, medieval beer in its various iterations was often associated with specific counties or regions. The power of beer to articulate regional and national identities was due in part to its widespread consumption and accessibility, and in part to the fact that different regions produced beer differently, using regionally distinct ingredients that marked it as a product of a particular area. This distinction was often produced through the use of various additives, including gruit, an additive and preservative that was in common use before hops were introduced. Gruit, also known as grut, materia, scrutum, fermentum, and pors, comprised a mix of dried herbs, with the main ingredient usually being wild rosemary or bog myrtle.6 While gruit was a ubiquitous additive, it was often mixed with other additives to create regionally distinctive flavours. Richard Unger identifies some of these regional variations:  ginger, anise, and cumin were commonly added in beers produced in Germany; juniper, caraway, yarrow, and alder bark were used in Norway; and there are records of ground ivy, carline thistle, yarrow, rosemary, heather, alecost, wormwood, sycamore sap, and spruce being used in early English beer production.7 While these are country-​specific examples, it is easy to see how beer variations could become even further localized, particularly given the very limited distribution of beer before the late fourteenth century. The increased access to and use of hops as a preservative in the late medieval period and the economic effects of the Black Death contributed to major shifts in the pattern and scope of beer production, which are discussed later in this chapter, but for centuries it “was an industry of thousands of petty producers, not a specialist craft.”8 Beer was often produced in the home for the family’s consumption or to be sold in the neighbourhood. Local sales were important because beer could not be preserved adequately for transportation. The taverns and alehouses—​places of 5 Translation is provided in note 34 of Edward Sellner, “Brigit of Kildare, Golden Sparkling Flame: A Study in the Liminality of Women’s Spiritual Power,” Vox Benedictina 8 (1991): 265. 6 Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages, 31; Cornell, Beer, 280. 7 Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages, 32.

8 Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England, 18.

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public drinking that required ale/​beer production on a high level—​became increasingly common over the centuries, particularly after the Black Death.9 Judith Bennett’s research into brewing in England shows that for decades and even centuries before the plague, individual households functioned as an early form of the village pub; they would sell their ale to the neighbourhood using “a temporary sign of some sort, usually a branch or bush, [that] told potential customers that ale was available within.”10 Just as taverns advertised their wares with an external symbol of some kind, as they continue to do now, households transformed into temporary alehouses and advertised accordingly. To make one’s beer sales profitable, one would of necessity use additives that could be easily sourced locally, therefore producing a beer unique to one region or even one neighbourhood. This lack of beer consistency or standardization was culturally valuable, however, because it meant that beer could manifest the variety and diversity—​a cultural terroir—​ that the country as a whole exemplified. Another early medieval text illustrates this value. An Irish poem about the seventh-​to eighth-​century Scots-​Gaelic prince Cano Mac Gartnain lauds Irish beer in all its regional variations: Though he were to drink of the beverages of flaths [lords] Though a flath may drink of strong liquors He shall not be a king over Eriu unless he drink the ale of Cualand. The ale of Cumur na Tri nUisce is jovially drunk around Inber Ferna [… .] To Findia is served up sumptuously the ale of Muirthemne. Ale is drunk around Loch Cuain; It is drunk out of deep horns In Magh Inis by the Ultonians where laughter rises to loud exultation. By the gentle Dalraid it is drunk in half measures by [the light of] bright candles [while] [w]‌ith easy-​handled battle spears chosen good warriors practice good feats. The Saxon ale of bitterness is drunk with pleasure about Inber in Rig About the land of the Cruithni, about Gergin, red ales, like wine are freely drunk.11

9 Bennett emphasizes that before the plague, brewing was predominantly done by women, while after the plague, men began to take over the practice as it became more professionalized and demand increased. While the question of causality in such shifts is a fraught one, Bennett considers how economic changes after the Black Death may have precipitated an increased demand for beer and enhanced professionalization across various industries. See Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England, 26, 40–​47. 10 Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England, 21.

11 Original poem is extant in Trinity College Dublin MS H.2.16, a fourteenth-​century manuscript. Eugene O’Curry emphasizes that the compiler/​scribe of this manuscript was not the author, and that the substance of the poem has earlier sources: “judging by the general character of the contents of the book, the poem […] belongs to a period anterior to the twelfth century, and the original materials out of which the tale was worked up, to a period three or four centuries earlier” (ccclxxxiv). Translation provided in O’Curry, On the Manners and the Customs of the Ancient Irish (London: Williams and Norgate, 1873), ccclxxiv–​v.

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The opening lines of the poem establish the primacy of beer drinking as a condition upon which an Irish king proves his right to rule; rather than drinking with lords and establishing social status, or drinking strong spirits, a true Irish king must imbibe the ale of Cuala, a region of Ireland. An eighth-​century Irish law book, Crith-​Gablach, also specifies the importance of drinking for an Irish king: “A king’s duties are specific to the day of the week: Sunday for drinking ale, for he is not a rightful ruler unless he provides ale every Sunday.”12 The remainder of the poem names not only the different types of beer or ale produced in various regions of Ireland (red ales in Gergin, the “Saxon ale of bitterness” in the land of the Cruithni, ale of Muirthemne) and by specific clans or groups (the Dalraid, the Ultonians), but the variety of drinking practices. The Ultonians drink it out of “deep horns” with raucous laughter; the Dalraid drink it in small portions while their warriors practice (perhaps imbibing during a break?); the bitter Saxon ale is experienced with “pleasure.” Whether gulped down drunkenly or with laughter, or sipped thoughtfully by candlelight, whether consumed in a cup or a giant horn, there is an ale for every occasion and every region. The poem suggests that the type of ale consumed and the way in which it is consumed is part of a broader cultural practice unique to that region. In England around this same time, Britons were producing a variety of alcoholic drinks, including beore (beer) and ealu (ale).13 As was the case with Irish nobility, the local lord or regional king in early medieval England was expected to provide beer or ale to his people, to the extent that the drinking of these beverages became a symbol for local community. This is why the Old English epic poem Beowulf repeatedly refers to the beer-​hall (béorsele) and the ale-​bench (ealubence) as places of gathering, celebration, and communal discussion. In the Exeter Book, an Anglo-​Saxon collection of riddles in which objects speak about themselves and ask the reader to guess their identity, Riddles 27 and 28 appear to be about mead and beer, respectively. Riddle 27 depicts mead as superior to humanity, coming down from the meadows in the mountains and being transformed into a drink that bends people to its will. The solution to Riddle 28 does not have the same critical consensus as Riddle 27; possible answers are the folk figure of John Barleycorn, beer, a wine cask, a crafted object such as a drinking horn, or a musical instrument. There is much disagreement about the correct answer (or whether a single correct answer is even intended), and I am aware that to some critics, “beer” is not the best solution to this riddle. However, the riddle form itself opens the interpretive field and leaves it intentionally ambiguous. In her blog The Riddle Ages, Megan Cavell reviews several of these possibilities, and acknowledges that the preceding mead riddle makes the beer solution to Riddle 28 a reasonable one, since the 12 Translation taken from “Text: Crith Gablach,” in Exploring Celtic Civilizations: An Online Celtic Studies Coursebook, June 11, 2016. http://​exploringcelticciv.web.unc.edu/​prsp-​record/​text-​crith-​ gablach-​2/​. Last accessed August 11, 2019.

13 There is some uncertainty about the precise meanings of these terms, but they are etymologically linked to the modern English words “ale” and “beer.”

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two riddles might be seen as a matching pair.14 Kevin Crossley-​Holland, whose translation I  have used here, believes the “evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of John Barleycorn or ale” as the riddle’s answer, and has shaped his translation to reflect this interpretation of the solution: Some acres of this middle-​earth are adorned with the hardest and the sharpest, most bitter of man’s fine belongings; it is cut, threshed, couched, kilned, mashed, strained, sparged, yeasted, covered, racked, and carried far to the doors of men. A quickening delight lies in this treasure, lingers and lasts for men who, from experience, indulge their inclination and don’t rail against them; and then, after death, it begins to gab, to gossip recklessly. Even clever people must think carefully what this creature is.15

The process of harvesting the barley—​one of “man’s fine belongings”—​to produce beer is labour-​intensive and exemplifies human craftsmanship, our ability to shape elements of nature to our will; the grain is “cut, threshed, couched, kilned, mashed, strained, sparged, yeasted, covered, racked” before being brought to the houses of men. It submits to human agency and does not “rail against them,” but contains within it “the joy of living beings”—​perhaps a reference to beer’s power to catalyze celebration and laughter through inebriation. Unlike mead in the previous riddle, the barley-​turned-​ ale only finds its voice “after death” when “it begins to gab /​ to gossip recklessly.” It is only after it is essentially destroyed—​soaked, malted, sprouted, mashed, boiled, cooled, and fermented—​that it becomes the drink featured at the king’s table and the impetus for storytelling, as we see with the beer drinkers in Beowulf. The possibility of “John Barleycorn” as the answer is supported by the riddle’s attention to the regenerative qualities of beer; in the John Barleycorn poetic tradition, the eponymous figure must die (rather violently, via the brewing process) in order to produce new life.16 Such a reading also aligns beer with the transformative and symbolic power of wine as understood in the Christian Eucharist. If “beer” itself is accepted as one of the possible solutions for the polysemous Riddle 28, then this text reinforces the perception of beer as the product of human craftsmanship and artistry—​something new created out of raw materials. 14 See Megan Cavell’s Exeter Book blog The Riddle Ages, at https://​theriddleages.wordpress.com/​ tag/​riddle-​28/​. Last accessed August 11, 2019.

15 Kevin Crossley-​Holland, trans., The Exeter Book Riddles (London: Enthiharmon, 2008), 94, 31.

16 While the John Barleycorn poems survive in late medieval and early modern texts, the widespread nature of this poetic tradition suggests that there were certainly earlier antecedents. See Peter Wood, “John Barleycorn:  The Evolution of a Folk-​Song Family,” Folk Music Journal 8 (2004): 438–​55.

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The craftsmanship and vitality of brewing as suggested in Riddle 28 reflected the practice’s historical reality. Richard Unger points out that around this same time or shortly before—​in the eighth and ninth centuries—beer production did indeed become more technologically advanced as larger-​scale brewing systems developed in the monasteries. In order for the monks to fulfill their obligations of hospitality to guests, they required a sufficient amount of beer to serve, and in order to produce that amount, it was critical to develop more advanced equipment and techniques.17 The St Gall monastery plan of 820 CE, for example, shows the layout of three separate brewhouses designed to produce beer for separate consumers (monks, guests, and for sale). Stoves, multiple vats for heating the water and boiling the wort, a mill likely powered by water, and heating and cooling rooms were available in each brewhouse.18 Producing a good beer was one way to show off the skilled work of one’s monastery or region. Even though beer was seen as a crafted product, it was also one that was accessible to a wide range of people. Beer’s centrality to daily life in the early Middle Ages is illustrated by its easy availability and its general simplicity in comparison to wine, a drink that some saw as a decadent indulgence. In Aelfric’s Colloquy, a tenth-​century dialogue between a teacher and pupil designed to aid young monks in learning Latin, one of the questions is about the young man’s drinking habits: Teacher: What did you have to drink? Boy: I drink ale, usually, if I drink at all, and water if I have no ale. Teacher: Don’t you drink wine? Boy: No, I am not rich enough to be able to buy myself wine: Wine is not a drink for boys or fools but for old men and wise men.19

Wine, this interchange suggests, was not only a luxury that many could not afford, but something to be reserved for those whose wisdom and experience had earned them such indulgence. The ideal conditions for producing wine were more difficult to achieve than those for beer production; this is why wine, throughout the Middle Ages, was generally more expensive than beer.20 James Holly Hanford describes a tradition of lighthearted wine versus beer debate poetry in medieval France and Germany and apparently stemming from the water versus wine debates, but gives no examples from England.21 He does, however, locate an extension of that tradition in an early seventeenth-​century English play. The main characters listed in the cast are “Wine, A  Gentleman,” “Beere, 17 Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages, 26. 18 Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages, 27–​28.

19 Ann Watkins, “Aelfric’s Colloquy:  Translated from the Latin” (Maidstone: Kent Archaeology Society, n.d.), Paper 016. www.kentarchaeology.ac/​authors/​016.pdf. Last accessed August 12, 2019.

20 Richard Unger outlines the price differential between wine and beer in various regions across Europe, but also demonstrates that beer outpriced wine occasionally (usually when hops were involved) (Beer in the Middle Ages, 74–​75).

21 Wine, Beere, Ale, and Tobacco: A Seventeenth Century Interlude, ed. James Holly Hanford, Studies in Philology 12.1 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1915), 9–10.

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A Citizen,” and “Ale, A Countrey-​man” along with the secondary characters Sugar, Nutmeg, Toast, Water, and Tobacco. This list of characters, with the different class specifications for the three drinks, illustrates long-​standing perceptions of wine, beer, and ale. These are expanded in the body of the play, as this one example suggests: Beere: why Wine, art not thou kept vnder locke and key, confinde to some corner of a cellar [… .] where Beere goes abroad, and randeuous in euery place. Wine: Thou in euery place? away hop of my thumbe; Beere, I am asham’d of thee.

Wine is a gentleman; he is fastidious, aloof, and exclusive. Beer is an “everyman” character, who “randeuous in euery place,” to the disgust of Wine. I have quoted the play here because it echoes earlier attitudes towards beer versus wine, particularly in England, where beer tended to be associated with the English and wine with the French (due in part to climatic differences between the two countries, no doubt). Sometimes such attitudes were implied even if a contrast between the two beverages was not explicitly invoked, as in the “Treatise of wyne” found in two fifteenth-​century manuscripts.22 This macaronic poem alters English and Latin lines in its praise of the sophisticated quality and divine connections of wine. While beer is not mentioned, wine is described as a drink meant for those who are noble, intelligent, and sophisticated. As stanza 21 tells the reader, “Gentyll blood loueth [loveth] gentyll drynk /​Simile amat simile.”23 Literary and historical records of the early to high medieval period in England reveal some similar assumptions about the sophistication of wine versus the simplicity of beer—​and sometimes a pushback against those assumptions in an effort to demonstrate beer’s superiority. For example, William Fitzstephen, clerk to Thomas Becket who was at the time chancellor to Henry II, describes a lavish gift of ale Becket provided to the French—​the first example of English ale being exported. Becket visited France in 1158 on Henry’s behalf in order to negotiate a marriage between the French king’s daughter and Henry’s eldest son, and to display the wonders of England an extravagant retinue accompanied him. Featured in this retinue, according to Fitzstephen, were two wagons laden only with “iron-​bound barrels of ale, decocted from choice fat grain, as a gift for the French who wondered at such an invention—​a drink most wholesome, clear of all dregs, rivalling wine in colour, and surpassing it in savour.”24 Despite beer being a beverage suitable for all social classes and all occasions, it was also a beverage that those in the British Isles took pride in producing, both on a local level, with unique regional variations, and on a national level. Thomas Becket was known for producing excellent beer, and the fact that he apparently did so using water from the pond where he and his monks bathed did not prevent him from becoming a famed brewer and the patron saint 22 Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Eng. Poet. E.1, ff. 35v–​38 and Oxford, Balliol College MS 354, pp. 207–​8. 23 Transcription available in the appendix of the following doctoral dissertation: Kathleen Rose Palti, “ ‘Synge we now alle and sum’:  Three Fifteenth-​Century Collections of Communal Song.” A study of British Library, Sloane MS 2593; Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Poet.e.1; and St John’s College, Cambridge MS S.54, PhD diss., University College London. 24 Hornsey, History of Beer and Brewing, 288–​89.

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of London’s Brewers’ Company.25 It was therefore suitable that he was the one to share England’s excellent ale with France, whose citizens would be likely to prefer wine. Just a few years after Becket’s visit to France, the royal clerk and chronicler Gerald of Wales described an experience illustrating a similar perception of beer as a healthy, high-​ quality, indubitably English drink. In his account, Gerald sits down to a silent meal with the monks at Canterbury and is put off by their ostentatious gesturing, which he believes makes them look like actors and “buffoons.” The six courses served are “sumptuous” and decadent, although the “masses of herbs” served alongside them are hardly touched. He continues: Add to this, that there was such abundance of wine and strong drink—​of piment and claree, of new wine and mead and mulberry wine, and all intoxicating liquors in so much abundance that even beer, which the English brew excellently (especially in Kent), found no place; but rather beer stood as low in this matter as the pot-​herbs among other dishes.26

The monks’ failure to accept the beer at table was not a condemnation of the beer, but a condemnation of the monks, as it signalled their prideful ostentation, their needless indulgence in unhealthy luxuries (in comparison to the wholesome English beer and herbs), and their sinful gluttony. One falls into gluttony when one eats in incorrect measures—​at the wrong time, the wrong amount, or the wrong type of food.27 The vernacular translation of Archbishop Thoresby’s Lay Folks’ Catechism, a thirteenth-​century summary of the contents of the faith produced in response to the religious education requirements articulated in the 1215 Lateran Council, describes the nuances of this sin: On is to ete or drynke ouer [too] erly or ouer late Another for to ete ofte or drynk but need mak yt Another for to loue ouer delycatly To ete or drynke ouer mokyl [too much] or ouer hastyle Or to kast on what wyse [consider in what way] we may gete delicious mete or drynke28

25 Martyn Cornell, “The Patron Saint of English Brewers,” Martyn Cornell’s Zythophile: Beer Now and Then (blog), February 1, 2010, http://​zythophile.co.uk/​2010/​02/​01/​the-​patron-​saint-​of-​ english-​brewers/​. Last accessed August 12, 2019. The Brewers’ Company still includes in its coat of arms a dark-​skinned, light-​haired woman who is supposed to represent Becket’s North African stepmother. This image replaced a more obvious Becket connection (his own arms) when Henry VIII became head of the Church of England and any references to Catholic saints became dangerous. See the Brewers’ Company’s explanation here:  www.brewershall.co.uk/​the-​companys-​coat-​of-​ arms/​. Last accessed August 12, 2019.

26 George Sampson, ed., The Cambridge Book of Prose and Verse in Illustration of English Literature, from the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1924), 162. 27 Katherine Harvey, “Food, Drink, and the Bishop in Medieval England, ca. 1100–​ca. 1300,” Viator 46 (May 1, 2015): 161–​62. See also Susan Hill, “ ‘The Ooze of Gluttony’: Attitudes towards Food, Eating, and Excess in the Middle Ages,” in The Seven Deadly Sins: From Communities to Individuals, ed. Richard Newhauser, vol. 123, Medieval and Reformation Traditions (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 57–​72.

28 Lines 1345–​1349 in Thomas Frederick Simmons and Henry Edward Nolloth, eds., The Lay Folks Catechism, or the English and Latin Versions of Archbishop Thoresby’s Instruction for the People, EETS Original Series 118 (London: Early English Text Society, 1901).

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To choose food or drink because of one’s discerning palate and to enjoy the taste could therefore itself be gluttony, as could a preoccupation over when one would next eat or drink; overindulgence was not the only way to commit this sin. Beer, unlike the more expensive and elite wine, was ubiquitous at mealtimes in England, but was often served in simplicity. The will of Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, a fourteenth-​century English knight, directs that a meal of bread and ale should be served at his funeral, but then adds a substantial budget of £20 for the addition of wine and spices.29 Beer was the daily staple; wine was the luxury. The simplicity of beer, in terms of both production and taste, as well as its lower alcohol content, made it a morally safer drink than wine. Particularly righteous clerics, such as the eleventh-​century Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester, might choose water over beer or mead, but it was generally acceptable for monks to drink beer on a regular basis.30 Beer was consumed throughout the day because the alcohol content was low, and was therefore not considered an overindulgence in general (although drunkenness was, of course, a problem). Indeed, monks often had an official daily allowance of ale; at Abingdon, which appears to be representative of monastic practice, that allowance was one gallon per monk per day.31 While this seems like a significant amount by modern standards, in a time when beer was low in alcohol and had various health benefits, it was far from unusual. Monks and other clerics, from Thomas Becket down to the lowliest brother, were not just consumers of beer, of course; they also produced it. Indeed, of all medieval brewers, monks are perhaps the most well remembered in the modern mind (see Chapter  4 for further discussion of monkish medievalism). Because the monastic calling mandated self-​sufficiency, monks were required to produce their own food and drink, consuming some, donating some, and selling any excess.32 As noted earlier in the example of the St Gall monastery’s brewhouses, the resources of the monasteries meant that they had the capital to begin producing beer in larger quantities than regular households and with more advanced technology. This is a process aligned with the incipient capitalism that Michael Elliott describes as Weberian “rationalization,” an “unusually disciplined and methodological organization of life conduct that sought to tame and redirect spontaneous human desires.”33 The early monastic rationalization of the brewing process was, in other words, a spiritually inflected precursor to the professional industrialization of brewing towards the end of the Middle Ages. Monasteries were, according to Elliott as well as Unger, among the earliest brewers to use technologically advanced techniques and tools to standardize and optimize their beer production. When the beer guilds developed in the fourteenth century, the professionalization of brewing shifted from monks to laymen, but monks in Western Europe 29 Michael Camille, Mirror in Parchment: The Luttrell Psalter and the Making of Medieval England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 126. 30 Harvey, “Food, Drink, and the Bishop,” 165. 31 Hornsey, History of Beer and Brewing, 290. 32 Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages, 27.

33 Elliott, “The Rationalization of Craft Beer,” 60.

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did not stop—​even though they were hampered by both the Reformation and, much later on, France’s revolution. Indeed, beer produced by monasteries remains highly valued to this day. However, many current monastic beers—​referred to as Belgian or Trappist beer—​ are actually more modern than medieval in origin. Research has shown that consumers attribute more value to beers thought to be produced by monks, likely because of the perception of their authenticity and connection to the past.34 Those consumers may be somewhat surprised to know that what we know now as Trappist and Belgian beers do not trace their lineage to the Middle Ages (at least not directly) but to the nineteenth century, when Belgian’s monasteries, which had been destroyed during the French Revolution, were reestablished after Belgian’s independence from the Netherlands in 1830.35 As the craft beer movement developed in the 1980s and 1990s, the popularity of monastic beers increased, to the extent that the category of “Trappist” was contested. In 1997, the term “Trappist” was legally restricted to apply to beers produced at certified Trappist monasteries—​six at the time, but eleven now.36 Craft brewers turned to the terms “Abbey” and “Belgian-​style” in order to avoid the legal problems with “Trappist” while still drawing upon the cultural and symbolic value of monastic brewing. However, while monasteries have rich symbolic capital that is often used to market beer, the role of monks in European beer production from 500 CE until the modern era is by no means as simple, nor even as central, as such symbolism suggests. Beer was produced by holy men and touted as a drink to develop one’s good English character, but of course one could still either overindulge or develop too fastidious and decadent an appetite, like the monks of Gerald’s tale. Either path could lead one into the sin of gluttony. The character of Gluttony in William Langland’s late fourteenth-​ century poem Piers Plowman does just that. On his way to church, he is lured into an alehouse by Betty the Brewster, who promises him good ale, and inside he joins a cheery crowd of reprobates, from the prostitute Clarice with her priestly companion, to Dawe the Digger, Griffith the Welshman, and “a do3eyne oþere,” all of whom “geue Gloton wiþ glad chere good ale to hanselle” (Piers Plowman B:V:307–​319).37 They play a drinking game and become increasingly intoxicated: “There was lau3ynge and lourynge and ‘Lat go þe cuppe!’ ” (337). One imagines a medieval version of the sitcom Cheers, with happy inebriates singing songs and toasting one another. The drinking songs recorded in various collections, briefly discussed later in this chapter, certainly echoed the reality of life in an alehouse. 34 Donadini and Porretta, “Uncovering Patterns of Consumers’ Interest for Beer,” 194.

35 Beverland, Michael, Adam Lindgreen, and Michael Vink, “Projecting Authenticity through Advertising: Consumer Judgments of Advertisers’ Claims,” Journal of Advertising 37 (2008): 5–​15 (6). 36 Beverland, Lindgreen, and Vink, “Projecting Authenticity,” 6–​9. The term “Abbey” is often used in lieu of “Trappist,” since the legal constraints around that term’s usage were not particularly strong.

37 Citations from Piers Plowman are taken from William Langland, Piers Plowman: A Parallel-​Text Edition of the A, B, C, and Z Texts, ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 2nd ed., vol. 1, 2 vols. (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2011).

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In Piers Plowman, the results of such overindulgence in ale are both disgusting and humorous. Glutton’s excessive drinking reveals itself in a lack of bodily control: Gloton hadde yglubbed [gulped] a gallon and a gille. Hise guttes gonne to goþelen [began to rumble as two gredy sowes; He pissed a potel in a Paternoster-​while, And blew his rounde ruwet at his ruggebones ende, That alle þat herde þat horn helde hir nose after. (B:V:340–​44)

After Glutton “pisses” and farts, he stumbles home with the help of his friend Clement the Cobbler and ends his journey by vomiting into Clement’s lap before his wife and serving girl carry him to bed. The account of Glutton’s indulgence reveals how drunkenness makes the body ridiculous and out of control; his guts are like greedy pigs rumbling for food, his flatulence is like a horn that everyone hears (and smells), and he cannot even walk without his friends and wife helping him. In addition, the alliteration and assonance in this passage combine to create an onomatopoetic effect that enhances the bodily inebriation and chaos being conveyed. For example, the words “glubbed,” “gallon,” and “gille” evoke the sounds made while swallowing and in the back of the mouth , and “pissed a potel in a Paternoster-​while” rather shockingly combines the crude onomatopoeia of “pissed” with the religious term “Paternoster.” However, it is not the ale itself that is to blame for such chaos; the poem does not advocate teetotalling. It is the immoderate and untimely drinking of ale. Glutton’s remorseful confession, given in the midst of his hangover, draws upon the theological understanding of gluttony as outlined in medieval sermons: And ouerseyen me at my soper [And overate at supper] and som tyme at nones That I, Gloton, girte it vp er I hadde gon a myle [vomited it up before I had gone a mile] And yspilt þat my3te be spared [I wasted what I might have saved] and spended on som hungry Ouer-​delicately on feestyng days drunken and eten boþe And sat som tyme so long þere þat I sleep and eet at ones [sleep and eat together]. For loue [love] of tales in tauernes, to drynke þe moore I dyned And hyed to þe mete er noon [went to go eat meat before noon] whan it fastyng dayes were. (B:V:372–​78)

Glutton recognizes that it is not ale that is sinful, but his immoderate consumption of it, at times when he should not (on fasting days), with too much fussiness (“ouer-​delicately” on feasting days), and in an imbalanced manner (drinking more than eating at taverns). He also sometimes eats during sleeping times and wastes food and drink when it could have gone to the needy. Like food, ale itself is not to blame for Glutton’s gluttony. Glutton’s confession is unquestionably the most entertaining and lighthearted of all the confessions of the Sins in Piers, as my somewhat flippant comparison with the sitcom Cheers suggested. The serious moral implications of gluttony, manifested mostly in drunkenness here, are less evident in Langland’s treatment of the sin, although it is clear that

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Glutton recognizes the difference between gluttony and normal drinking practices. Is this because ale was such a basic dietary staple and such a widespread tool for social bonding? Certainly, part of Glutton’s motivation for entering the tavern was his “loue of tales” (B:V:377) and the companionship of his fellow drinkers. In his Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer creates a similarly humorous representation of inebriation, one that would easily align with the drinking songs so popular in the later Middle Ages.38 The drunken Miller who can barely sit on his horse is Chaucer’s most famous inebriate. When he drunkenly steps forward to respond to the Knight’s tale with a tale of his own, the Host tries to stop him: Oure Hooste saugh [saw] that he was dronke of ale, And seyde, “Abyd [wait], Robyn, my leeve [dear] brother; Som bettre man shal telle us first another. Abyd, and lat us werken thriftily.” “By Goddes soule,” quod he, “that wol nat I; For I wol speke or elles go my wey.” Oure Hoost answerde, “Tel on, a devel wey! Thou art a fool; thy wit is overcome.” “Now herkneth,” quod the Millere, “alle and some! But first I make a protestacioun That I am dronke; I knowe it by my soun. [sound] And therfore if that I mysspeke or seye, Wyte it [attribute it to] the ale of Southwerk, I you preye.” (“Miller’s Tale,” 3128–​40)39

Unsurprisingly, it is ale—​and more specifically, the ale of Southwark—​that has intoxicated the Miller, as both the Miller and the Host recognize in this passage. The Miller, like Glutton in Piers Plowman, is described as a “cherl” (3182) whose drink of choice and necessity would be ale or beer, not wine. Beer is a churl’s drink, even as it is also an eminently English drink. This tension between beer as a welcoming democratic drink and the consequential association of beer with low-​class hooligans (since it is, after all, accessible to everyone) is echoed to some degree in the nature of the tale the Miller tells. We are warned by the pilgrim/​narrator Chaucer that it will be a “cherl’s tale” and that a “gentil wight” may not wish to read it; this is Chaucer’s authorial deflection, in which he warns that he cannot be blamed for any offense caused by the tale he is about to copy down. However, it is also a form of the modesty topos, a medieval convention in which the author disavows responsibility for his or her work so as not to appear prideful or hubristic. It came to function as an informal marketing strategy before the mass production and circulation of books, sometimes in conjunction with the “Go litel boke” trope.40 Pilgrim Chaucer’s disavowal has the 38 For examples of alehouse songs, see Palti, “ ‘Synge we now alle and sum,’ ” 17, 192–​94, 318–​22.

39 Citations from The Canterbury Tales are taken from Geoffrey Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry Benson, 3rd ed. (Boston: Houghton, 1987).

40 For a discussion of this conceit, see David Lawton, “Dullness and the Fifteenth Century,” ELH 54 (1987): 761–​99, and John S. P. Tatlock, “The Epilog of Chaucer’s ‘Troilus,’ ” Modern Philology 18 (1921): 625–​59.

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effect of actually making the reader more curious about what the churl will say; we all find villains or flawed heroes more interesting than untouchable saints. The Miller is a sinner who would be recognizable to contemporary readers of the Tales. He is drunk on a local ale; he is arguing with a local reeve. We want to hear more from him. We also want to hear more from him because of the effect the good Southwark ale has had on him. He warns that if he misspeaks, we must blame it on that ale—​but readers want him to misspeak. The ale enables him to be a better, perhaps a more brutally honest and unselfconscious, tale teller than he might otherwise have been. After all, the Miller’s Tale is one of the best-​known and most entertaining of all the pilgrims’ stories. We might understand the Southwark ale as embodying his own modesty topos; the Miller is an author, and the ale is his human weakness. The ale, however, does not disrupt or threaten the telling of his tale, as the Host fears when he warns the Miller that his “wit is overcome”; instead, it energizes the tale. Ale—​the everyman drink—​empowers the Miller to “quyte” the Knight, to speak as an equal to him, even when others attempt to wrest that speaking space away from him. His insistence on speaking is often seen as obnoxious, an example of the behaviour one can expect from the lower classes, but perhaps we might also understand it as an exercise of power enabled by beer, the drink of the people. Beer—​or alcohol in general—​has long been seen as a catalyst for loosening one’s tongue, sometimes to ill effect but other times with brilliance.41 Medieval Norse folklore, for example, attributes the inception of poetry to “an intoxicating drink formed from the gods’ spittle”; in other words, inebriation could provide access to the divine.42 The late medieval The Ladder of Foure Ronges describes spiritual contemplation as intoxication.43 The early modern poet John Taylor praises beer’s ability to enhance or empower speech of truth and sophistication: “it puts eloquence into the oratour; it will make the philosopher talk profoundly, the scholar learnedly, and the lawyer acutely and feelingly […] it is a great friend to the truth, for they that drink of it (to the purpose) will reveale all they knowe, be it never so secret to be kept.”44 If we recall this long and varied history in which inebriation engenders divine knowledge or skill, my revised and admittedly unusual reading of the obnoxious Miller might be less unexpected. The Host tries to force him to “abyd,” to wait, but the Miller, fortified by English ale, will not relinquish the authorial space he has claimed. As Chaucer’s and Langland’s drunkard figures suggest, medieval representations of drunkenness often occur in discourses of celebration or conviviality, in which the merry-​making is either humorous or a catalyst for community bonding, despite its attendant problems. Such representations, which often are male-​ and ale-​oriented, appear to be intended for entertainment rather than for moral guidance (such as one might 41 The concluding chapter of this book discusses this issue in more detail.

42 Margaret Clunies Ross, A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics (Cambridge: Brewer, 2005). 94. See the concluding chapter of this current book for a discussion of the divine, mystical associations of alcohol in human culture. 43 This text is discussed briefly in Chapter 6. 44 Marchant, In Praise of Ale, 57–​58.

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encounter in a sermon cautioning against the evils of intoxication). They were also much more popular than sermons, unsurprisingly. There are, for example, many simple folk songs that were likely invented and sung in the alehouse or tavern and then recorded in personal collections. Some, such as IMEV 549, comprise repeated calls for more ale, or praise for the drink: “Bryng vs in good ale & bryng vs in good ale /​ffor owr blyssyd lady sak bryng vs in good ale.” In a series of short stanzas, the speaker declines all other foods and delicacies for various reasons (too many bones in beef, shells in eggs, and hairs in butter, for example), but insists on more ale being brought to the table. Other drinking songs focus on the humorous effects of (usually male) drunkenness. For example, a short macaronic poem/​song in British Library Sloane MS 2593, in a moment of intertextual or even metatextual play, has the speaker interrupt his own song about birds to complain that he needs a drink, even though the more he drinks the worse he performs. IMEV 163, on the other hand, seems to take a more morally rigorous stance against drunkenness: Ale mak many a mane to haue a doty poll [have a sore head] Ale mak many a mane to styk at a brere [to become stuck in a briar bush] Ale mak many a mane to ly in the myere [lie in the mire] & ale mak many a mane to slep by the fyere with doll [sleep by the fire in pain].

These first few lines are representative of the remainder. The poem enumerates the ­various ways ale can compromise a man, including death in the final line (“Ale mak many a mane to hang vpon þe gallows”). While this song seems to be a lecture about the pitfalls of drinking ale, critics have disputed whether the tone is serious or satiric. Kathleen Palti outlines the different points of view but also emphasizes that the carol form used in this poem suggests a convivial context. She points out that the song’s interpretive framework would be established by the method of its performance, although it is likely that it is “primarily exuberant entertainment, capable of absorbing moralistic censure into the fun.”45 As is the case with modern instances of friends sharing shocking and amusing stories of intoxication as a mode of social connection, medieval representations of drunkenness could be simultaneously a lighthearted warning against overindulgence and a form of entertainment. This treatment of drunkenness is, as mentioned earlier, heavily gendered in medieval texts. Some texts, such as John Gower’s Confessio Amantis, offer generalized warnings against drunkenness (which Gower links to gluttony, as Langland does), but misogyny often lies just under the surface. In Gower’s case, the diatribe against “drunkenschip” is followed immediately by the dangers of being “lovedrunke,” an ailment that has taken down many “stronge,” “wise,” and “knihtli” men.46 Women are seen as both intoxicating (to men) themselves, and as more susceptible to intoxication—​and more dangerous when they are drunk. While texts representing male drunkenness often function as the literary version of a humorous finger-​wagging, this is almost never the case when 45 Palti, “ ‘Synge we now alle and sum,’ ” 193.

46 See the opening of Book VI of the Confessio for the full condemnation of drunkenness.

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it comes to women and alcohol. In her recent book, Carissa Harris demonstrates how male drinking in the Middle Ages was a key component of homosocial bonding, while female drinking—​or even the selling of alcohol by women—​signalled their sexual availability to men and justified sexual assault on them.47 Women who drink, or who drink more than expected, are figures of disgust and dangerous unruliness, even in purportedly humorous representations. In “Lament of a Hen-​Pecked Husband” (IMEV 210), for example, a husband laments how his wife’s uncontrollable behaviour brings more care to his heart. One of his husbandly trials is his wife’s compulsion to drink ale: If she wyll to þe gud ale ryd [If we wants to ride to the good ale] Me must trot all be hyr syd & whan she drynk I must abyd carfull ys my hart þerfor

The husband is forced to accompany his wife on her ale hunt and then sit by and watch her indulge, but he himself does not join her. The implication is that the husband maintains moral strength by “abiding” while his wife drinks. Indeed, he is better able to understand the evils of her indulgence in ale when he does not partake. There is no sense that the scene of the wife drinking is celebratory or jolly; instead, it seems melancholic. It appears that the wife’s desire to drink at all is itself an overindulgence, in contrast to many representations of male drinking.

Willful Women: Gender and the Commodification of Beer in the Middle Ages

These negative attitudes to women drinking beer are part of a broader history of women and beer brewing. Although this chapter has focused largely on the general ways in which medieval literary and historical texts represented beer, this last section focuses more specifically on the relationship between gender, profit, and professionalization in representations of brewing and beer drinking. The economics of beer and the industry’s increasing marginalization of brewsters in the medieval period mutually affected one another.48 The gradual exclusion of women from the brewing industry naturalized beer’s position as a masculine symbol and a product of masculine power—​a position it retains to this day. In August 2017, shortly after Google employee James Damore’s infamous internal memo decrying efforts to increase gender diversity at Google, the Pacific Standard published an article by historian and freelance writer David M. Perry that compared the modern exclusion of women from tech professions such as coding to women’s exclusion from brewing in the Middle Ages. The “Google bros” and the “medieval beer bros,” Perry argues, successfully disenfranchised skilled women in order to retain financial control 47 Carissa Harris, Obscene Pedagogies: Transgressive Talk and Sexual Education in Late Medieval Britain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018), 56–​58, 214.

48 As Bennett notes, “brewsters” was the term for female brewers. While women continued to brew throughout the Middle Ages, they became increasingly likely to be “hidden” by their husband’s

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in an increasingly valuable industry: “It turns out that, whenever an occupation becomes profitable, women get cut out.”49 This is essentially the point that Judith Bennett makes when she painstakingly traces out the historical records to show the effect of government intervention in the brewing industry in England. Until the mid-​fourteenth century, the majority of brewers were women, and most brewing was done in the home.50 Bennett’s survey of presentments by village ale tasters notes that many names on the brewer lists were female. When men were cited as the brewer, this was usually done as a matter of civic recordkeeping wherein the head of the brewing household was named on the presentment, even when the wife actually did the brewing.51 The establishment of brewing guilds and the introduction of new technology for beer production and preservation that expanded storage and transportation options all contributed to making brewing not just something done in the kitchen, but performed on a large, profitable scale. Bennett argues that women’s gradual exclusion from the industry was not, however, a natural consequence of its advancing technological and economic sophistication: “Women rarely brewed beer for profit not because of some innate connection between masculinity and technology but instead because of social, legal, and economic barriers that limited their access to beerbrewing.”52 As brewing became profitable, women’s access to those profits was frequently blocked, particularly towards the end of the medieval period. The cultural significance of beer in the Middle Ages—​its association with national identity, physical health, and conviviality—​became increasingly gendered as masculine, and moved into male control as it became more profitable. As evident in numerous literary and historical representations, some of which are cited earlier in this book, the positive features of beer were consistently depicted in masculine terms or using male figures. In O’Brien’s words, there was, and is, a “collective amnesia” about the beneficial role women had in brewing.53 This intentional forgetting and rewriting the feminine history of beer is, in part, a consequence of beer’s changing status as an economic commodity. As beer and brewing were increasingly drawn into the purview of men, women’s important role in the industry was both forgotten and reinscribed. This reinscription occurred under the auspices of fear: fear of female drunkenness, lechery, and greed. It was, in other words, a fear of women becoming too ambitious, too influential, and too much in control of their own sexuality. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, the literature name or to be excluded from the social and financial resources necessary to brew professionally. Non-​married women were far more likely to experience these kinds of exclusion, according to Bennett. 49 David Perry, “What Google Bros Have in Common with Medieval Beer Bros,” Pacific Standard, August 22, 2017. 50 I use “brewer” in a gender-​neutral fashion here, even though Judith Bennett demonstrates that “brewer” generally denoted a man, while “brewster” was a woman.

51 See Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters, 163–​64, as well as the Appendix, for a detailed account of how she recognized this pattern of “hidden” wives in the brewing records. 52 Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters, 79. 53 O’Brien, Fermenting Revolution, 65.

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of brewing was preoccupied with women like the drunk wife of the henpecked husband cited earlier, the devilish temptation of Piers Plowman’s Betty Brewster, and of course, Betty’s cohort: the dangerous, greedy, promiscuous alewives. Alewife literature in England is one of the most memorable traces of medieval brewing, retaining cultural traction for centuries after the Middle Ages. The medieval alewife or brewster appears in a variety of genres, from historical accounts (including that of Margery Kempe), to poetry and mystery cycle plays, the Holkham Bible, and church misericords and wall paintings.54 As Judith Bennett and others have shown, alewives were depicted in increasingly unflattering terms throughout the Middle Ages, and the only two positive representations Bennett could locate were not from the medieval period.55 She demonstrates that medieval and early modern representations of alewives were almost exclusively negative, as they “dwelt on fearful images of willful and self-​ governing women.”56 Ralph Hanna responded to these generalizations about alewife literature by indicating that, despite Bennett’s assertions, there are texts that treat alewives relatively positively, and that anti-​alewife sentiment is driven not by misogyny but by “abiding suspicions of victualling as a profession.”57 Others remain skeptical of dismissing the misogyny of this genre. There is certainly a link between antipathy to alewives and fear of drinking establishments as places of cheating and debauchery, as Michelle Sauer has indicated, but alewives were nevertheless demonized as promiscuous and dangerous in ways that male tavern or alehouse owners were not.58 Earnshaw reinforces the essential misogyny of this genre in his argument that depictions of alewives were often connected to a wider tradition of cuckold literature, “with its unspoken fear of women who are out of men’s control” and the correspondent humiliation of men.59 Indeed, as Geoff Parkins points out, modern witch tropes (hat, kettle, broom) owe much to premodern depictions of alewives.60 The suspicion of alewives increased as England’s brewing increased in scale and technology towards the end of the fourteenth century. During this period, there was a significant decrease in both grain prices and wine imports, which resulted in a heightened demand for beer occurring just as beer became more cost-​effective to produce. There was, therefore, profit to be had in brewing after the Black Death, which led to the industry becoming more “industrialized and professionalized.”61 The increasing formalization of the brewers’ guild was one manifestation of these changes. There are records from 54 Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters, 125. 55 Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England, 132; Earnshaw, The Pub in Literature, 22–​26; Sauer, Gender in Medieval Culture, 135–​37. 56 Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England, 134. 57 Hanna, “Brewing Trouble,” 10.

58 Sauer, Gender in Medieval Culture, 135–​37.

59 Earnshaw, The Pub in Literature, 23.

60 Geoff Parkins, “How Women First Got Pushed from Kettle to Cauldron,” Oct.Co, October 30, 2017. https://​oct.co/​essays/​how-​women-​got-​pushed-​kettle-​cauldron. Last accessed August 13, 2019. 61 Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters, 10, 44.

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1292 and 1312 referring to an organized guild of brewers in London, although they did not receive a royal charter of incorporation until 1438.62 Another example of brewing’s increased industrialization was the increase in drinking establishments outside the home, such as taverns and alehouses. While the distinction is not always preserved in medieval texts, it appears that, in general, taverns catered to a wealthier clientele and served wine (and later food), while alehouses were often located in the brewster’s own home and served ale but no wine or food, thus were patronized by the poor. The kind of semi-​public drinking and dining that occurred in alehouses and cookshops in the early fourteenth century led to widespread backlash against the corrupt practices of those establishments.63 These types of lower-​class “pubs” were generally much cheaper than taverns, and, like other trades that catered to the poor, often used regratery and other forms of theft with few consequences.64 While both men and women were guilty of regratery and other kinds of mercantile corruption, there was clearly a belief that women were more naturally inclined to deception; in Bennett’s words, “it seems that public anxieties about the drink trade […] were displaced from all brewers onto female brewers alone.”65 Antipathy towards alewives thus increased with the professionalization of brewing and the potential of brewing to be profitable; the negative perception of these female brewers is certainly related to a general fear of women becoming more independent, wealthy, and socially influential. Bennett points out that brewing was one of few occupations open to women, and it was more profitable and prestigious than many of the alternatives (although these benefits were largely conferred on brewsters who were married and therefore under the control of a man; single women had a much harder time of it).66 Margery Kempe, a married woman living in the early fifteenth century, began brewing in the hope of gaining social status in her town: And than, for pure coveytyse and for to maynten hir pride, sche gan to brewyn and was on of the grettest brewers in the town N a three yer or four tyl sche lost mech good, for sche had nevyr ure [experience] therto. For, thow sche had nevyr so good servawntys and cunnyng in brewyng, yet it wold nevyr prevyn with hem. For, whan the ale was as fayr standyng undyr berm [formation of the yeast] as any man mygth se, sodenly the berm wold fallyn down that alle the ale was lost every brewyng aftyr other, that hir servawntys weryn aschamyd and wold not dwellyn wyth hir. Than this creatur thowt how God had punched [punished] hir befortyme and sche cowd not be war [wary], and now eftsons be lesyng of hir goodys, and than sche left and brewyd no mor.67

62 Hornsey, History of Beer and Brewing, 296; see also www.brewershall.co.uk/​history-​and-​ treasures/​. Last accessed August 18, 2019.

63 Sauer, Gender in Medieval Culture, 135–​37.

64 Martha Carlin, “ ‘What Say You to a Piece of Beef and Mustard?’: The Evolution of Public Dining in Medieval and Tudor London,” Huntington Library Quarterly 71 (2008): 202–​3. 65 Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters, 12 (italics hers). 66 Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters, 10, 38–​43.

67 Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe, ed. Lynn Staley, TEAMS Middle English Texts Series (Rochester:  University of Rochester, 1996), http://​d.lib.rochester.edu/​teams/​text/​staley-​ book-​of-​margery-​kempe-​book-​i-​part-​i, Book 1, Part 1, lines 204–​12.

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Margery admits that her motivation to begin brewing was “pure coveytyse” and “to maynten hir pride,” which suggests that brewing could increase a woman’s wealth and thus elevate her social standing. Her failure at brewing is therefore also a social failure, as indicated by her servants (who themselves were knowledgeable about brewing) feeling “aschamyd” and refusing to live with her. As she realizes her humiliation and lost revenue, Margery rejects brewing. In Margery’s brief account of her failed brewing business we can see a possible context for late medieval misogynistic views of alewives. Ambitious women—​women who desired wealth or influence—​were not to be trusted, and neither were women who sold inebriating products such as beer. Fear of corrupt merchants, powerful women, and the social disruption of intoxication all combine against alewives. John Gower’s late fourteenth-​century Anglo-​Norman poem Mirour de l’Omme exemplifies such targeted anxiety. Gower warns that “the trade of regratery belongeth by right the rather to women […] she in her stinginess useth much more machination and deceit than a man. […] All who beseech her do but lose their time, for nothing doth she by courtesy, as anyone who drinketh in her house knoweth full well” (lines 26,329–​40).68 Although Gower begins by castigating deceitful female merchants in general, the reference to people drinking in her house suggests that she is an alewife. In Langland’s Piers Plowman we encounter two tricky alewives. The first is Avarice’s wife, Rose the Regrater, who produces subpar products in order to stretch her supplies and make more money. While she produces and sells cloth, she is also an alewife, and Avarice describes how she plies her trade: I bou3t hire barly—​she brew it to selle. Peny ale and puddyng ale she poured togideres; For laborers and for lowe folk, þat lay by hymselue. The beste ale lay in my bour or in my bedchambre, And whoso bummed þerof, he bou3te it þerafter A gallon for a grote, God woot, no lesse, Whan it cam in cuppemele—​þis craft my wif vsed. (B:V:215–​21)

Penny ale and pudding ale were of inferior quality, quick to brew and usually sold to the poor.69 Rose combines them in order to sell to the customers who have tasted the “beste ale” that is found in her and her husband’s “bour” or “bedchambre.” In other words, 68 Translation is from Eileen Power, Medieval Women (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1975), 60. My thanks to Dr. Elizaveta Strakhov for confirming several elements of this translation. The original French (taken from MacCaulay’s edition of Mirour de l’Omme) reads as follows: “Mais pour voirdire en cest endroit /​As femmes plus partient du droit /​Le mestier de Regraterie: /​Mais si la femme au faire soit, /​Molt plus engine et plus deçoit /​Qe l’omme de sa chincerie; /​Car endroit soy ne lerra mie /​Le proufit d’une soule mie, /​Q’a son voisin ne tient estroit: /​Tout perd son temps cil qui la prie, /​Car riens ne fait par courtoisie, /​Ce sciet qui deinz sa meson boit.” 69 Charlotte Boyce and Joan Fitzpatrick, A History of Food in Literature: From the Fourteenth Century to the Present (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), 20.

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customers believe they are buying the good ale and are given the cheap ale instead. Her trickery is emblematic of an alewife’s character. Moreover, the reference to the good ale being tasted in the bower or bedchamber may be a sideways glance at the reputation of alewives as temptresses who give their favours freely. Bennett and Harris both point out that alehouses were associated with sexual misbehaviour and that alewives themselves were often cast as loose women.70 Langland’s second alewife is indeed a temptress, although not an explicitly sexual one. She is Betty the Brewster, who lures Glutton away from his journey to church and into her alehouse with the promise of “good ale” and “hote spices” with which to flavour it (Piers Plowman B:V:303–​6). When she asks him to stay a while (“Woltow assaye?”) and taste her wares, she tempts him away from the church, where he was going to make his confession. The conflation of ale drinking, women, and seduction also occurs in John Lydgate’s early fifteenth-​century poem “Ballad on an Ale-​Seller.”71 The “vnstabilnesse,” “counterfett cheer,” and “dowbilnesse” (1–​3) of the woman he loved prompts Lydgate to produce his poem. Her tempting sexuality is clear: “Your calling look […] Your brestis bare […] Your lauhtir, and your sadde kissyng […] call men to your lur” (9–​13). He establishes from the beginning that this woman intentionally seduces men. It is not until the seventh stanza—​ more than halfway through the poem—​that she is identified with her profession: Gladly ye wil, to gete you acqueyntaunce, Calle men to drynke, althouhe thei therfor pay; With your kissyng thouh that ye do pleasaunce It shal be derrer [dearer/​more expensive], er [before] thei go ther wey, Than al ther ale, to them I dar weel saye. Thus withe your ale, and withe your cheer so slye, Ye them disseyve, that in yow moste affye. (45–​51)

Like Betty the Brewster, Lydgate’s lady draws men into her alehouse. Unlike Betty, however, she uses her sexual appeal to entice them into purchasing her product. Sexual seduction and ale selling are therefore entirely conflated in this poem. She urges men to buy her ale with her “kissyng” but she deceives them about both her love and the quality of her merchandise. The men pay more than they expect because not only have they paid money for her ale, but they have also lost their hearts to her false seduction: “With your kissyng […] it shal be derrer, er thei go ther way /​ than al ther ale” (47–​49). The association of alehouses with sexual licentiousness was certainly due in part to the perception of alewives as temptresses. 70 Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters, 123, 133. Harris discusses how “popular representations of tapsters as rapacious sex workers” justify the sexual assault of, or sexual pressure placed on, these women by alehouse patrons (Obscene Pedagogies, 214–​15).

71 Lines from the “Ballad” are cited from John Lydgate, The Minor Poems of John Lydgate: Part II, ed. Henry MacCracken, Early English Text Society, Original Series 192 (London: Oxford University Press, 1934).

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Perhaps the most famous alewife poem is John Skelton’s early sixteenth-​century poem The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng, written well after the professionalization of brewing and when anti-​alewife sentiment was deeply entrenched.72 Like Glutton in Piers Plowman, Elinor is both disgusting and entertaining; the reader is invited to laugh at as well as condemn her. The satire in Skelton’s poem, however, is much sharper and more malicious than in Langland’s, although critics do not always agree on the ultimate target of that satire. Raymond-​Jean Frontain summarizes the scholarly conversation about The Tunnyng by asking whether Elinor is “a powerful, transgressive hero or the butt of clerical antifeminist satire.”73 She is certainly not the pretty temptress of Lydgate’s poem, or the skilled brewster of Langland’s, both of whom seduce men into their alehouses. Elinor is repulsive in appearance: her face is “vgly […] Droupy and drowsy /​Scuruy and lowsy […] Lyke a rost pygges eare /​Brystled with here” and her “lewde lyppes” trail drool “lyke a ropy rayne” (15–​16, 19–​20, 22–​23). Indeed, her appearance is so loathly that “it would aswage /​A mannes courage” (10–​11), which indicates primarily that she is frightening, but with the underlying, more satiric, implication that her looks precipitate male impotence. Her strange headgear looks like that of a “Sarasyn” or an “Egyptian” (74, 78), thus rendering her suspiciously un-​English. Elinor is clearly not a woman likely to tempt men into her alehouse using her sexual appeal. She is, however, a temptress. Her alehouse draws in other women—​women whose appearance becomes somewhat like Elinor’s. Women come “runnynge” (128) to Elinor to partake of her ale, and as they come, they appear more slatternly: “Some wenches come vnlased /​Some huswyues come vnbrased /​ Wyth theyr naked pappes /​ That flyppes and flappes […] All scuruy with scabbes […] Theyr tresses vntrust/​ All full of vnlust” (133–​36, 140, 147–​48). These women wear their sexuality openly, but it is not something appealing to men. In fact, such open sexuality, with disease imbricated in it, signifies unmanaged female power. The housewives who flock to Elinor’s alehouse embody the widespread cultural unease with, to repeat Bennett’s words, “willful and self-​governing women.” The fear that The Tunnyng stokes is that a woman can defile, taint, or corrupt men and masculinity through her influence and her independence. Elinor draws women to her alehouse not just to have them drink her wares, but to teach them how to seduce men using her special recipes. In the second passus, the poem describes the unsanitary conditions in which Elinor brews, which include the dung from her chickens roosting above dropping into the vats below. The dung, she insists, makes the ale “thycker /​And flowre the more quicker” (205–​6). Moreover, she assures her female clientele that this questionable recipe is fine because she learned it from “a Jewe” when she first began brewing and that she has “founde it trew” (208, 210). Because Jews had been officially expelled from England in 1290 (a brutally anti-​Semitic edict not officially overturned until 1657), any business done with a Jewish person would be secretive and illegitimate, yet Elinor lauds it as “trew.” Elinor’s moral turpitude is thus signalled not only by her 72 Citations from The Tunnyng are taken from John Skelton, The Poetical Works of John Skelton, ed. Alexander Dyce, vol. 1, 2 vols. (London: Rodd, 1873). 73 Raymond-​Jean Frontain, “Envy, Simple Lines, and the Festive Mode of Skelton’s Elynour Rummyng,” Cahiers Elisabethains 74 (2008): 33–​36 (34).

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foreign appearance (like an Egyptian or a Saracen), but also by her use of an illicit Jewish recipe to taint good English beer. Elinor insists upon the talismanic qualities of the ale she brews and her patrons—​ the other women in her community—​believe her. If a woman drinks Elinor’s ale, she will look young and beautiful to her husband—​a claim that a customer soon affirms when she describes how she and her husband “rout and snort […] As two pygges in a sty” (232–​34). However, the animalistic quality of their mating reinforces the poem’s satiric tone, as snorting and routing like pigs does not quite suggest a woman whose youth and beauty has enraptured her husband. In the third passus, just after this example of a magically seductive ale that will compel a husband to “rout” with his wife, women are described entering Elinor’s establishment so desperate for a drink that they are willing to give anything they own as payment, from spinning equipment, to cloaks and dresses, to sourdough, to their husbands’ personal items, such as caps, hoods, and even wedding rings (276–​300). These women will not only use ale to deceive their husbands, but they will give away their husbands’ property in order to procure it. Furthermore, they disregard any control their husbands may attempt to exert over them: “Some go streyght thyder [to Elinor], /​ Be it slayt or slyder; /​ They holde the hye waye, /​ They care not what men say” (257–​60). As the poem proceeds through passus five, the women become increasingly repulsive. One urinates on herself. Another is so disgusting in appearance that the narrator tells us that “Ones hed wold haue aked [ached] /​ To se her naked […] Suche a bedfellaw /​ Wold make one cast his craw [vomit]” (478–​79, 488–​89). Women who are independent, overtly sexual, deceitful, corrupting, and ultimately revolting are what await men if women hold financial stakes in an industry such as brewing.

Conclusion: 1516 and All That

By the sixteenth century—​the time of Skelton’s poem—​brewing in England and across Western Europe had shifted from a domestic activity with health and household benefits to a highly regulated, government-​controlled industry with a broad customer base and high potential for profit.74 The year 1516 is often touted as the key moment in beer history that allowed this change to occur; this year marked the introduction of the Bavarian Purity Law, or the Reinheitsgebot. This law restricted the grains used in beer to barley only, and forbade additives other than hops, therefore excluding the earlier medieval gruit. Although in reality it only applied to Bavaria and was really designed to increase taxation revenue rather than improve beer taste, ideologically the Reinheitsgebot was about beer purity and consistency;75 1516 is therefore imagined now as a signal moment for beer purists everywhere, a sign that beer moved from the “Dark Ages” into the light of the Renaissance.76 Some beers completely unrelated to Germany, such as Okanagan Springs Brewing’s 1516 Lager, use the year 1516 in their marketing simply because of 74 Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters, 9; O’Brien, Fermenting Revolution, 66. 75 O’Brien, Fermenting Revolution, 66.

76 The law is generally thought of as a watershed moment and many German breweries have purportedly followed it for centuries. It is seen as a source of national pride, as this German social

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the symbolic power of that moment. The notion of purity translates easily to modern-​ day craft beer culture, in which a brewery’s “craft” status is partially contingent upon the purity of its ingredients, and breweries whose craft is not authentic are judged inadequate not just in taste, but in morality.77 I have introduced the Reinheitsgebot at the very end of this chapter on beer’s history of representation to highlight its relative unimportance in the overall development of brewing as an industry and a practice. Despite its mythologized status, the 1516 purity law (a) applied only in Bavaria, and (b) was just one small reflection of changes that had been slowly happening for decades, or even centuries, earlier across Western Europe. Standardization and regulation of brewing had been occurring gradually for long before 1516. In 1268, for example, Louis IX of France proclaimed that “Nothing shall enter into the composition of beer but good malt and hops.”78 In England in 1267, Henry III made the assize of ale, which had previously been a regulation established and enforced in local jurisdictions only, national law.79 While it may feel natural to locate the inception of regulated brewing closer to the early modern period than to the Middle Ages, in reality there was no clear revelatory or transforming moment. The increasing standardization of the brewing industry that began in the monasteries—​its rationalization, as Elliott describes it—​therefore extended beyond the cloisters in a process of standardization and homogenization that began well before 1516.80 Such “rationalization” had two general effects: it reduced local diversity in beer by limiting ingredients that could be added, and it provided a mechanism for industry gatekeeping that protected male brewers. As brewing became technologically sophisticated and governed by regulations, it offered more potential for profit; such changes made professional brewing less accessible to women because, in Bennett’s words, “they lacked the necessary capital, they lacked ready access to distant markets, and they lacked network’s article on the law indicates:  www.alumniportal-​deutschland.org/​en/​germany/​eating-​ drinking/​deutsches-​bier-​reinheitsgebot/​. Last accessed August 13, 2019. Many breweries, particularly those with a historical orientation, refer to 1516 in their marketing materials. At least one (Okanagan Springs) has named one of its beers after it. However, the Reinheitsgebot’s 500th anniversary precipitated many critiques of its efficacy and whether it actually ensures beer quality. For a review of some recent critiques, see Esme Nicholson, “Germany’s Beer Purity Law Is 500 Years Old. Is It Past Its Sell-​By Date?,” NPR.Org, April 29, 2016, sec. Food, History, and Culture. www.npr. org/​sections/​thesalt/​2016/​04/​29/​475138367/​germanys-​beer-​purity-​law-​is-​500-​years-​old-​is-​it-​ past-​its-​sell-​by-​date. Last accessed August 13, 2019.

77 See Brad Tuttle, “Trouble Brewing: The Craft Beer vs. ‘Crafty’ Beer Cat Fight,” Time, December 27, 2012, http://​business.time.com/​2012/​12/​27/​trouble-​brewing-​the-​craft-​beer-​vs-​crafty-​beer-​ cat-​fight/​(last accessed August 13, 2019), and Rice, “Professional Purity,” 245–​49. 78 Hornsey, History of Beer and Brewing, 294.

79 See Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters, 99–​102, and Hornsey, History of Beer and Brewing, 292.

80 As noted earlier, Max Weber developed the concept of rationalization to describe how “increasing formalization, standardization, systemization, calculation, and the like […] permeate Western culture” (Elliott, “The Rationalization of Craft Beer,” 60).

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managerial authority.”81 The more the industry became rationalized, in the Weberian sense, the more difficult it was for women to retain a place in it. Until 1450, approximately 30 percent of members in London’s Brewers Guild were women; by 1500, it was just 7 percent.82 Women dropped out of involvement in brewing, or at least out of sight, as some of them brewed under their husband’s name. They became invisible. In other words, as beer production itself became less diverse and more homogenized in terms of flavours and ingredients, the social structure of the industry became less diverse as well. The masculinization of brewing came to define the industry for centuries. Women are still, in many ways, made to feel a bit like interlopers in modern male-​dominated craft beer culture, even though we might consider medieval female brewers, with their local recipes and limited product circulation, to be the true origins of the craft beer ethos celebrated today. The following chapter explores some of the modern-​day consequences of the slow exit of women from medieval brewing and how the standardization of brewing during the late medieval period might allow us to understand the hold that large beer corporations have had on the beer industry today.

81 Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters, 89. 82 Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages, 225.

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Chapter 3

RESISTANCE AND REVOLUTION: CRAFT BEER VERSUS CORPORATE GIANTS THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER ended with the early modern period, and this chapter leaps into the 1980s. There is, of course, a wealth of sociohistorical information about the centuries in between; the full story of craft beer does not begin with the American legalization of homebrewing in 1978.1 It was not until the 1980s, however, that the industry began to develop into the form in which we see it today, in both Canada and the United States. This chapter provides the important corporate context for the rapid growth of craft brewing in North America and considers how the political and social ideologies of craft beer were largely shaped by resistance and dissent while simultaneously—​and unconsciously—​becoming complicit with those same points of resistance.

Beer Production in North America:  Corporate Giants and the “Little Guys”

The craft-​brewing industry in North America is both a response to and a result of the growth of corporations. One cannot explore the craft beer industry without also understanding the rise of powerful North American corporate brewers, those whose names are widely recognized even by non-​drinkers—​companies such as Budweiser, Miller, Coors, Molson, and Labatt. These beer giants hold a monopoly on the industry but also offer an ideologically useful contrast to the growing population of craft brewers seen by themselves and others as the “authentic little guys.”2 In summarizing the pattern of craft and corporate growth over the past several decades, I hope to provide some important economic context for the sociocultural impact of craft beer and the use of history in its marketing. While beer has a storied history from the early modern period until the early twentieth century, my focus is predominantly on what happened in Canadian and American brewing from the late 1970s until today. During these past forty years, craft 1 I cannot do justice to the history of brewing from the eighteenth to the late twentieth centuries—​ a time span that includes the industrial revolution, Prohibition, and the rise of the major brewing corporations—​so I refer readers to the following selection of sources regarding that period: Stanley Wade Baron, Brewed in America: The History of Beer and Ale in the United States (New York: Little, Brown, 1962); Ann McGahan, “The Emergence of the National Brewing Oligopoly: Competition in the American Market, 1933–​58,” Business History Review 65 (1991): 229–​84; Ronald Plavchan, “A History of Anheuser-​Busch, 1852–​1933,” PhD diss., St. Louis University, 1969; Frederick Salem, Beer: Its History and Its Economic Value as a National Beverage (New  York:  Arno, 1880); Martin Stack, “Local and Regional Breweries in America’s Brewing Industry, 1865–​1920,” Business History Review 74 (Autumn 2000): 435–​63; James Sumner, Brewing Science, Technology, and Print, 1700–​ 1880 (London: Routledge, 2013). 2 Tuttle, “Trouble Brewing.”

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Table 1: Growth of Craft Brewing in the United States 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0

1980

1985

1994

2000

2013

2015

2017

# of Craft Brewers

brewing has become not only an increasingly influential economic player, but a cultural symbol of taste, ingenuity, freedom, and (comprising all these things) masculinity. The temperance movement and the years of Prohibition (1920–​1933 in the United States, 1919–​1920 in Canada) dealt a hard blow to small-​scale brewers. When US Prohibition ended in 1933, the only brewers that could survive were those that were already large—​companies such as Pabst and Coors.3 The 1,700 American breweries that existed before Prohibition were mostly wiped out, but the illegal private production of beer and moonshine thrived for decades until President Carter finally legalized homebrewing for personal consumption in 1978.4 Several years earlier, the federal government had reduced from $9 to $7 per barrel the excise tax on breweries making less than 60,000 barrels annually, a shift that eased the financial pressure on small brewers.5 As a result of these changes, the 1980s saw a surge in the American craft-​brewing movement that grew exponentially through the 1990s and the 2000s, from a small handful to thousands, as Table 1 indicates.6 There are now more than 800 craft-​brewing businesses in Canada7 and more than 6,000 in the United States,8 a difference that seems significant until you also consider the difference in overall populations (36 million and 325 million, respectively), which 3 Beckham, “Entrepreneurial Leisure,” 85.

4 Chapman, Lellock, and Lippard, “Exploring the Cultural Dimensions of Craft Beer,” 4. 5 Hindy, The Craft Beer Revolution, 26.

6 Craft brewers include microbreweries, regional breweries, and brewpubs. The statistics in this table were taken from Reid, McLaughlin, and Moore, “From Yellow Fizz to Big Biz,” 114; Gatrell, Reid, and Steiger, “Branding Spaces,” 1–​2; and the information under the “Stats and Data” section on the US Brewers Association website (www.brewersassociation.org). While some small discrepancies appear in these different sources between the brewer numbers from 2013 and 2015, they do not affect the overall pattern of growth that is evident here.

7 Aaron Saltzman, “Peak Beer? Why Some Are Worried the Craft-​Brewing Craze Could Flood the Market,” CBC News, December 14, 2017. www.cbc.ca/​news/​business/​beer-​craftbeer-​toolshed-​ labatt-​molson-​draught-​sleeman-​sapporo-​abinbev-​1.4439295. Last accessed August 13, 2019. 8 According to the statistics regularly collected by the US Brewers Association.

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reveals that the number of craft brewers per capita is similar. But how is “craft beer” or a “craft brewery” actually defined? To be accepted as a craft brewer, the business must adhere to several criteria. In Canada, a craft brewer must be independently owned and produce less than 2 million barrels per year, according to one source, or 150,000 hectolitres according to another.9 In the United States, the Brewers Association (BA) is the federal arbiter of craft status. The BA states that to be defined as “craft,” the brewery must be small (producing 6  million barrels or less per year), independent (less than 25 percent owned by a non-​craft brewer in the beer industry), and traditional (most of its products must be “beers whose flavors derive from traditional or innovative brewing ingredients”).10 As this chapter discusses, the border that separates craft from corporate or “crafty” beer is contested, as the symbolic value of “craft” can provide economic benefits in our increasingly globalized and corporatized culture. This growth in craft brewing was concurrent with the inflation of corporate culture and the increase in mergers between “big beer” companies. In other words, as the numbers of craft brewers were exploding, big beer companies were reducing in number but taking up a larger percentage of the market. In the 1980s, the companies Anheuser-​ Busch, Miller, Coors, and Pabst controlled approximately 75  percent of the American beer industry. By 2008, Anheuser-​Busch had merged with the Brazilian beer company AmBev and the Belgian company Interbrew to become the global beer conglomerate Anheuser-​Busch InBev. In 2016, Anheuser-​Busch InBev acquired the multinational brewing company SABMiller in the fifth largest merger on record globally.11 This beer giant now controls more than 200 beer brands, including Budweiser, Bud Light, Corona, Stella Artois, Beck’s, Carling Black Label, Carlton, Hoegaarden, Pilsen, Modelo, Michelob, and brands still thought of as Canadian, such as Labatt and Alexander Keith’s. Competing with Anheuser-​Busch InBev in the United States is no longer Miller, Coors, and Pabst, but one behemoth corporation: MillerCoors, an arm of the now global company Molson Coors. In 2005, the Canadian beer company Molson and the American beer company Coors merged to form the multinational beer corporation Molson Coors, which, in partnership with SABMiller,12 established MillerCoors as the American branch of its brewing business and the main corporate competitor of Anheuser-​Busch (Molson Coors remains the name of the Canadian and European branches of the company).13 Molson Coors not only produces and sells Miller and Coors, two of the biggest North American beer 9 Couillard, “Breweries in Canada,” 33; Joe Wiebe, Craft Beer Revolution: The Insider’s Guide to B.C. Breweries, 2nd ed. (Madeira Park: Douglas and McIntyre, 2015), 4.

10 “Craft Brewer Defined,” Brewers Association. www.brewersassociation.org/​statistics/​craft-​ brewer-​defined/​. Last accessed August 13, 2019. 11 Ignazio Cabras and David Higgins, “Beer, Brewing, and Business History,” Business History 58 (2016): 609–​24 (610–​14).

12 When it was acquired by Anheuser-​Busch in 2016, however, SABMiller sold its stake in the Miller brands, and therefore Molson Coors now owns MillerCoors. 13 “Miller, Coors Double-​Team Bud,” CNNMoney.Com, October 9, 2007. https://​web.archive. org/​web/​20071103124625/​ http://​money.cnn.com/​2007/​10/​09/​news/​companies/​bc.apfn. molsoncoors.sabm.ap/​index.htm?postversion=2007100910. Last accessed August 13, 2019.

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brands, but also Blue Moon (American), Belgian Moon (Canadian), and Rickard’s Red (Canadian), three popular beers marketed using a craft beer aesthetic when they are actually produced by a corporate giant, a strategy decried by the American Brewers Association, as discussed in what follows. It is apparent from this brief survey that corporate brewing in the United States has ­regularly intertwined with the Canadian industry, but I  will take a moment to consider the rise of “big beer” from Canada’s perspective. Before Canadian Prohibition, there were 117 breweries, but by 1985 there were only 10—​and just 3 held 96 percent of the market.14 In 1980, Budweiser’s introduction to Canada forced those three main Canadian beer companies—​Carling O’Keefe, Labatt, and Molson—​to revamp their offerings in order to compete.15 In 1987, Molson acquired Carling O’Keefe, giving Molson 53 percent of the market and reducing the Canadian corporate beer industry to just two companies. By 1992, Molson and Labatt were holding nearly equal shares of the beer market; they were, in Ian Coutts’ words, “two powerful enemies, each unable to defeat the other, but obliged to expend incredible resources just to remain deadlocked.”16 Stock in Labatt fell in 1994, however, and the company was taken over by the Belgian company Interbrew, which in 2008 became part of Anheuser-​Busch InBev. In 2005, of course, Molson had merged with Coors to create the multinational Molson Coors. The only Canadian-​owned large brewery left in Canada is Moosehead Breweries of New Brunswick, which kept afloat by partnering with US companies to sell its product south of the border.17 The statistics on the craft beer industry in Canada are more difficult to find than those on the craft beer industry in the United States, in part because there was no single federal moment (such as Carter’s legalization of homebrewing) that opened the industry up to wider participation. Most brewing activity is controlled on a provincial rather than federal basis. Homebrewing for personal consumption in Canada was already legal in 1978, and had been for many years, but homebrewing for sale is strictly regulated by the provincial and territorial liquor control boards and requires a license. The highly regulated nature of craft brewing in Canada is one of the reasons why it did not explode at the same rate as the industry in the United States.18 Like in the United States, however, where many of the first craft brewers and microbreweries were west coast companies such as New Albion Brewing and Sierra Nevada Brewing, Canada’s west coast was also where craft beer first began to flourish.19 Frank Appleton, a pioneer in the Canadian craft-​brewing industry, was another west coast brewer. Appleton had worked 14 Crystal Luxmore, “Craft Brewing in Canada,” Canadian Encyclopedia, June 16, 2015. www. thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/​en/​article/​craft-​brewing-​in-​canada/​. Last accessed August 13, 2019.

15 Coutts, Brew North, 120–​32. 16 Coutts, Brew North, 124.

17 Coutts, Brew North, 128–​29.

18 Couillard, “Breweries in Canada.”

19 The Brewer’s Digest’s records of microbreweries and midsize breweries nationwide from 1972 to 1992 show a clear pattern of midsize breweries dominating the east coast but experiencing steep decline, and microbreweries clustering along the west coast as they increased in numbers. Charts

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for years for Carling O’Keefe before writing a now famous article on homebrewing in the 1978 edition of Harrowsmith magazine (the same year that President Carter legalized homebrewing). In this article, he derided the tastelessness of “big beer” and urged consumers to make their own. The remainder of the article offers step-​by-​step instructions for homebrewing, but Appleton’s manifesto against corporate beer is worth quoting at length here: The stage has been reached where all the big breweries are making virtually the same product, with different names and labels. […] The small breweries that produced the unique brands and flavours that once gave this country an international reputation have been swallowed in the past 30 years by three giants: Canadian Breweries [Carling O’Keefe], Molson’s and Labatt’s. Ninety percent of the beer consumed in Canada is produced by these conglomerates, and […] what is found inside their bottles is essentially the same product. Like tasteless white bread and the universal cardboard hamburger, the new beer is produced for the tasteless common denominator. It must not offend anyone, anywhere. Corporate beer is not too heavy, not too bitter, not too alcoholic, not too malty, not too yeasty, and not too gassy. In other words, corporate beer reduces every characteristic that makes beer beer. […] So—​if you want a brew that really has a taste and character and that you can afford to drink, you have to make your own.20

Appleton’s dissatisfaction with the Canadian beer industry resonated with an increasingly unhappy population of beer drinkers across North America and has been cited in many books on craft brewing. While Harrowsmith is a small publication, Appleton became a central figure in a growing industry and others echoed his views. In 1982, another early craft brewer, Matthew Reich of New Amsterdam Brewing in New  York, expressed a similar unhappiness with the quality of American macro beer:  “I wondered why I couldn’t buy American beers that had real taste.”21 Around the same time, James Schlueter of Sacramento’s River City Brewing aligned corporate beer’s reliable predictability with blandness and cheapness, much as Appleton did: “Most [corporate] American beers are clean and consistent and inexpensive. Like Velveeta cheese.”22 His comment was a polite slight against the dullness of corporate lagers and pilsners. The early 1980s also saw the launch of Colorado’s Great American Beer Festival, now one of the biggest celebrations of craft beer in North America. Appleton’s little article, while a small moment in a small Canadian publication, was just slightly ahead of the trend, are provided in Flack, “Ale-​ing for Place,” 46–​48. In a 1983 Washington Post article about the turn to craft beer, the reporter identified six out of the ten microbreweries in North America as being on the west coast (British Columbia, Washington, and California). Of the four remaining, two were in New York, one was in Michigan, and one was in Colorado. See Mike Kelly, “Where to Find the Microbreweries,” Washington Post, August 14, 1983, Sunday edition, sec. Food. 20 Appleton, “The Underground Brewmaster,” 86.

21 Bryan Miller, “An Effort to Revive New  York Beer (in Utica, for Now):  An Attempt to Revive New York Beer,” New York Times, June 29, 1983, sec. C1.

22 Daniel Lindley, “Small Beer: But Microbrewers Are a Yeasty Lot,” Barron’s National Business and Financial Weekly, May 9, 1983: 41.

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signalling a pronounced turn to a different kind of beer consumption among North American brewers and drinkers. Appleton’s article led to the establishment of the very first craft brewery in Canada. John Mitchell, who had moved to the west coast of Canada from England and was inspired by the Campaign for Real Ale that was flourishing there, contacted Appleton in 1981 to request his advice and assistance in making his own ale to sell at his establishment, the Troller Pub in Horseshoe Bay, North Vancouver. Despite inauspicious beginnings, their efforts were eventually successful, and the Horseshoe Bay Brewery was born. Their success in the market owed something to the provincial deregulation of beer prices that led to corporate beer price gouging and the premier’s resulting desperation for industry competition. Independent brewers selling unique beers at local pubs seemed like a good way to begin loosening corporate beer’s stranglehold on the industry.23 Appleton’s expertise, which he had initially gained at Carling O’Keefe then sharpened in his own homebrewing practice and through establishing Horseshoe Bay Brewery with Mitchell, was sought by many other would-​be brewpub owners and brewers. As a result, Appleton was instrumental in establishing additional important craft breweries in British Columbia, such as Swan’s Brewpub and Spinnakers. As more consumers began to seek beer that was not “tasteless” or “lowest common denominator,” in Appleton’s words, the big beer corporations started developing product lines that were similar to craft beer but did not, in reality, meet the craft criteria cited earlier. In the 1990s, these efforts to compete with the craft industry were not always successful; for example, Molson’s Red Dog, whose packaging did not mention Molson and used a cartoon canine mascot, was marketed as “somehow ‘edgy’ and ‘alternative’ [but] by the fall of 1994 it was more commonly referred to as ‘Dead Dog.’ ”24 Molson found much more success with Rickard’s Red, which remains a very popular brand. Similarly, Shock Top and Blue Moon also use craft-​style marketing that hides their brand affiliation, which was initially SABMiller and Anheuser-​Busch InBev, respectively.25 In December 2012, the Brewers Association called for such deceptive marketing to stop: “The large, multinational brewers appear to be deliberately attempting to blur the lines between their crafty, craft-​like beers and true craft beers. […] We call for transparency in brand ownership […] in a way that allows beer drinkers to make an informed choice.”26 It is unsurprising that the large brewers are trying to imitate craft breweries, given market trends in recent years. Craft beer revenues have been steadily increasing even though North Americans are drinking less beer, on average, than before; beer drinkers are

23 Appleton, Brewing Revolution, 51–​76. 24 Coutts, Brew North, 148.

25 Since Anheuser-​Busch InBev’s acquisition of SABMiller, they are under a single corporation.

26 “Craft vs. Crafty: A Statement from the Brewers Association,” Brewers Association, December 6, 2012. www.brewersassociation.org/​press-​releases/​craft-​vs-​crafty-​a-​statement-​from-​the-​brewers​association/​. Last accessed August 18, 2019.

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willing to pay more but drink less, valuing taste and quality over volume.27 The tastelessness and lack of character that Appleton and others found so repellant in corporate beer has only become more evident as the years have passed and many more unique, flavourful craft beers have flooded the market. These beers are not just an appealing alternative to the dull “yellow fizz” of Molson or Bud, however; they are revealing something about what North American society is becoming and what it wants to be.28

The Meaning of Craft Beer: Identity, Status, Resistance

The previous section outlined the tension between corporate and craft brewing in the North American beer industry and established the general definitions of “craft brewer” in Canada and the United States. However, the meaning of “craft beer” or “craft brewing” extends far beyond these economic frameworks. Joe Wiebe, author of Craft Beer Revolution: The Insider’s Guide to B.C. Breweries, introduces his tour of British Columbia craft brewers by highlighting how the craft beer industry expanded not just because of a good product, but because good beer came to be linked to the food industry, much in the way that wine is. Furthermore, the use of the term “craft” is significant, since it “carries much more meaning and value” than equivalent terms such as “micro.”29 Wiebe does not expand on the nature of the value and meaning he ascribes to the word “craft,” but it is reasonable to ascertain that he may have been considering the association of “craft” with concepts such as artisan, handmade, skilled labour, and unique products. To craft something is to shape it by hand, to develop an intimate relationship with the object created. Far earlier, in 1987, an article in New Brewer by beer writer Charlie Papazian defined a craft brewery as “any brewery using the manual arts and skills of a brewer to create its products,” a definition that aligns with the various meanings of “craft.”30 Craft beer—​both its production and its consumption—​has become a powerful social signifier and a connection to the local in a world increasingly controlled by global, anonymous corporations that disseminate homogenous products disconnected from those who produce them. Making, consuming, and knowing craft beer is a method of identity formation in our consumer society, and it is one fraught with our assumptions about what it means to be masculine. The increasing popularity of craft beer in North America is propelled by a desire for authenticity, uniqueness, and taste in a culture of “smothering homogeneity.”31 These characteristics apply not only to the product being purchased, however, but also to the purchaser and how they see themselves, as the research across several disciplines indicates.32 According to Donadini and Porretta’s study of craft beer consumption 27 Gatrell, Reid, and Steiger, “Branding Spaces,” 2.

28 Reid, McLaughlin, and Moore, “From Yellow Fizz to Big Biz,” 114. 29 Wiebe, Craft Beer Revolution, 4.

30 Quoted in Hindy, The Craft Beer Revolution, 34.

31 Schnelle and Reese, “Microbreweries, Place, and Identity in the United States,” 167. 32 Reid, McLaughlin, and Moore, “From Yellow Fizz to Big Biz,” 120.

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patterns, the product’s attraction is partially due to its embodiment of “innovation,” “creativity,” and “authenticity,” as well as “pleasure, enjoyment, sense of identity and belonging, self-​fulfillment, social recognition, and sustainability.”33 The word “authentic” is a particularly powerful one, connoting truth, a rejection of the fake or the temporary, and even a suggestion of intimate connection or vulnerability. A consumer survey by GlobalData found that “Authenticity” was the primary concept consumers associated with craft beer, with 38 percent of respondents choosing it over “Locally made” (36 percent), “Made by small independent producer” (30 percent), and “Made in small batches” (23 percent).34 It is worth noting that the other three options are all very concrete (the place and method of production) while “Authenticity” is an abstraction that allows readers to attribute their own values to it—​values such as those suggested by the associations of “craft” itself. Although this survey was done in the United Kingdom, research in the North American craft beer industry reveals a similar emphasis. Michael Elliott points out how the metrics and other specialized information provided on craft beer labelling serve to “highlight a technical sophistication that accords value and authenticity to the brewer and their product,” since such information is meaningful only to someone who truly cares about how the beer was made.35 Paulsen and Tuller, in their analysis of Jacksonville’s Brewery District, suggest that a sense of authenticity is created when beer is sold and consumed near the place in which it was produced.36 Because of its abstract nature, however, “authenticity” is often not clearly defined when it is deployed. Gatrell, Reid, and Steiger recognize this when they emphasize that though a brewery’s connection to place, space, and history is rooted in fact and can contribute to a sense of the brewer’s authenticity, authenticity itself remains a “socially constructed phenomenon.” Consumers must interpret the product or experience as authentic in order for it to be so.37 This is why a craft beer’s or brewer’s discursive and visual presence is critical to its success; it cannot be deemed authentic unless the consumer believes it. With large beer corporations increasingly emulating craft style in their new brands, craft beer consumers feel more pressure to determine a beer’s authenticity before purchasing it. In Time magazine, Brad Tuttle plays with the term “craft” to address this issue: The results are faux “crafty” beers like Blue Moon and Shock Top, which appear to be created by smalltime operations, while actually being produced by the world’s largest brewers. Naturally, the authentic little guys aren’t pleased.38

33 Donadini and Porretta, “Uncovering Patterns of Consumers’ Interest for Beer,” 183.

34 “Consumers Seek ‘Authentic’ Beer as Big Brands Engulf Independent Craft Breweries,” Drinks Insight Network (blog), February 7, 2018. www.drinks-​insight-​network.com/​comment/​ consumers-​seek-​authentic-​beer-​big-​brands-​engulf-​independent-​craft-​breweries/​. Last accessed August 13, 2019. 35 Elliott, “The Rationalization of Craft Beer,” 63. 36 Paulsen and Tuller, “Crafting Place,” 107.

37 Gatrell, Reid, and Steiger, “Branding Spaces,” 3. 38 Tuttle, “Trouble Brewing,” n.p.

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Tuttle pits the falsity of the inauthentic beer giants with the veracity of the “authentic little guys” in order to imply a difference not only in product quality, but in morality. Jeff Rice expands upon the distinction between how “craft” and “crafty” are used in the craft beer industry, defining the latter “as a narrative indicator of the inauthentic” and comprising “deception, lies, and cunning.”39 The Brewers Association announcement of December 2012, cited earlier, in which it decries corporate beer’s deceitful marketing of Shock Top and Blue Moon, refers to those inauthentic, non-​craft beers as “crafty, craft-​ like beers” that cannot be confused with “true craft beers.”40 The same year, the Brewers Association published a table listing American brewers who might be mistaken for being craft, but in fact are non-​craft brewers because they failed to adhere to at least one of the three craft criteria (small, independent, traditional). Interestingly, August Schell Brewing was initally included on this “crafty” list because it used some non-​malted corn in its brewing, as opposed to just malted barley.41 This rendered it crafty and “inauthentic” to the Brewers Association, a modern judgment that recalls both the Bavarian beer purity laws of 1516 that were designed to homogenize beer and the condemnations of regratery practiced by medieval alewives. There is, clearly, a certain level of standardization (albeit perhaps not full homogeneity) required even within the craft beer sector. This modern drive for purity and the ideological link to 1516 was evident before 2012, however. In 1985, when Jim Koch of Boston Brewing was trying to make his craft beer—​ Sam Adams—​competitive with European imports like Beck’s and Heineken, his radio advertisements attacked the imports for using additives and thereby not adhering to, as he put it, “Germany’s strict beer purity law.” The ads insisted that Sam Adams is “all malt brewing” and takes more than a year to make, in contrast to the three-​hour brewing time for mass-​produced imports.42 In these narratives, pure beer is authentic beer, and authentic beer is true beer. Authenticity in the craft beer industry is, therefore, continually imbricated with the concepts of truth and morality. The shift of former craft breweries into the hands of corporate brewers is troubling because of these moral associations; indeed, such changes in ownership can feel more like a betrayal to craft beer consumers than if a corporate brewer creates its own “crafty” brand, as in the case of Blue Moon. Goose Island Brewery, for example, was a large and successful craft brewer before it was acquired by Anheuser-​Busch, an event that created a huge rift in craft-​brewing circles.43 After 39 Rice, “Professional Purity,” 245–​46.

40 “Craft vs. Crafty,” Brewers Association, n.p.

41 Rice, “Professional Purity,” 247; Daniel Roberts, “Crafty New Beer App Warns of Big-​Brewer Ownership,” Fortune, March 5, 2014. http://​fortune.com/​2014/​03/​05/​crafty-​new-​beer-​app-​ warns-​of-​big-​brewer-​ownership/​. Last accessed August 13, 2019. August Schell Brewing mounted a defense of their brewing practices and was re-added to the craft brewer list. 42 Hindy, The Craft Beer Revolution, 46.

43 Anheuser-​Busch InBev acquired Goose Island in 2011, and this event remains a landmark moment in American craft brewing, to the extent that, in 2018, Josh Noel of the Chicago Tribune published a narrative-​style history of Goose Island and its “selling out”:  Barrel-​Aged Stout and Selling Out: Goose Island, Anheuser-​Busch, and How Craft Beer Became Big Business.

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this takeover, Anheuser-​Busch continued to pursue the acquisition of craft breweries, solidifying its image as a corporate machine of endless consumption.44 More recently, craft-​brewing circles have been rocked (albeit less vehemently) by the merger of two huge craft breweries—​Dogfish Head and Boston Brewing—​in a $300  million deal.45 Corporate consolidation—​between craft brewers as well as craft and corporate brewers—​is increasingly being practiced in the craft industry, and this is something that challenges the ideological purity of what craft represents. If craft beer engages in corporate consolidation just like “big beer” companies do, how can it be seen as resisting the evils of corporate culture? Resistance has long been seen as integral to the craft beer industry’s sense of authenticity. In his study of beer industry writing, Jeff Rice finds clear associations between purity, revolution, and authenticity in craft beer discourses, and he explores the strategies that writers use to evoke these connections.46 He identifies authenticity as being associated with resistance or revolution as early as the nineteenth-​ century arts and crafts movement, which urged a return to valuing handcrafted rather than industrially produced products. As hinted at in Chapter 2, this movement was aligned with nineteenth-​century medievalism, such as the recreation of the Medieval Court at the London Exhibition in 1851. While Rice emphasizes the power of revolutionary vocabulary in establishing truth and authenticity in craft products, the ideology of loss is equally significant. My interpretation of craft beer discourses generally, and their use of medievalism specifically, allows me to explore how they construct themselves as authentic in their recovery of lost technologies, lost values, lost places, and lost stories. This discourse of loss is one way craft brewing reinforces its authentic nature and effaces some of its similarities to corporate beer culture. Under the wide conceptual umbrella of authenticity are the ideas of uniqueness and taste cultivation, since these latter two characteristics contribute to reinforce the first. Craft beer consumers want to drink unique, high-​quality beers, but they also want to see the qualities they value in beer, in themselves; they see themselves not only as having a discerning palate, but as being highly individualized. Craft brewers recognized that their target consumer takes pride in standing out, in being unusual, and the branding of many breweries reflects this knowledge.47 Fuggles and Warlock’s motto is “Keeping Beer Weird” 44 Noel, Barrel-​Aged Stout and Selling Out, 273–​84.

45 See the news story and Boston Brewing press release here: Justin Kendall and Chris Furnari, “Boston Beer Company and Dogfish Head Agree to Merge in $300 Million Deal,” Brewbound, May 9, 2019. www.brewbound.com/​news/​boston-​beer-​company-​and-​dogfish-​head-​agree-​to-​merge-​in-​ 300-​million-​deal. Last accessed August 13, 2019.

46 Words such as resistance, revolution, rebellion, etc., are used frequently in articles and books about craft brewing, and such usage aligns with the vocabulary of nonconformity deployed by craft brewers and drinkers. Even a glance at some beer titles tells the story: Joe Wiebe’s Craft Beer Revolution; Steve Hindy’s The Craft Beer Revolution; Christopher O’Brien’s Fermenting Revolution; Andrew Gill’s “Craft Beer Has Become a Potent Protest Symbol in the Age of Trump,” Takeout, January 20, 2017, https://​thetakeout.com/​craft-​beer-​has-​become-​a-​potent-​protest-​symbol-​in-​ the-​ag-​1798256545. Last accessed August 13, 2019). Jeff Rice’s “Professional Purity.”

47 All of the following slogans are taken from the brewers’ individual websites.

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and the Flying Monkeys Brewery takes “Normal is weird” as its mantra. Strange Fellows Brewing announces that it “go[es] beyond the ordinary to celebrate that which is strange and extraordinary.” Dogfish Head Brewery provides “off-​centered goodness to off-​centered people.” Odd Alewives Farm Brewery states that its name “is a salute to the unusual, a fascination with the strange, and an unannounced love of oddballs.” Black Plague Brewing “represents the misfits, renegades, underdogs, rebels, rule-​breakers, nonconformists, hustlers, D-​I-​Yers, and all those who strive to be better, stand out from the crowd, and follow their true passion.” Oddball Brewing urges consumers to “Live an odd life!” and Sweetwater Brewing’s motto is “Don’t float the mainstream!” Crying Eagle Brewing proudly declares that “our brews are unexpected—​just like us,” and Hermitage Brewing is “a retreat from the ordinary.” These are only a few examples among hundreds or even thousands.48 Mike Foley, the president of Heineken, acknowledged this tendency towards a performance of nonconformity in 1995, when he was commenting upon the growing craft beer revolution and resultant changes in the beer industry: “Mass production is out; specialty production is in. Traditional is out; today’s consumer would rather be one of a kind than one of the guys.”49 As discussed later in this chapter, macrobrewers like Budweiser sometimes denigrate this trend and use it as a way to undermine the craft sector. While craft brewers sometimes meet the desire for uniqueness by deploying strange or humorous branding, the primary strategy for cultivating a unique identity is neolocalism (which can itself also entail oddball, entertaining product branding). Neolocalism is perhaps the most significant feature of craft beer, and one that imbues it with cultural meaning in the challenging marketplace of beer sales; it is a growing movement that Flack calls a “cultural countercurrent” among small businesses,50 and it is generally defined as the strategies businesses use to create a unique identity by reinforcing their attachment to place.51 Such strategies can be performed on multiple levels, from imagery in the branding materials to the business’s community involvement. The current integration of social media into almost all aspects of life, however, has offered opportunities for alternative ways of practicing neolocalism. In his book Craft Obsession: The Social Rhetorics of Beer, Jeff Rice emphasizes that we are in a network 48 I have not surveyed all 8,000 (approximately) craft breweries to determine how many use nonconformity in their branding materials, but I can confirm on an anecdotal level that nearly every brewery I have reviewed does so in some way. My survey of breweries entailed several reviews of the list of craft and microbreweries provided on the US Brewers Association website and the list of Canadian craft brewers, regularly updated, on justbeerapp.com. 49 Quoted in Gerry Khermouch, “A Different Brew,” Brandweek 36 (November 20, 1995): 25–​31. 50 Flack, “American Microbreweries and Neolocalism,” 39.

51 Eberts, “Neolocalism and the Branding and Marketing of Place,” 189; Holtkamp et al., “Assessing Neolocalism in Microbreweries,” 66; Reid, McLaughlin, and Moore, “From Yellow Fizz to Big Biz,” 114; Schnell and Reese, “Microbreweries, Place, and Identity in the United States,” 167; Erik Tyler Withers, “The Impact and Implications of Craft Beer Research:  An Interdisciplinary Literature Review,” in Craft Beverages and Tourism, Volume 1: The Rise of Breweries and Distilleries in the United States, ed. Carol Kline, Susan L. Slocum, and Christina T. Cavaliere (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017), 13; Paulsen and Tuller, “Crafting Place,” 105; Gatrell, Reid, and Steiger, “Branding Spaces,” 2–​3.

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culture of data sharing, one that resists linearity and instead uses various rhetorical techniques in fragmentary, interruptive forms in order to inculcate familiarity and emotional connection even through digital media. He argues that the practice of “craft” lends itself to such fragmentary, anecdotal modes of information sharing, because craft itself is a “network of influences” in which various rhetorical modes, such as repetition, participation, sharing, and beginnings, are used across social media platforms in order to elicit response to a product.52 The assimilation of these fragments creates not so much a brand identity for one brewer, but an industry identity for craft brewing in general: “An industry narrative is not composed by one actor or even by one story. It is composed by a number of actors in different print and digital spaces fashioning a collective industry identity over space and time.”53 The brief “About” section of a brewery’s website is often one place that the business expresses its connection to the community, often through anecdotal origin and naming stories that have a similar flavour from brewery to brewery. For example, Cannonball Creek Brewing in Golden, Colorado, describes how its two owners, Jason Stengl and Brian Hutchinson, both living in Golden, decided to establish a local brewery whose name would reflect the home town they loved. After doing some research they learned that the original name for the majestic Clear Creek that runs through the center of Golden was Cannonball Creek. The historical significance paired with the duo’s love for the iconic Cannonball made the decision a no-​brainer and Cannonball Creek Brewing Company was born.54

The name they chose evokes a central geographical feature of Golden but also integrates a local, “insider” knowledge about the town’s history—​the old name of the main waterway. This same naming strategy—​using a historic name of the region in which the brewery is located—​has been used by many others, including Matthew Reich of Manhattan’s New Amsterdam Brewing (Manhattan was first called New Amsterdam by the seventeenth-​century Dutch colonialists) and Jack McAuliffe of New Albion Brewing (the name given to the American west coast in 1579 by Francis Drake).55 Sweetwater Brewing of Atlanta, Georgia, was named after the local Sweetwater River, but the name has the additional benefit of suggesting some metaphorical sweet waters—​some great-​ tasting beer. Elora Brewing, like many breweries across North America, simply named itself after its town—​Elora, Ontario. Other breweries drew their names not from a town, city, or specific geographical feature such as a river or a canyon, but from the local landscape as a whole. For example, Beach Fire Brewing and Driftwood Brewery are among many Vancouver Island craft breweries whose name and branding iconography evoke the general features of the Pacific northwest’s seashores and temperate rainforest. 52 Rice, Craft Obsession, x. 53 Rice, “Professional Purity,” 255.

54 www.cannonballcreekbrewing.com/​. Last accessed August 13, 2019.

55 Hindy, The Craft Beer Revolution, 21, 14.

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Craft breweries’ engagement in neolocalism goes far beyond brief origin narratives and origin naming, of course. Recipes and flavour profiles that are aligned with local geography or culture can signal local attachment, as with ocean-adjacent Tofino Brewing’s Kelp Stout and Rogue Ale’s Voodoo Doughnut Maple Bacon Ale (named after the doughnut from the famed local bakery, Voodoo Doughnuts). However, neolocal engagement is more often energized in less direct, but equally powerful ways. A  brewery’s hosting of local events or other local vendors and its support of local causes are powerful draws, since they invite both participation and sharing—​rhetorical modes that Rice notes in online communities, such as ratings sites, but that breweries also attempt to cultivate in live gatherings. For example, Cannonball Creek Brewing maintains a regular food truck schedule featuring local vendors and locally produced food. It even subtly identifies itself as politically liberal (in the “purple” state of Colorado, where there is significant political division) by cheekily naming a low-​alcohol session India pale ale (IPA) “Trump Hands,” with the image of a tiny hand on a pint of beer.56 Elora Brewing demonstrated its quirkiness (i.e., its uniqueness) as well as its Canadianness by hosting a 2018 Canada Day party with a “Canadian tuxedo” theme. Any self-​respecting Canadian recognizes the phrase “Canadian tuxedo” as referring to the tacky denim-​on-​denim combination, and the advertisement features a 1980s image of a woman with feathered hair wearing a jean jacket, crop-​top, and jean skirt. The event’s embrace of Canadian-​specific kitsch and tackiness signals its adherence not to high-​culture social exclusivity, but to those who reject conventional markers of taste and class.57 Elora also runs a “Year of Beer” membership program for its local fans; the program includes a growler or four-​ pack a week, one “learn to homebrew” class, four members’ nights with dinner and a beer presentation, and brewery products such as glasses and T-​shirts. This kind of membership program, which is relatively commonplace in craft beer circles, is designed to ensure ongoing participation and feedback from local consumers—​the beer drinkers who live in town and who will likely stop by for a pint a few times a week. Sweetwater Brewing, in keeping with its name, has a long history of working with the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance to fundraise in support of local water conservation and clean-​up.58 Many breweries provide space for the display of local music or art. 56 There is no political commentary or puns in the brewery’s description of the beer, which makes it even more humorous. An emasculating slight against Donald Trump is certainly implied (the small hands, the low alcohol content), but it is not made explicit. In an interview with the Denverite about this award-​winning beer, Cannonball Creek brewer Jonathan Lee simply stated that “It’s not political. It’s anatomical. The man has small hands” (Eric Gorski, “From Trump Hands to a Drama Queen, a Look Inside Colorado Breweries’ GABF success,” Denverite, October 9, 2016. See also www. cannonballcreekbrewing.com/​beers/​xjhlawfn7d5gg33efcbby5p69gohaw. Last accessed August 14, 2019.

57 For a discussion of the sociocultural value of kitsch, see Kristin Congdon and Doug Blandy, “What? Clotheslines and Popbeads Aren’t Trash Anymore? Teaching about Kitsch,” Studies in Art Education 46 (2005):  197–​210. The show Great White North with fictional hosts, the Canadian brothers Bob and Doug McKenzie, embraces a similar aesthetic of tacky Canadianness. 58 http://​sweetwaterbrew.com/​vibe-​events/​. Last accessed August 14, 2019.

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Goozlepipe & Guttyworks in Jacksonville, Florida, is well known for featuring unusual pieces by local artists and combining that aesthetic with medieval décor that echoes the medieval Belgian heritage of beer.59 Muninn’s Post in Kelowna, British Columbia, hosts several events every week, from themed music nights such as Metal Mondays and Celtic Dubstep, to local musicians, to stand-​up comedy evenings.60 This has helped the brewery solidify its place in the Kelowna community and ensure a regular crowd of local patrons. By staking their claim as local through these various strategies, craft breweries align themselves with the emerging “locavore” and 100-​mile-​diet movements, movements that position themselves as opposing corporatization and globalization. This is another way that the craft beer industry constructs itself as rebellious and revolutionary, as discussed earlier. However, neolocalism also helps craft brewers establish their individuality and uniqueness in a market flooded with options. And it is not just the breweries that want to present themselves as unique; their patrons want to see themselves as unusual as well, so in many ways breweries are mirroring what craft beer consumers want to see in their own personalities: quirkiness, edginess, nonconformity, rebelliousness, strength, and ingenuity. Particular challenges are involved in cultivating a sense of uniqueness among craft beer consumers, namely because they are not a terribly diverse group. Earlier in this chapter I quoted Heineken president Mike Foley’s acknowledgement that the modern consumer wants to be one of a kind rather than one of the guys. Foley’s gendering of “today’s consumer” as male is unsurprising; the drive for individuation among craft beer consumers is sharpened by the fact that the craft beer demographic is strikingly homogenous in its white maleness—​just like the demographic for big beer (Budweiser, Molson, Heineken, etc.).61 Foley and his company recognize this; the ads for the Heineken brand Dos Equis connect with white male consumers by presenting the ideal white man—​an aspirational model for upper middle-​class masculinity—​in their famous character, “The Most Interesting Man in the World.”62 While craft beer is a newer market sector than corporate beer, the available research clearly demonstrates that the majority of craft beer consumers are male,63 aged twenty-​one to forty-​four, with at least a four-​year degree 59 Paulsen and Tuller, “Crafting Place,” 113.

60 http://​muninnspost.com/​#events. Last accessed August 14, 2019.

61 The white male demographic for corporate beer is a widely known phenomenon, but for a discussion of how that demographic is targeted by some large beer companies, see Michael A. Messner and Jeffrey Montez de Oca, “The Male Consumer as Loser:  Beer and Liquor Ads in Mega Sports Media Events,” Signs 30 (2005): 1879–​1909.

62 This tongue-​in-​cheek parody of manliness is clearly meant to be funny, but it does not become ridiculous. The man, played first by Jonathan Goldsmith and then by Augustin Legrand, is handsome and interesting despite the self-​conscious cheesiness of the advertisement. Old Spice uses a similar strategy with its “Old Spice Guy” character, played by Isaiah Amir Mustafa, Terry Crews, and Deon Cole. The fact that the Old Spice Guy is always African American and half-​clothed while the Dos Equis man is wealthy, white, and fully attired deserves a fuller discussion than I can give it here.

63 While all the studies I have read, as well as more anecdotal evidence from journalistic sources, reveal that the clear majority of craft brewers and consumers are male, Murray and O’Neill suggest that the figure could be as high as 95 percent, although I find this extreme estimate questionable.

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and earning more than $50,000 per year.64 Approximately 80  percent are white and the majority are married.65 For a married white male in a craft beer world full of other married white males of a similar socioeconomic class, there is a strong impetus to cultivate discerning taste in order to mark out a unique identity. Even as uniqueness is sought after and admired, craft beer producers and consumers tend to reinforce their practice and their product as conventionally, heterosexually masculine. What Maciel refers to as the “scripts of middle-​class maleness”66 in Western societies do not allow “masculine” men to eat delicately, in small amounts, or with finesse and taste. Such behaviours have historically been coded as homosexual or effeminate. In Distinction: A Social Critique on the Judgment of Taste, Pierre Bourdieu elaborates upon how cultural practices of eating and drinking—​both embodied and discursive practices—​ reveal expectations of masculinity and femininity. Men are expected to eat and drink in large amounts, since the male body is “a sort of power, big and strong, with enormous, imperative brutal needs. […] It is part of men’s status to eat and to eat well (and also to drink well).”67 In their respective studies, both Maciel and Darwin explore the ways in which craft beer consumers align their pursuit of good taste with masculine scripts in order to reinforce the masculinity of their unique identity as a craft beer “geek.” Their studies indicate that preferring a more “masculine” beer, defined by consumers as darker, more bitter, with a higher alcohol content, accrues high cultural capital, while “feminine” beers (sweeter, lighter beers, such as wheat beers and flavoured lagers) do not.68 The reason for this appears to be in the value of acquiring a difficult taste. The implication is that a beer that is easy to like is not as unique or high-​quality as one that is less approachable, an attitude that bears similarities to Western assumptions about heterosexual courtship practices and playing “hard to get.” William Bostwick recounts an interaction he had while on his way to visit Portland, Maine’s Allagash Brewing, a brewery that first made its name by producing a Belgian-​style “bright lemony spritzer of a wheat beer” called Allagash White: When I told the guys at the Boston Hertz […] that I was headed to Allagash they smirked. “Oh yeah,” one said. “Allagash White. Girls love it.” I told [Allagash owner] Rob [Todd] the story and he grinned. High-​minded brewers like Jean-​from-​Cantillon might see an insult; Rob sees a sale.69

In Maciel’s qualitative study, the craft-​brewing club in which he participated was 100 percent male and nearly 100 percent white (with one Hispanic member being the exception). All club members had a bachelor’s degree or higher.

64 Reid, McLaughlin, and Moore, “From Yellow Fizz to Big Biz,” 118; Withers, “Brewing Boundaries,” 237; Maciel, “Cultural Tensions,” 206; Murray and O’Neill, “Craft Beer,” 903. 65 Withers, “Brewing Boundaries,” 237; Chapman, Lellock, and Lippard, “Exploring the Cultural Dimensions of Craft Beer,” 6. 66 Maciel, “Cultural Tensions,” 204. 67 Bourdieu, Distinction, 192, 195.

68 Darwin, “You Are What You Drink,” 223; Maciel, “Cultural Tensions,” 210.

69 William Bostwick, The Brewer’s Tale: A History of the World According to Beer (New York: Norton, 2014), 105.

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The underlying implications of this anecdote are twofold: firstly, wheat beers (sweeter, lighter, easy to drink) are seen as inherently feminine; secondly, serious brewers take offense at the idea that “girls love” their beer. Bostwick is gently mocking this kind of hand-​wringing on the part of “high-​minded brewers,” but there is clearly a core of truth here that reveals the gendered perceptions of beer, its consumption, and its value. The implied masculine fortitude required to conquer a masculine-​tasting beer is evident in one of Maciel’s examples from his craft-​brewing club. He relates the story of a fellow club member who hated sours but after many tastings slowly came to realize how wonderful they are. The process of developing his taste for sours became an achievement—​a hurdle he had to overcome in order to experience a higher level of taste. Darwin argues that this process of developing one’s taste profile is often represented as a mode of conquering, a “masculinized quest of man versus nature.”70 It becomes a type of labour that is coded as masculine, just like the physical labour of brewing. The names of beers and breweries, which are often highly masculinized and aggressive, also align with these masculine scripts.71 The frequent return to such “scripts of middle-​class masculinity” reveals the fraught social space that craft brewers continue to inhabit, despite craft beer’s popularity. An ongoing, unspoken anxiety about masculinity seems to permeate the industry. This is certainly dissipating, as the craft beer demographic is shifting to include higher numbers of women, but there remains a long way to go. The view of craft beer consumers as being non-​normative in their masculinity or sexuality was suggested in several advertisements and Twitter posts by Budweiser in 2015. In one of its Super Bowl ads, Budweiser contrasted several men doing a craft beer tasting with men drinking Budweiser at a lively bar, served by female bartenders. The commercial is full of quick cuts and fast-​moving imagery, but the difference between these two populations (craft beer and macro beer drinkers) is marked. The craft beer drinkers, who embody a nerdy hipster style, are alone in a fancy brewpub with a ridiculously elite blackboard menu behind them (steak tartar and liver mousse are on offer) and fake flowers in a vase beside them. They move in a way I can only describe as “fiddly”—​without confidence or strength. Conversely, the people drinking Budweiser are in a noisy, chaotic bar having a great time. We can barely see their faces, as the camera moves in a way that reflects the energy and movement of the environment, flashing past some people laughing and clinking their Budweiser bottles, glimpsing an attractive female server distributing Budweiser, and interspersing this scene with images of powerful machinery, beer on draft, the forest, and a fiery roasting kiln. Their overall message is provided in script scrolling over the video images: Budweiser:  proudly a macro beer. It’s not brewed to be fussed over. It’s brewed for a crisp smooth finish. This is the only beer beechwood aged since 1876. There’s only one

70 Maciel, “Cultural Tensions,” 201, 226.

71 A few examples of aggressively masculine beer names are Arrogant Bastard (Stone Brewing), Horny Devil (Alesmith), Piranha Bath (Aslan Brewery), Three Floyds Armored Fist (Boneyard Brewing), Murdered Out Stout (Hilliard’s), and Panty Dropper Ale (Sanford Brewing, Blacksmith Brewing, Black Bottle Brewing, Pig’s Mind Brewing, and Silver Moon Brewing).

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Budweiser. It’s brewed for drinking not dissecting. The people who drink our beer are people who like to drink beer brewed the hard way. Let them sip their pumpkin peach ale. We’ll be brewing us some golden suds. This is the famous Budweiser beer. This Bud’s for you.

63

The words that suggest taste cultivation and the craft beer industry (“dissected” and “fussed over”) accompany the images of the unmanly looking craft beer drinkers. One of the top comments in one of the YouTube videos showing this advertisement reveals that this perspective about craft beer drinkers still exists: “You know if someone could figure out a way to sell craft beer to Alphas they would dominate the market. Let’s face it there is a lot of Beta in the craft beer world.”72 The ad received significant backlash, but Budweiser posted a similar sentiment on Twitter later in 2015, accompanied by a photo of a man carrying a case of Budweiser with the Statue of Liberty featured on the box: “Nobody cheers for the guy who brings a watermelon wheat beer.” The implication is that men who enjoy “feminine” beer are not performing masculinity effectively, and therefore do not belong in a peer group of masculine (and in this case, properly American) men. The derisive YouTube comments along the lines of the “Beta” scoffing cited earlier reinforce this limited and sometimes harmful definition of manliness. Carissa Harris’ analysis of how the homosocial bonding—​ “felawe masculinity”—​in medieval texts anticipates modern practices is strikingly resonant here. She points out that women’s bodies become objects through which men can show their power and “chivalric masculinity” in acts of aggressive sexual “pleye” that they then retell to their friends. By extension, the man who is seen as effeminate (the guy who brings watermelon wheat beer to a party, or, like the mincing and impotent Absolom in “The Miller’s Tale,” is unable to perform adequately for a woman) is ejected from the masculine group and used as another passive feminine background for manly “japes” (again, as in “The Miller’s Tale”). Harris argues compellingly that, in both medieval and modern contexts, men’s fear of being seen as emasculated or feminine is staved off by transforming sexual violence into something “both humorous and valiant,” thus reinforcing their position in the group. Obviously, this Budweiser commercial is not advocating sexual violence. It is, however, using similar assumptions about masculine belonging to guide the viewer’s understanding:  men must demonstrate truly “masculine” tastes or they will be rejected and mocked. Occasionally, however, Harris’ points about masculinity, violence, and drinking behaviour are more darkly evident in the beer industry; for example, five different craft breweries make or have made a beer called “Panty Dropper,” which is troubling in a news cycle dominated by sexual assault cases like that of Brock Turner.73 As discussed in the following paragraphs, the craft beer industry’s models of masculinity are often aligned with big beer’s, even though they appear to be ideologically opposed to one another. 72 YouTube user Brian Beck, www.youtube.com/​watch?v=zEMl2h1qHLA. Last accessed August 15, 2019.

73 The breweries are Black Bottle, Sanford, Blacksmith, Pig’s Mind, and Silver Moon. See Harris, Obscene Pedagogies, 55, 59.

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The success of Budweiser’s masculine mockery is contingent upon (a) light, fruity beer metonymically representing craft beer in general, and (b) the viewer having internalized the idea that light, fruity beer is feminine. Neither of these things is objectively true, of course. Within this misleading framework, men who enjoy craft beer—​who focus on “dissecting” taste and “fussing” with beer ingredients (as opposed to just chugging it or throwing everything into a pot at once, one assumes)—​are not truly masculine. A  more recent Budweiser ad, which was part of a parodic series of medieval-​themed advertisements released in spring 2019 (capitalizing on the excitement around the new season of Game of Thrones), makes a similar point. In the ad, a king enters a medieval tavern full of drinkers: KING: Barkeep, Bud Lites for everyone! [loud cheers] MAN IN CORNER:Actually, I’d prefer a nice mead. KING: Barkeep, Bud Lites for everyone […] and a mead. [halfhearted cheers] MAN IN CORNER: Is it autumnal? [silence, music stops] KING: Bud Lites for everyone, and one […] autumnal mead. MAN IN CORNER: Is it malty and full-​bodied? Because I like […] [King shakes his head. The Bud Knight takes the man outside and puts him in the stocks.] KING: Cancel that mead! VOICEOVER: Bud Lite—​for the many, not the few.74

The implication in this ad is not just that craft beer drinkers are overly picky and fussy (the alignment of Mead Man with craft beer consumers is fairly clear), but that their elitism is inherently antidemocratic. They want to be exclusive and exclusionist—​they see themselves as the few, not the many). Despite the fact that craft beer is a grass-​roots, community-​based product, Budweiser presents it as detached from “regular” people and effeminate in its emphasis on complexity over simplicity. Moreover, it uses medievalism to convey these ideas, harking back humorously to a time that was purportedly simpler, when the king was in charge and no one tried to differentiate or assert themselves—​ a Disneyfied medievalism. This kind of medievalism has a darker side, however, one opposed to equality. In his forthcoming book Black Metaphors (cited in the first chapter), Cord Whitaker quotes a discussion on the neo-​Nazi website Stormfront about what the Middle Ages “actually” were like:  “Serfs were serfs, and happy that way. Lords were happy as Lords, and Kings likewise. Society was nearly flawless in Europe and Asia under a Feudal economy.”75 Whitaker points out that this type of comment by laypeople (even if found on Stormfront) reveals “how generalized the fallacy of a heroic Middle Ages […] in which everyone knew their rightful place and stayed in it, has become.”76 Reducing medieval power imbalances and abuses to something both reassuring and normalized is troubling, despite the entertaining nature of this particular ad. 74 www.youtube.com/​watch?v=HqSWIXb9p4U, 0:34–​1:04.

75 Whitaker, Black Metaphors, 190. My thanks to Prof. Whitaker for allowing me to read portions of his book in advance of publication. 76 Whitaker, Black Metaphors, 190.

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Budweiser is, of course, actually using much of the same ideological structure the craft beer industry does in order to convince viewers of its alignment with masculine ideals, even though its advertisements explicitly separate it from the craft beer movement (it is “proudly a macro beer” that is “for the many, not the few”). The first ad states that people who like beer “brewed the hard way” will like Budweiser. It is not clear what “the hard way” is, but it implies that the masculinized labour involved in producing Budweiser, as hinted at in the images of machinery and the kiln, comprises part of its value. This is very similar to the perspective of craft brewers, whose statements about their hobby/​profession reveal their belief that the hard work of producing one’s own craft beer reinforces one’s masculinity. Indeed, another YouTube commenter on the 2015 Super Bowl ad responds to Budweiser’s claim with “Homebrewing […] that is brewing the hard way.”77 According to both Budweiser and craft brewers, beer brewed the easy way would not be as admirable; men need to conquer. In addition, the Budweiser ad asks consumers to value taste when it emphasizes the beer’s “crisp smooth finish” and claims that their product has been aged in beechwood since 1876. Like craft beer producers, Budweiser is appealing to the desire for taste cultivation, uniqueness (“There’s only one Budweiser”), and masculinity. To craft beer producers, Budweiser is too easy to drink, too watery, too tasteless; it does not require strength and discernment to appreciate. Stone Brewing, for example, has printed on its glasses: “Fizzy yellow beer is for wussies.”78 The same ideals drive the marketing of both craft and macro beer, but they align themselves with those ideals in different ways. The ultimate masculinity of beer is what must be demonstrated; as in many industries, masculinity is the default, which is why there are occasional (and justifiably mocked) efforts to produce a beer just for women.79 In other words, despite the advances of women in the industry through such groups as the Society of Beer Drinking Ladies and the Pink Boots Society, craft beer discourses in many ways replicate the gendering practices of the big beer companies when it comes to the production and consumption of beer.80 A  similar dynamic also energizes craft beer’s positioning of itself as resisting corporatization and capitalism, when in some 77 YouTube user Tommy Hernandez, www.youtube.com/​watch?v=zEMl2h1qHLA. Last accessed August 15, 2019. 78 Quoted in Rice, Craft Obsession, 50.

79 Chick Beer and Aurosa are two examples, neither of which has experienced much success. The Chick Beer website is now gone, and Aurosa, although its website still appears to be active, was not well received: Sadaf Ahsan, “Czech Brewery’s Beer for Her More Insulting than Empowering,” National Post, August 3, 2017, sec. B.3.

80 The Society of Beer Drinking Ladies is a Toronto-​based group of beer-​loving women who host beer-​tasting events and raise money for the Canadian Women’s Foundation. See its website at https://​ladiesdrinkbeer.com. The Pink Boots Society (PBS) is a Canadian group founded by female beer producers in order to help other women advance in the craft beer industry. While PBS does not limit its membership to craft brewers, it tends to cater more to craft brewers than macrobrewers. See its website for more information: www.pinkbootssociety.org.

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ways it reinforces those ideologies. Nikol Beckham’s excellent analysis of neoliberalism and models of entrepreneurship in craft beer discourses demonstrates the industry’s simultaneous adherence to and rejection of macrobrewers’ corporate ideology; she argues that even though the craft-​brewing industry is “heralded as anticorporate,” it still “reinforce[s]‌the logics of the dominant capitalist regime by asserting that the most estimable form of leisure activity is that which generates a profit—​that rebelliousness does not resist the corporate imperative, but rather extends it by making money at play.”81 This capitalist valorization of individualized, masculine, risk-​taking labour is reinscribed not just in the origin stories of the craft beer “founding fathers” that Beckham analyzed, which are discussed further in the following chapter, but in many other origin stories (implied and explicit) deployed by craft beer producers, including those shaped by medievalism. Indeed, as the following chapters discuss, the subset of craft brewers that use some form of medievalism are conferring the authenticity and uniqueness so valued in the industry, but in some ways they are also unintentionally replicating elements of corporate culture in North America.

81 Beckham, “Entrepreneurial Leisure,” 100.

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Chapter 4

BEER HEROES AND MONASTIC MEDIEVALISM Newton Haven was our hometown. Our cradle, our playground, our universe and that night it was the site of an heroic quest. The aim? To conquer the Golden Mile. Twelve pubs along a legendary path of alcoholic indulgence, terminating at the alehouse that would herald our success: the World’s End.1 Neomedievalism sees the possibility of the Middle Ages as a cycle, an ahistorical historical state to which it is possible to return.2

IN THE 2013 film The World’s End, directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg, the main character, Gary (played by Pegg), a middle-​aged man who has made nothing of his life, gathers his old school friends together to return to their hometown of Newton Haven, England, and complete a famed pub crawl—​the Golden Mile—​that they had attempted and failed when they were eighteen. The epigraph that opens this chapter is Gary’s internal recollection of that time. To Gary, the completion of the Golden Mile, which includes a beer at every pub, is not only a return to the powerful, heady days of his youth, but a confirmation that he has truly passed into manhood. The film implies that in Gary’s mind, the Golden Mile is a coming-​of-​age experience that can transform him into the masculine, powerful, confident man he wishes to be. It is a hero’s journey predicated on a return to beginnings, but which leads to endings, both symbolic and literal; the World’s End pub at the completion of the Golden Mile becomes the site of an encounter with alien colonizers who bring on the apocalypse. I introduce this dark comedy because it provides an example of how beer stories and medievalism can intersect in unusual ways. The film memorably and humorously illustrates not only the gendering of beer consumption as masculine,3 which was discussed in the previous chapter and is further addressed in the following pages, but also the easy conflation of a beer journey with the narrative tradition of heroic transformation—​a transformation that requires the hero first to return to and understand his origins (his “cradle” and “playground”), and then to move forward into the future. Gary is desperate to return to his past so he can avoid his future, when in reality he needs to deal with his past in order to proceed into his future. At one of the pubs during their redo of the Golden Mile, he has a breakthrough; Gary’s brashness temporarily drops and he admits to his lies, his failures, and his uncertainties. This is important, as it prepares him to make his final step into full adulthood. At the final pub—​the World’s End—​he sees a vision of his 1 Edgar Wright, The World’s End (Universal Studios, 2013). 2 Kaufman, “Medieval Unmoored,” 6.

3 The men use beer consumption as a vehicle for homosocial bonding, and the only female character, played by Rosamund Pike, orders a vodka tonic rather than a beer when she joins them at a pub.

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younger self (in robot form) and is offered the possibility of living in his youth again; however, he firmly rejects the possibility of living permanently in the past by tearing the robot’s head off. Drunk in a pub, confronting aliens and robots, Gary has come of age. In its adaptation of this hero narrative of origin and transformation, The World’s End might be considered an iteration of medievalism, albeit a version that is less obvious than the pop culture imitations of the Middle Ages that the word “medievalism” conjures up. The second epigraph is from Amy Kaufman’s exploration of neomedievalism, which she sees as predicated upon a desire to return to lost origins while also effacing the multiplicity and historicity of those origins; in other words, “neomedievalism” is more about an emotional experience of nostalgia and recovery than a factual recreation of a specific historical moment or place, while “medievalism” is an older form of nostalgia for a previous time, sometimes accompanied by efforts to revive or create specific moments or figures.4 The World’s End aligns more clearly with neomedievalism in that it draws upon a broad narrative tradition of the male hero’s quest that became embedded in Western storytelling via the circulation of vernacular romances in the Middle Ages. The mythos of chivalric culture and the hero’s journey are staples of medieval romance culture that have been appropriated and reshaped for centuries. When Gary states that he is on a “heroic quest” to “conquer” the Golden Mile, he represents himself as a knight errant, seeking glory. The heroic knight is a familiar figure to us, although it is a figure that is largely a neomedieval echo of what knights actually were, a thin imitation of the fantasy knights created in the stories medieval people told to themselves. Just as one’s Instagram page is a curated fantasy of their life rather than an accurate reflection of their daily experience, medieval romance stories offered a high-​gloss, fantastical version of gender relations and adventure. I have spent some time on The World’s End and medievalism/​neomedievalism in order to emphasize that medievalism has multiple facets; it does not always entail cartoons of monks, people dressing up as knights, or recreations of sword fights. It can emerge in unexpected ways, through the cultural imprinting of social practices, narrative history, or textual tradition rooted in the Middle Ages. Such imprintings affect how we think about, view, and read things around us.5 As I move from considering the ideological positioning of the craft beer industry in general to the role of medievalism in that positioning, it is important to clarify that medievalism operates beyond the constraints of simple imitation, although imitation is certainly included. In Chapters  4, 5, and 6, I examine various nexus points at which craft beer “texts” and medievalism intersect, such as monastic medievalism, the knightly narratives of heroism, the substitute of medieval temporality for local geography, and the use of violent, sometimes fantastical medievalisms such as Vikings and pirates. 4 See the discussion of medievalism in Chapter 1.

5 Kaufman, in her distinction between neomedievalism and medievalism, argues that the former “is not as interested in creating or recreating the Middle Ages as it is in assimilating and consuming it” (“Medieval Unmoored,” 5). She identifies irony as a key component of neomedievalism, while historicism is associated with medievalism.

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Despite the industry’s interest in welcoming all beer fans to enjoy a pint, and despite recent advances of women in craft brewing, the images, iconography, and narrative tropes of craft beer medievalism tend to reinforce beer’s gendering as masculine—​our inheritance from the medieval shift in brewing power. Medievalism often (although not always) replicates highly conventional gender roles in its appropriation of knights and princesses, male conquest and female submission; these are versions of gender that were actually nuanced and complex in medieval life, but are flattened and stereotyped in later recreations. This medievalized masculinity is also intertwined with medievalism’s misapprehension of the Middle Ages as a time of white history and even a justification for colonialism, as I discuss in Chapter  6. These complicated intersections of gender, race, and history, which form the substance of these next three chapters, exert an often unseen influence on modern-​day craft brewing and create subtle barriers to the industry that may be hard to perceive.

Beyond Neolocalism

The previous chapter highlighted the centrality of neolocalism to the craft beer industry’s values of authenticity and individuality. Craft beer’s local character is often its defining feature and its strongest selling point, not only because it suggests a unique flavour hard to find anywhere else, but because it makes consumers feel as if they are resisting globalization and anonymous mass production. To return briefly to The World’s End, the main character’s disappointment with the new version of the Golden Mile is the fact that the town’s many independent pubs had been taken over by corporations, thus erasing all their uniqueness. As discussed earlier, the vocabulary of revolution, resistance, and nonconformity permeates craft beer discourses. Michael Elliott argues that such terminology reinforces America’s traditional vision of itself as an independent resister of staid, homogenized control.6 The local can be a point of resistance against the global while also offering a path to crafting a unique identity, hence neolocalism often incorporates both revolution and a certain kind of insularity, a focus on a small community group rather than the wider world. I noticed this insularity in small things, such as the way many craft breweries describe their location using local landmarks and street names but not always referring to the name of the state or province. While I have not thoroughly examined the names and products of all 7,000–​8,000 breweries in Canada and the United States,7 I have briefly reviewed thousands of brewery names and explored many websites, and on this basis I offer a general observation that 6 Elliott, “The Rationalization of Craft Beer,” 59.

7 This number is approximate because of ongoing openings and closures, and because Canada’s statistics on craft beer breweries are not current. Current beer statistics in Canada do not appear to distinguish between craft breweries and macrobreweries. In my review of brewery names and websites, I relied on the very helpful database on the US Brewers Association website (filtered to include microbreweries, craft breweries, and brewpubs), and the “Canadian Craft Breweries List” on justbeerapp.com (since Canada has only very recently established a national craft brewing association).

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the vast majority of craft brewery branding8 uses at least one of the following forms of local attachment, or neolocalism: the owner’s name (or the name of his/​her family, pet, child, etc.); local geography, landmark, or town/​city name; a local story or myth. Sometimes “local” extends as far as statewide or provincial, but similar emotional engagement is evoked. While essentially all craft brewers use neolocalism in one of these ways, a minority reject it, or use it only as an auxiliary to their brand identity rather than the centralizing theme. These brewers that are not predominantly neolocal fall into three main categories, the third of which this book takes as its focus: “wild card” brewers, preindustrial-​themed brewers, and medieval-​themed brewers (these latter two categories can both be conflated into “premodern” if necessary). I am interested in how these brewers take some of the ideological principles underlying neolocalism—​its cultivation of a sense of community identity and belonging, its attribution of moral value to space and place—​and integrate them into their representation of craft beer identity. In other words, how does distant history become localized? How does the geographical conflate with the chronological? And why is it useful to the craft beer industry? As mentioned earlier, breweries that do not use neolocalism as their primary brand identity fall into three general—​very general—​categories. One is the “wild card” brewer—​brewers that simply wish to overturn expectations, to confuse or fascinate consumers and therefore to draw their interest. Oliphant Brewing is one of these, and I discuss it in more detail in the final chapter. There are also companies like Dead Frog Brewing in Langley, British Columbia, which are less extreme than Oliphant but still successfully market their brand using alterity rather than neolocalism. In a 2011 interview with the BC newspaper The Province, Dead Frog’s marketing manager Chris Landsman explained the brewery’s name: It was innovation, doing something that hasn’t been done in the beer industry. With the name, No.1, it’s not a geographical location, which a lot of craft breweries are; and No.2, it’s not someone’s name, which a lot of craft breweries and big breweries are. It went against a little of the tradition and conventions in the industry.9

Dead Frog CEO and brewmaster Derrick Smith expanded on Landsman’s point:  “We kind of like to say we buck tradition. Who cares what your grandfather made? Who cares about your heritage when it comes to something you’re going to sit at the bar and drink?”10 These “wild card” brewers thrive on the shock value of rejecting the widely accepted mythology of how craft beer cultivates authenticity. Brewers that use premodern or preindustrial narratives and imagery constitute another subset of the industry that does not rely on conventional neolocalism in its branding. While I  have not reviewed all breweries with a preindustrial theme, my general observations confirm that these brewers’ names, imagery, and products deploy at least one of these three main themes from the eighteenth and nineteenth 8 Including brewery names, names of their products, and branding imagery.

9 Jan Zeschky, “Plenty of Life in This Dead Frog,” Province, February 13, 2011, sec. Food. https://​ theprovince.com/​life/​food/​plenty-​of-​life-​in-​this-​dead-​frog. Last accessed August 15, 2019.

10 Zeschky, “Plenty of Life in This Dead Frog.”

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centuries: revolution and the founding of the United States (or Canada, rarely); the Old West; and/​or blacksmithing. Table 2 records the breweries I have found that align with this category, with the caveat that there are certainly more of which I am not yet aware. Table 2: Premodern Themed Breweries. 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

Brewery Name

State

Year Founded (and closure if applicable)

1781 Brewing

Virginia

2017

1st Republic Brewing

All Rise Brewing

Blacksmith Brewing

Vermont

Illinois

Montana

2016

2015

2008

Brown Iron Brewhouse

Missouri

2015

Danny Boy Beer Works

Indiana

2014

Cousins Aleworks

Declaration Brewing

Founders Brewing

Halfpenny Brewing

Hammer and Forge Brewing

Highlander Brew

Invictus Brewing

Iron Hill Brewery

Iron Spike Brewing

Ironclad Brewery

Ironfire Brewing

Ironmonger Brewing

Ironworks Brewery

Kings and Convicts Brewing

Lady Justice Brewing

Old Schoolhouse Brewing

Revolution Brewing

Sons of Toil Brewing

Toppling Goliath

New York

Colorado

Michigan

Colorado

Virginia

Ontario

Minnesota

Delaware

Illinois

North Carolina

California

Georgia

Colorado

Illinois

Colorado

Washington

Illinois

Ohio

Iowa

2016

2015

1997

2016

2017

2009

2013

1996

2014

2014

2012

2013

1989-2019

2017

2016

2008

2010

2017

2009

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I have already discussed how craft-​brewing narratives, those of the brewers themselves and the people writing about them, attribute value to ideas such as revolution, rebellion, creation, innovation, craftsmanship, and fearlessness. It is not difficult to see how the themes in the brewery names listed earlier might align with these ideas.11 Nikol Beckham considers how the craft beer industry has reinforced a decades-​long mythology of the entrepreneur in North American society, a heroic man who is “self-​ motivated, competitive, autonomous, bold, energetic, creative, productive, innovative, and above all, antibureaucratic.”12 Her discussion elegantly dissects how the preexisting socioeconomic privilege of these brave “founding fathers” of craft beer is nearly always effaced in the discourses of independence, bravery, and rebellion that surround them. While Beckham does glance at earlier influences upon this model of entrepreneurship, such as the development of the Protestant work ethic, I would extend her analysis by highlighting how much the figure of the entrepreneur aligns with that of the pioneer-​ colonizer. Indeed, the term “founding fathers,” used by Beckham and many other writers to describe the first professional American craft brewers (men such as Fritz Maytag and Jack McAuliffe), of course refers to the men who founded the United States. The blacksmithing and Old West themes dovetail nicely with the founding fathers/​revolution concept; in all three categories, men use their own skill (no mechanization) to overcome something rough, crude, and resistant—​unshaped iron or steel, uncultivated land, or a domineering and draconian authority. Medievalism, of course, is the third category of beer branding that is not explicitly neolocal, and of the three categories, it is the largest. Table  3 (see end of Chapter 5) provides a listing of all craft breweries or brewpubs in Canada and the United States that use medievalism in their branding or their products.13 There are several ways in which craft beer discourses deploy medievalism and use it to reframe geography and identity, thereby integrating medievalism into the ideological landscape of neolocalism. Both medievalism and neolocalism emerge from loss:  the loss of past purity and the loss of present engagement, respectively. Just as neolocalism responds to our growing sense of alienation and disconnection, medievalism responds to the feeling that we have somehow taken a wrong path, that we need to return to where we started.

11 The brewery narratives and imagery also align with these concepts, although I do not explore those here. 12 Beckham, “Entrepreneurial Leisure,” 91.

13 See note 7 for information regarding how I  found these breweries. There will certainly be some that I have missed, and some in this table whose engagement with medievalism is slight, so some readers may dispute the specific numbers or question my criteria for a brewery’s inclusion. However, while there is some room to disagree on the exact boundaries of this category (breweries that use medievalism), there are enough of them firmly within this framework to put my discussion here on solid footing.

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Monastic Medievalism in Craft Breweries:  Recovering the Past and Creating Community

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The primary, and most obvious, model of medievalism used in craft beer discourses is that of mimesis or imitation—​an attempt to recreate some feature of the Middle Ages. This kind of medievalism is, of course, never purely reflective; it is always a representation of a historic moment or concept using textual, linguistic, and visual mediators that belong to the present. Andrew Elliott cites Ferro when he insists that medievalism can operate as historiography, revealing how we create and understand our own histories and thus allowing us to interrogate our own society rather than the earlier version being recreated.14 Although Elliott was referring to film in his discussion, the same principle applies to most forms of mimetic medievalism. Illustrations and imitations of monks, abbeys, priests, friars, and monasteries comprise one of the most common manifestations of medievalism among craft breweries, and such choices are effective on several levels. Historically, as outlined in Chapter 2, it is true that monks brewed beer throughout the Middle Ages and characters from medieval poetry, such as Friar Tuck and Chaucer’s Monk, reveal that medieval audiences expected clerics to make and imbibe ale. Philosophically, the figure of a monk embodies much of what is valued in the craft beer industry, in that a monk is someone who has dedicated himself to a self-​sufficient life of contemplation and hard work, and his residence—​an abbey or monastery—​is an enclosed place populated by like-​minded brothers. Aside from these general associations of beer with monks, there is also the influence that Belgian monasteries in particular have had on beer production during and since the Middle Ages, as addressed briefly in Chapter 2. Many North American craft breweries produce self-​proclaimed Belgian-​style beers in order to capitalize on the current popularity of the Belgian label and to connect their modern product to a historic practice—​ one with depth and integrity that emerged before the mass production of watery, fizzy, corporate beer (although, as discussed earlier, most modern Belgian beers are actually based upon brewing practices that were resurrected in the early nineteenth century, not the Middle Ages). “Belgian style,” however, is notoriously hard to define, as Vinepair and other beer publications acknowledge.15 A malty or fruity bottle-​conditioned ale is perhaps what comes most quickly to mind (tripels, dubbels, witbiers, saisons), but the label of Belgian style has been extended to far more than these. Given the wide range of styles and tastes encompassed by Belgian-​style production, I argue that it is the perception of uniqueness and the connection with history that are the most important characteristics of the “Belgian style.” 14 Andrew Elliott, Remaking the Middle Ages: The Methods of Cinema and History in Portraying the Medieval World (Jefferson: McFarland, 2011), 11.

15 Emily Bell, “13 Things Everyone Should Know about Belgian Beer,” Vinepair, May 11, 2016, https://​vinepair.com/​wine-​blog/​13-​things-​you-​didnt-​know-​about-​belgian-​beer/​. Last accessed August 15, 2019. See also my discussion in Chapter 2 regarding the legal constraints now placed upon the use of “Trappist” to describe beer.

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This does not mean, however, that monastic medievalism in craft-​brewing discourses is simply an effect of the loose net of “Belgian style”; “Belgian” in the taste profile or brewery story does not automatically lead to “monk” in the branding. Not all Belgian-​ style craft beer producers focus on history; some emphasize their modern adaptation of a unique older style, thus offering a kind of triumphal narrative that largely effaces historicity, or at least subverts it. Three Taverns Brewery, which produces a range of Belgian-​ style beers, takes as its slogan “Belgian Inspiration. American Creativity.” Matthew Curtis at GoodBeerHunting describes its Monastic Series as “Belgian at their core but dressed in very American-​looking clothes.”16 This balance of innovation and historicism is strategic, since the latter appears to legitimize the former. One can only be authentically innovative if one understands earlier practice. Three Taverns articulates that balance as follows: Belgium’s beer culture has been one of wide-​ranging experimentation and innovation. […] We have found it both inspiring and humbling to stand on the shoulders of this brewing heritage, which still has new things to teach us. Yet it gives us the courage to attempt our own experiments. In many ways, America’s freewheeling brewing culture is the philosophical descendent of the Belgian tradition. Like Belgium’s monks, wild-​ eyed entrepreneurs, and scions of famous brewing families centuries ago, American craft brewers approach their work thinking “hmm […] what if?” We at Three Taverns are no exception.17

Earlier I  briefly discussed the preindustrial and revolution-​themed breweries as one ­category of craft brewer that either eschewed or attenuated the significance of local identity in their branding. We see in Three Taverns’ origin narrative a revolutionary turn combined with medievalism; there are monks who were “wild-​eyed entrepreneurs,” brave, experimental brewers who draw courage from the medieval past, and a country whose heritage has always been one of “experimentation and innovation.” Three Taverns positions itself, in a cliché that actually has an interesting medieval precedent,18 as “standing on the shoulders” of this heritage and extending it into modern-​day North America’s “freewheeling brewing culture.” This revolutionary medievalism premised upon translating Belgium’s beer heritage to the New World illustrates Umberto Eco’s argument that American culture, after its revolution and separation from its colonial parent, continually looks back with desire as it tries to recreate the “Real Past.”19 It also 16 Matthew Curtis, “Same as It Ever Was—​How ‘Belgian’ Went from Experimentation to Ethos in the U.S.,” GoodBeerHunting (blog), August 1, 2018. www.goodbeerhunting.com/​blog/​2018/​7/​31/​ same-​as-​it-​ever-​was-​how-​belgian-​went-​from-​experimentation-​to-​ethos-​in-​the-​us. Last accessed August 15, 2019. 17 www.threetavernsbrewery.com/​our-​craft. Last accessed August 15, 2019.

18 It was Bernard of Chartres who first used the phrase “to stand on the shoulders of giants,” which was repeated by others, such as Peter of Blois in the twelfth century and Sir Isaac Newton centuries later. See Rebecca Moore Howard, Standing in the Shadow of Giants: Plagiarists, Authors, Collaborators (Stamford: Ablex, 1999), 65. 19 Eco, “Dreaming of the Middle Ages,” 62.

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aligns with American neoliberalism, which Nikol Beckham observes as foundational to the craft beer industry; she argues that within this ideological framework, entrepreneurship is valorized “religiously,” bureaucracy and the corporate dullness of a 9–​5 job are condemned, and leisure and work are conflated.20 The American hero is the “wild-​eyed entrepreneur” that Three Taverns sees in the monastic past, not a staid and reliable middle manager who will have the same safe job for decades. Kaufman’s quotation in this chapter’s epigraph articulates how the evolution of medievalism into neomedievalism releases “medieval” from historical specificity. It becomes ahistorical—​an impression, an embodied experience, an emotional reaction, an aesthetic. One could argue that this is what is happening with the medieval Belgian style of brewing. This recasting of Belgian-​style’s supposed medieval heritage to the point of erasure is demonstrated in New Belgium Brewing. This company takes its name from beer’s medieval heritage and yet its branding is insistently modern and eclectic, with such brand icons as the Voodoo Ranger and its “Fat Tire” bicycle. While the company does have a “Belgian Collection” comprised of its Abbey, Trippel, and 1554 ales, these still resist a fully medieval turn; the flavour descriptions use no historical referents, and while the label art uses a Gothic-​style window frame designed to evoke monastic architecture, there is no attempt to set it within a medieval context.21 While New Belgium Brewing acknowledges the historical role of Belgian monasteries and abbeys in its industry, its desire for return is a return to its own modern origins, not to a medieval past, as the Abbey beer description makes clear: “The story of New Belgium begins with an abbey: Not only were Belgium’s monastic beers the inspiration behind our Colorado brewery, but Abbey, a Belgian-​style dubbel, was one of the first beers we released way back in 1991.”22 The story of New Belgium is important—​not old Belgium. Its focus is on the American values of innovation and individuality. New Belgium Brewing is an example of how the popular “Belgian style” label does not automatically confer a medievalized brand, although I included it in Table 3 because 20 Beckham, “Entrepreneurial Leisure,” 81.

21 The 1554 comes closest to a historical referent, but ultimately focuses on recovering a lost recipe (year, place, author, and any other historical details are all unstated) rather than describing the historical event or documents on which that recovery process was based. From the company’s online description of the beer:

Born of a flood and centuries-​old Belgian text, 1554 Black Lager beer uses a lager yeast strain and dark chocolaty malts to redefine what dark beer can be. In 1997, a Fort Collins flood destroyed the original recipe our researcher, Phil Benstein, found in the library. So Phil and brewmaster, Peter Bouckaert, traveled to Belgium to retrieve this unique style lost to the ages. Their first challenge was deciphering antiquated script and outdated units of measurement, but trial and error (and many months of in-​house sampling) culminated in 1554, a highly quaffable dark beer with a moderate body and mouthfeel. www.newbelgium.com/​beer/​1554/​

22 www.newbelgium.com/​beer/​abbey/​. Last accessed August 16, 2019.

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I see it as a form of neomedievalism in the sense that Kaufman describes. Many other breweries, such as Upright Brewing, Russian River Brewing, and Brewery Ommegang, use a strategy similar to New Belgium’s: they honour the Belgian style but adjust it to reflect regional taste and history. Premodern history is often not the focus, and thus these Belgian-​style breweries are not usually deploying medievalism, at least not in the narrower sense. Beer’s monastic heritage—​often linked to Belgian monasteries—​ certainly inspires or contributes to a percentage of beer medievalism, but the Belgian appellation is not always included. What I  have termed “monastic medievalism”— Belgian or not—is relatively common in craft beer circles, as a quick glance at the industry will confirm. Approximately 20–​30 percent of the medievalized breweries in Table 3 use monastic or clerical/​priestly branding in some way, and I am certain that my list is incomplete.23 I have chosen several that are representative of the different ways monastic medievalism emerges in North American craft-​brewing discourses. The Lost Abbey, a California craft brewery founded in 2006, uses neomedievalism consistently and carefully throughout its branding in order to cultivate a memorable identity rooted in a medieval aesthetic. This brewery does not attempt to recreate or reflect the Middle Ages; instead, it imagines the aesthetic of the era with both self-​ awareness and pleasure. Like the “Once upon a time” trope in fairy tales from the Grimm brothers to Disney, The Lost Abbey’s medievalism is modelled on a vaguely medieval past, one characterized by its alterity rather than its specific historicity. It is a fantasy of history—​an imaginary Middle Ages designed to evoke the same emotional responses from the brewery’s consumers as strategic neolocalism does for other breweries. The name “The Lost Abbey” itself alludes, of course, to the historical importance of abbeys in medieval beer production, and the design of the website, the logo, and the actual tasting room all reinforce the solemn medieval abbey atmosphere. The Lost Abbey represents beer as a religious experience, one steeped in centuries of practice whose participants share some valuable, closely held knowledge. However, this deeply serious religious aesthetic is conveyed with a sly wink and a sense of humour; one cannot treat beer as an object of worship without some level of irony. The webpage itself is dark in hue, with medievalesque images of Gothic windows and what appear to be early modern symmetrical drawings of overlaid shapes—​circles, triangles, and hexagons—​with smaller images surrounding them, whose vaguely medieval, mystical appearance is just nonspecific enough to accommodate a jarring modern addition. For example, under the website’s “Crusade” tab is an image that appears to be a symmetrical drawing of overlaid shapes, but with a beer bottle at the centre. Under “Locations,” an Illuminati-​esque circle overlaying a triangle has “SAN DIEGO” in uppercase letters in the middle, along with what appears to be a map (of San Diego, one assumes). The company’s motto is “In Illa Brettanomyces Nos Fides,” which it translates as “In the Wild Yeast We Believe,” but adds a tongue-​in-​cheek caveat:  “Okay, for you purists it technically means ‘in this place we 23 The percentage is approximate because the number depends on how rigid one’s definition of monastic/​clerical branding is.

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have faith in British fungus,’ but that’s nowhere near as cool sounding.”24 The company is conscious of how it is reshaping beer’s history for modern purposes, and it wants us to be conscious of it as well. The sections of the website correspond to general features of religious life in the Middle Ages, but not specifically enough to constitute any sort of historical recreation of an abbey. This is an important point; this brewery is aware of its self-​presentation as a historical fantasy and it stays firmly in that place. What is normally called “About us” or “Our story” on most breweries’ websites is here titled “Crusade,” with the subtitle “The Calling.” The company’s story opens with the first words of the biblical book of Genesis (“In the beginning”) and a summary of the Genesis account of good, evil, and free will precedes the tale of The Lost Abbey’s origins: The Lost Abbey was imagined as part of a crusade in this ongoing story of Good vs. Evil beer. Everywhere we turn these days, there is a battle being waged between those who make good beer and those who make evil beer (bad beers).25

While avoiding any historical reference to the medieval crusades and their horrors, the brewery uses the generic terms of good and evil in order to represent its role as a good fighter in a war against bad beer. Stone Brewing, whose former property The Lost Abbey now inhabits and whose owner is friends with The Lost Abbey’s owner, uses a similar strategy in its gesture to medievalism. Stone Brewing’s logo is a gargoyle head, like a fierce Viking warrior in appearance, and Stone Brewing explains its choice of branding as a medieval-​style fight against evil beer: “For centuries, Gargoyles have been known to ward off evil spirits. Since 1996, our gargoyle has helped us ward off cheap ingredients, pasteurization and chemical additives […] the modern-​day evil spirits of beer!”26 In Chapter  3 I  discussed the way in which craft beer discourses associate authenticity, morality, and purity with “good beer,” and The Lost Abbey’s neomedievalism reinforces these connections. The Lost Abbey’s other website tabs contain similar medievalizing gestures. “The Tasting Room” tempts viewers to “Come hither,” perhaps like the medieval alewife or brewster who might lure men into her establishment. “The Confessional” refers to the brewery’s pub area, where customers are invited to confess their sins “over a pint or two.”27 The Lost Abbey uses medievalism—​the idea of silent, quiet abbey confessional—​ to construct this space as one of intimacy, a place where people actually connect with one another in a modern world of alienation and distance. Their beer membership program, titled the Patron Saints and Sinners Club, also conveys a sense of exclusiveness 24 See http://​lostabbey.com/​faqs/​ (last accessed August 15, 2019). I  would also note here that those who brew beer themselves would most likely recognize “Brettanomyces” even if they do not have their Latin up to date, since “Brett” (its affectionate nickname) is a famously powerful wild yeast strain. The Lost Abbey motto therefore speaks to more than one audience. 25 http://​lostabbey.com/​crusade/​. Last accessed August 15, 2019.

26 www.stonebrewing.com/​about/​proper-​names. Last accessed August 15, 2019.

27 http://​lostabbey.com/​locations/​the-​confessional/​. Last accessed August 15, 2019.

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and closeness with fellow beer drinkers, while also making customers feel as if they actually matter to the brewery. Patronage is a deeply medieval practice that assumes a distribution of power and influence between two people: a patron and an artisan. At the same time, a patron saint is a figure that represents an important event, action, or idea, and the “Patron Saints and Sinners” page describes patrons as “our loyal followers with us on the crusade of craft beer.”28 The Lost Abbey’s members’ club therefore offers members various ways to see themselves in relation to this business—​as a sponsor, a participant, or a representative. All of these roles are invested with the additional mystique of medievalism and a hint of self-​conscious theatricality. The entertaining juxtaposition of modern idioms and images (the San Diego map, the beer bottle, the “cool-​sounding” motto) with the Gothic solemnity conveyed by the overall brand aesthetic is the brewery’s acknowledgement that it is not actually attempting to reconstruct an authentic medieval experience; instead, it is creating an emotional response to the brewery by deploying a generically medieval religious aesthetic, through what we expect “medieval” to be. The name “ The Lost Abbey” speaks to a desire to recover something lost to us, and the mystery inherent in that loss—​even though, at the same time, the encounter with the lost means that it is no longer gone. The Abbey has been found. This is self-​aware neomedievalism that good-​naturedly rejects historicity but still claims authenticity because it is fighting against the bad beer overtaking the nation. The Lost Abbey’s invitation for consumers to come to confession is its unique way of cultivating a communal space of intimacy and story-​sharing, but they are certainly not alone in this effort. Pub culture has historically been all about community, as we see in thousands of texts across the centuries, from Piers Plowman’s tavern scene to the recovery of adolescent friendships and haunts in The World’s End’s Golden Mile. Many craft breweries present their establishments as spaces in which social hierarchies dissipate and patrons can enjoy their shared love of beer away from both work and home. Jeff Rice observes a similar phenomenon of group identity development in online beer forums, which function as another version of what Matthew Maffesoli describes as proxemic space.29 Maffesoli’s notion of proxemics demonstrates how both history and spatiality affect the development of local connections, which is particularly relevant to our understanding of why some craft breweries choose to use medievalism: Man in relation: not only as far as relations between individuals are concerned; but also those which link me with a landscape, a city, a natural environment that I  share with others. These are the day-​to-​day histories: time crystallized in space. The history of a place now becomes a personal history. Through a process of sedimentation, the anodyne—​ made up of rituals, odours, noises, images, architectural constructions—​becomes what Neitzsche [sic] called a “figurative journal.” A journal which teaches what we must say, do, think, love.30

28 http://​lostabbey.com/​crusade/​club/​. Last accessed August 15, 2019. 29 Rice, Craft Obsession, 152.

30 Matthew Maffesoli, The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society, trans. Don Smith (London: Sage, 1996), 123.

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Medievalism in these craft taprooms, intertwined with the imagery, taste of the beer, and company of fellow drinkers, crystallizes time into space, to use Maffesoli’s words, or patches history together into one contemporary moment, in Umberto Eco’s.31 The revision of one’s own sense of identity that occurs in such moments happens, Maffesoli suggests in the quotation just cited, through the way in which these spatial/​temporal experiences shape emotional responses and intellectual engagement. This is part of what makes craft beer culture so engaging and appealing. Dan Kline uses James Paul Gee’s term “affinity spaces” to describe the kind of community-​building and proxemics he sees in “participatory medievalism,” such as gaming or the SCA; these same features are also, I  have argued, evident in craft beer environments.32 The pub or alehouse can operate as an affinity space, particularly if it is a locally run business with strong ties to the community, although the corporatization of pub chains and reduction of pub numbers have somewhat attenuated their social and communal benefits.33 Matt Fox, formerly of Campbell River’s Beach Fire Brewing, for example, laments the fact that North American “pub culture is so socially detached […] We designed our customer experience around bringing people together: sitting them at big tables, no televisions, and serving food in a way that promotes an interactive experience and sharing. We call it heads-​up dining.”34 Because such spaces are often conceived of as templates from the past that have now been lost, medievalism can be a particularly powerful strategy for offering the possibility of recovering that loss. Medievalism in its various forms recreates the past and positions it for modern use. We see such repositioning and community-​building proxemics in the architecture of The Lost Abbey, but in many other breweries and brewpubs that will be discussed in this chapter and the next, such as The Black Abbey, Muninn’s Post, Skål, and other beer consumption environments that either use the monastic model of brotherhood or turn medieval violence into parodic play. Muninn’s Post, a Viking-​themed pub in Kelowna, British Columbia, creates its own form of proxemic or affinity space. While the following chapter delves more deeply into Norse medievalism, I  bring up Muninn’s Post here because it uses the concepts of shared experiences and brotherhood that underlie much monastic medievalism; these concepts also reinforce the ideas of space and community 31 Eco argues that, unlike the classical period, “the Middle Ages have never been reconstructed from scratch: We have always mended or patched them up, as something in which we still live.” See Eco, “Dreaming of the Middle Ages,” 67–​68.

32 Daniel Kline, “Participatory Medievalism, Role-​Playing, Gaming,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism, ed. Louise D’Arcens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 86.

33 This is especially true in the United Kingdom, where pubs form the backbone of regional culture. See David Andrews and Simon Turner, “Is the Pub Still the Hub?,” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 24 (May 25, 2012):  542–​52, and Ignazio Cabras and Matthew P.  Mount, “Assessing the Impact of Pubs on Community Cohesion and Wellbeing in the English Countryside:  A Longitudinal Study,” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 29 (January 9, 2017): 489–​506. 34 Matt Fox, email interview, March 31, 2017.

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FIGURE 1. The Black Abbey tasting room.

discussed by both Kline and Maffesoli. Muninn’s Post, just like The Lost Abbey, resists the loneliness of a modern society dependent on digital spaces and globalization by creating a community modelled on a predigital, preindustrial, premechanized era: The idea of a town “tavern” was central to what we wanted to create. In a world where face-​to-​face interaction is becoming increasingly rare and community exists more in a digital space, we thought it was important to create a place where people could come together, put their electronics aside, and actually enjoy each other’s company.35

As noted earlier, Muninn’s Post also reinforces the importance of community connection and memory creation in its space by hosting several events involving games, music, and comedy each week, as well as vending local beers and other products. The space features a bar shaped like a Viking longship and the décor on the walls ranges from rough drawings of Odin’s ravens to mounted axes to posters of medievalized comic book heroes such as Thor and death metal bands. It is a bricolage of medievalism that signals its awareness of its own ahistoricism while also constructing a space separate from the here and now of daily modern life. While Muninn’s Post does not use the monastic model, it nevertheless reinforces community and commitment. Monastic medievalism is particularly effective in crafting proxemic space that establishes connections between the personal and the historical, since the ideological underpinnings of the monastery are brotherhood, commitment, and connection. The

35 Leagh Jensen-​Bates, email interview, June 24, 2018.

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Black Abbey Brewing Company, for example, takes Martin Luther’s Table Talk as an iteration of practices we have lost in modern culture but which are worth recreating36: Luther would hold court, effectively, at The Black Cloister. […] He would invite the neighbors over, effectively, for dinner and drinks. They would have long, meaningful (sometimes bawdy) conversations about the issues of the day and the topics that interested them most. They built community in a way that our current society does not. We very much wanted our taproom to offer this type of opportunity for fellowship and conversation and the Medieval model of Luther’s Table Talk seemed to ideally fit the identity we wanted to convey.37

On its website, The Black Abbey refers to its taproom as the Fellowship Hall to evoke the closeness that monastic brothers would have felt, or that Luther would have felt with his visitors. “Fellowship” is a word used for centuries in religious discourse to describe the close connection between those of the same faith. The Black Abbey’s desire to turn away from “current society” and towards models of the past that help form its brand identity demonstrates how temporal alterity—​emulating the difference offered by the Middle Ages—​can stand in for local individuality. Unlike The Lost Abbey, The Black Abbey does not deploy a generalized medieval aesthetic in a gesture of neomedieval play. Instead, through its architectural design, its brand imagery, its product names, and its narratives, The Black Abbey urges its patrons to embody a particular moment in history. In the section on its website titled “The story of The Black Abbey,” where one might expect to find a tale of how the brewery’s founder established the company, there is instead a dramatic retelling of an event five centuries earlier: “St Anne, help me! I  will become a monk!” Fearing he was suffering God’s judgement, Martin Luther uttered these words while trapped in a fierce thunderstorm in Stotterheim, Germany in 1505. True to his declaration, the one-​time law student soon joined the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt, Germany. A few years later he relocated to Wittenberg’s monastery, The Black Cloister, and it was there that he penned his famous Ninety-​Five Theses. He nailed the document, which boldly challenged the church establishment, to the Castle Church doors in Wittenberg on Oct. 31, 1517. So began the Protestant Reformation.

The story goes on to describe Luther’s marriage to Katherina, her beer brewing, and their life together. It concludes with just a small reference to the modern story of the brewery itself, stating that The Black Abbey, located in Nashville, Tennessee, now brews ales inspired by Luther. The extraordinary level of detail in this narrative is worth noting, as is its use of the present tense to recreate a transformative moment in Luther’s life. His passion and integrity are conveyed by this dramatic reenactment. Furthermore, it is a passion that we are invited to admire—​that of a rule-​breaker and a reformer. The iconic 36 Martin Luther, Table Talk, trans. William Hazlitt (Philadelphia:  Lutheran Publication Society, n.d.). www.ntslibrary.com/​PDF%20Books/​Luther%20Table%20Talk.pdf 37 Carl Meier, email interview, July 3, 2018.

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FIGURE 2. The Black Abbey tasting room.

figurehead of The Black Abbey Brewing Company is one who had the courage to “boldly challeng[e]‌the church establishment” and change history. Luther’s story as told here is another David and Goliath narrative—​a dynamic that has fueled the success of many craft breweries over the past forty years, as the previous chapter discussed. The Black Abbey not only memorializes Luther’s work, but also implicitly links that work (of change, revolution, resistance) to its own work of producing and selling beer itself—​an act of resistance against the corporate global hegemony of Anheuser-​Busch InBev. To further establish its brewery as a place untainted by the modern beer industry, in which Anheuser-​Busch InBev holds 80 percent of the global market and assimilates smaller breweries into its corporate body, The Black Abbey has created a distinctive medieval aesthetic not just in its brand discourse (origin narrative, product names, et cetera) but in the imagery and structure of its buildings and products as well. Its beer labels, tap handles, and company logo all use the Gothic arch to frame lettering or other images, and this same arch is used in its taproom. The plainness of the taproom, the use of wooden tables and arches, and the lack of substantial décor or electronics all contribute to the asceticism expected in a monastic setting, as Carl Meier of The Black Abbey states: Our taproom is specifically designed to combine features of a monastery chapter house and German beer hall. We have 7 farmhouse tables with community seating. We do not have televisions but rather encourage folks to meet the people they are sitting with and share a pint over conversation rather than lose themselves in technology. Our bar is distinctly altar-​shaped and does not have seating at the bar which we also believe focuses

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the energy on sitting at tables with friends rather than just sitting at the bar. Also, our taproom does not have any artwork or pictures displayed (save for Luther’s 95 Theses). We believe this is representative of the “chapter house” set up.38

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The Black Abbey’s strategy is much like that of other craft brewers, such as Beach Fire Brewing, who reject the typical pub/​bar format of cheap drinks and a sports game on a widescreen television. This media-​driven pub model is widely accepted in North American society as appropriate and comfortable for male bonding; there is no requirement for sustained conversation (it is too loud), and the patrons do not have to look at one another. It is a model easily aligned with the “big beer” culture of hypermasculinity. Craft brewers, on the other hand, see their spaces as a venue for connection through sensory experiences (such as beer tastings) and face-​to-​face conversation. In this way, perhaps, craft culture truly does depart from the expectations for masculinity fostered by big beer. The Black Abbey’s use of the monastic model to cultivate these kinds of experiences is very effective. With no bar seating (a format which requires patrons to sit side by side and look forward rather than at each other), no small tables, and no televisions, patrons are compelled to interact with one another. The medieval aesthetic of The Black Abbey’s taproom is also developed through the use of space—​in particular of empty space and absence. Meier notes that there is no artwork in the taproom, other than a display copy of Luther’s ninety-​five theses. This choice signals Luther’s symbolic primacy in The Black Abbey’s founding. It is also a gesture that echoes, by design or not, the medieval perception of authorial presence. Jay Diehl, in his study of the manuscripts produced by Durham Cathedral’s monastic community, explores the value of “representational presence” through texts and other media in a culture transitioning from reliance on orality to writing as the predominant authority. In some situations, he argues, “written presence […] was a vestigial holdover of a disappearing charismatic culture preserved within the world of writing, symptomatic of both the loss of real embodied presence and the desire to preserve it.”39 This shift in how authority was positioned and expressed in the high Middle Ages led to a fear of loss and the desire for recovery—​responses that cleanly dovetail with impulses driving medievalism itself. Hence Luther’s theses being displayed as the only art in The Black Abbey is a performance of historicized medievalism, an effort to substitute Luther’s text for his lost presence. The remainder of the taproom space is equally empty, but intentionally so. The ceiling is unusually high, as Figures 2 and 3 reveal, which enhances the overall austerity of the room and the designers’ intentions to replicate a monastic chapterhouse, but the empty space also echoes the structure of a cathedral albeit on a much smaller, simpler scale. As in a cathedral, the feeling of empty space above and around the patrons, and of light streaming down from above (lamps are hanging from the high ceilings rather than installed on or near the tables) could almost be meditative, even if the room is crowded. The central Gothic arch framing the draft taps at the front of the taproom along 38 Carl Meier, email interview, July 3, 2018.

39 Jay Diehl, “The Saint, the Voice, and the Author:  Imagining Textual Authority and Personal Presence at Durham Priory, ca. 1080–​1150,” Viator 47, no. 3 (September, 2016): 101–28 (102–3).

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FIGURE 3. The Black Abbey tasting room’s spacious ceilings.

with the aisle formed between the two rows of wooden tables becomes a winking evocation of the cathedral structure: nave, altar and chancel, and of course the sacrament—​in this case, craft beer rather than wine. I am being somewhat lighthearted here, of course; The Black Abbey is not claiming to be a cathedral or a monastery, and I am not attempting to prove there is a direct replication of a specific structure. What the brewery has done, however, is deploy medieval conventions, such as the Luther text, the Gothic arches, the wooden screens and tables, the expansive sense of space, and the lack of modern electronics or décor in order not just to brand its products, but to create an embodied experience of wonder and nostalgia for its patrons. At the same time, the visibility of the areas around and behind the taproom reveal that this space is one of work as well as pleasure and sociability, perhaps like the monastery chapterhouse it emulates. Unlike a conventional restaurant or pub, where customers usually cannot see easily into the back rooms and preparation areas, in The Black Abbey taproom there are few walls or closed-​off spaces and one can see the structure of the ceiling, stacks of beer barrels, and tanks.40 Its austere openness is striking; ornamentation is not needed because scale itself can evoke wonder, as the viewers feel they are a small part of a larger story.41 Paul Binski’s description of medieval cathedrals’ spatiality as “a cognitive fiction stimulating further thought” rather than a direct imitation of any thing or concept strikes me as applicable to The Black Abbey’s taproom as well.42 If a cathedral can inspire thoughts of God in its imitation of divinity, even though it cannot actually reproduce the divine nature, perhaps the pleasure of 40 Of course, the exposure of the brewing area to the public eye alongside the taproom is not limited to medieval-​or historical-​themed breweries (Arrowhead Brewing in Invermere, BC, Dead Frog in Langley, BC, and Phillips Brewing in Victoria, BC, are three in my province that immediately come to mind) but its effect in combination with The Black Abbey’s taproom’s aesthetic is striking.

41 Paul Binski, “The Heroic Age of Gothic and the Metaphors of Modernism,” Gesta 52, no. 1 (2013): 1–17 (4). 42 Binski, “The Heroic Age,” 4.

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medievalism is the self-​conscious “cognitive fiction” that we are actually encountering the past—​a time in which purity of intent and purity of beer were both evident. In The Black Abbey and its taproom, Martin Luther’s passion for his faith and for his society are the medieval ancestors of modern craft brewers’ passion for authentic, good beer. True beer. Good beer can draw people together in that “affinity space” and thus a passion for brewing can be construed as a passion for people. Many other craft breweries use monasteries or monks in their branding or products, as Table 3 reveals, although not necessarily to the extent of companies such as The Lost Abbey and The Black Abbey.43 The monastic theme does not always shape the entirety of the brewery’s products and aesthetic, but the same desire for return to a time of purity, a pre-​corporate time, still energizes its character and produces emotional resonance. Iron Monk Brewing of Oklahoma, for example, is actually named after its two founders—​Dave Monks and Jerod Millirons—​and its branding, origin story, and design do not appear to engage very much in explicit forms of medievalism, with the exception of its logo’s font, which is serifed and vaguely Gothic in style. However, Iron Monk representative Matt Sullins acknowledges that the choice of the brewery’s name was a historical one, despite the connection to Monks and Millirons: “Monks usually served as the local brewmasters and we liked the idea of contributing to that long-​standing tradition. To us, brewing beer is a religious experience and one that we respect a great deal.”44 The notion that beer is associated with religion and spirituality was mentioned by more than one brewer, and is certainly an idea that is evoked, if not explicitly stated, in many craft beer brands. The cathedral-​like space of The Black Abbey’s taproom is just one example, but more is discussed in the final chapter. For now, it is enough to emphasize that the modern associations of medieval monks with solemnity, hard work, and spiritual devotion are powerful conceptual aids to shaping craft beer branding. Iron Monk emphasizes the “dedication and passion” that it puts into its brewing.45 The motto of The Black Abbey is “Created. Not Made,” a statement that conveys the brewery’s belief that good beer requires a nearly divine level of inspiration and commitment; one cannot simply follow a recipe. The owners of Saint Arnold Brewing Company in Texas describe their work as “a passion, not a job. […] Our beers have soul.”46 In many ways the monastic ideal of dedicating yourself to a single important pursuit aligns well with the values that Beckham associates with neoliberalism:  pleasure, passion, and dedication to one’s work.47 Beckham, however, points out that neoliberalism also supports conventional capitalist systems. Michael Elliott would likely agree, since he connects the rise of the craft-​brewing industry with the Weberian rationalization—​defined as “increasing formalization, standardization, systemization, calculation”—​of the practice. Rationalization constructs brewing as a craft 43 I am also including the breweries named after saints, because in many of these cases they are adopting the monastic practice of naming a monastery or abbey after the founding saint. 44 Matt Sullins, email interview, August 6, 2018. 45 Matt Sullins, email interview, August 6, 2018.

46 See www.saintarnold.com/​about-​us/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

47 Beckham, “Entrepreneurial Leisure,” 91.

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needing perfection. The monastic model emerges here as well: brewing as a specialized, guarded knowledge, requiring years of study and devotion and solidifying bonds between fellow practitioners.48 This professionalization of a niche craft industry is evident in the increased postsecondary education options for craft brewers.49 Indeed, Iron Monk’s Matt Sullins, who emphasizes that “brewing isn’t an easy enterprise to undertake,” helps to teach a course on beer history for Oklahoma State University.50 Naughty Monks and Funny Friars

Through these forms of monastic medievalism, brewers articulate the dedication, specialization, and diligence required to produce a good beer. The brewer or drinker’s love for his or her product and process, and feeling of belonging in a close-​knit community, also aligns with the monastic model. Of course, the ideal monk loves Christ and dedicates his life to the pursuit of intimacy with the divine. However, a somewhat different model of monastic behaviour exists in various cultural representations of monasticism—​that of the pleasure-​seeking, cheeky other brother. This is a monk who enjoys the pleasures of life and whose entertainment value—​both in the Middle Ages and now—​is his flippant casting aside of expectations. Medieval anticlerical literature is rife with naughty monks, friars, and priests, religious men whose misbehaviour is represented as either humorous or disgusting.51 Sam Bompas of Bompas & Parr, the experience design studio that created Alcoholic Architecture, a pop-​up neomedieval-​style bar and breathable cocktail cloud near London’s Southwark Cathedral, loves the connection of monasticism with intoxication: “The association is so strong that the bibulous monk feels like a far more common monastic archetype than his ascetic brother.”52 Friar Tuck, who has been enshrined as part of Robin Hood’s group of outlaws in nineteenth-​and twentieth-​century literary and 48 Elliott, “The Rationalization of Craft Beer,” 60–​65.

49 A few are listed at www.craftbeer.com/​beer/​beer-​schools but these just scratch the surface of the craft beer education offerings in North America. 50 Matt Sullins, email interview, August 6, 2018.

51 For the purposes of my discussion here, which focuses on medievalism, I am conflating monks, priests, and friars under the larger “monastic” label I have been using. Readers should be aware that there were important differences between these categories during the Middle Ages, but in modern medievalism and neomedievalism, they carry a similar conceptual value. For discussion and examples of medieval anticlericalism, see Penn Szittya, The Antifraternal Tradition in Medieval Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986); James Dean, ed., Six Ecclesiastical Satires, TEAMS (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1991), http://​d.lib.rochester.edu/​teams/​publication/​dean-​six-​ecclesiastical-​satires; Wendy Scase, Piers Plowman and the New Anti-​clericalism (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1989); Fiona Somerset, Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England (Oxford: University of Oxford Press, 1998). 52 Sam Bompas, email interview, February 28, 2017. Bompas & Parr identifies itself as a company that “leads in flavour-​based experience design, culinary research, architectural installations and contemporary food design.” Alcoholic Architecture, self-​described as a “world where meteorology, mixology, and monasticism combine,” was open in London from 2015 to 2016.

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cinematic medievalism, was, in the late medieval and early modern Robin Hood stories, a kind of Lord of Misrule and a catalyst for wild celebration.53 Anne Kaler sees this version of a friar as emerging from, or at least connected to, contemporary anticlerical satire: “The good friar’s characteristics for which he is remembered—​joy and good fellowship—​are milder forms of the ones for which his real brothers were condemned—​gluttony and sloth.”54 Friar Tuck embodies a very human duality: as a friar, he is supposed to remain “lean” and “ascetic,” devoted to Christ and not to the world, but part of him is that “fat sensualist” who cannot resist the pleasures of food, drink and conviviality.55 Andrew Casteel, founder of Laughing Monk Brewing (discussed in the following pages), sees Friar Tuck as a “classic character” who is “kind, sharing, and jovial,” and was inspired to make his brewery reflect these traits.56 The Monk and the Friar in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales—​introduced side by side in the General Prologue—​are also examples of the many sensual, naughty clerics we find in medieval literature. Chaucer’s charismatic and masculine Monk rejects the notion that he must live an austere lifestyle of quiet study. His fine clothes and boots, “love-​knotte” jewelry, enjoyment of roast dinners, and plump, vigorous body all suggest the Monk is a man who enjoys sensory pleasures over spiritual ones. Chaucer’s Friar, similarly, is “wantowne” and “merye” while also being “a ful solempne man.” He particularly enjoys hearing confession from women and he brings gifts along for them. His gifting is accompanied by other chivalric practices inappropriate for a friar, such as singing, playing, and reciting ballads. Instead of becoming acquainted with the poor and sick in his community, he gets to know the wives, the wealthy, and the alehouse and tavern owners.57 These types of figures, whose presence in medieval literature signals an engagement with contemporary social issues, become caricatured in later forms of medievalism. The jolly friar or drunken monk is now essentially a cartoon; its power to condemn hypocrisy is gone. This loss, however, also makes this character type more readily adaptable to modern purposes. Its ideological baggage is erased while its distorted, hyperbolized figure remains in various forms: the plethora of chubby, alcoholic Friar Tucks in the various Robin Hood films (both serious and satiric); the Fat Friar ghost in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series; the rather silly Friar Carl, with his love of cursing, in the Van Helsing films; the overweight monk Imperius in Ladyhawke. Some of the craft breweries using monastic medievalism adopt this caricatured version of the monk or friar, a self-​effacing decision that establishes their brand identity. These are breweries whose neomedievalism does not evoke solemnity, intensity, or awe; instead, 53 Anne Kaler, “Who Is That Monk in the Hood? Friar Tuck, Francis of Assisi, and Robin Hood,” Journal of Popular Culture 30 (1997):  51–​75 (54). There is also an association of Tuck with Franciscanism and the Marian cult, as Kaler discusses. 54 Kaler, “Who Is That Monk?,” 51.

55 Kaler, “Who Is That Monk?,” 54–​55.

56 Andrew Casteel, email interview, September 4, 2018.

57 Canterbury Tales citations in this paragraph were taken from “The General Prologue,” lines 167–​250.

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their self-​representation is as a group of like-​minded brewers who do not take themselves too seriously. Without the biting condemnation attached to medieval anticlerical satire, the chubby, tipsy monk or friar of modern medievalism is a figure with whom we can identify—​one who is supposed to do one thing, but really enjoys doing something else. Furthermore, the silly cleric is a particularly entertaining and harmless figure in a modern society shaped largely by secular attitudes. Breweries using the laughable monk/​friar in their branding often integrate this religious icon into an overall secular marketing strategy. For example, Monkish Brewing of Torrance, California, edges towards a medieval monastic branding theme, but does not quite embrace it. This is done intentionally; the brewery is hinting at monastic medievalism—​glancing sideways at brewing’s medieval heritage—​without truly imitating it. The name suggests as much:  “Monkish” illustrates the liminality of the company’s theme and its acknowledgement of its own ahistorical neomedievalism. Some of its beer names could possibly have a monastic association, but others are nowhere close: Subliminal Sequel, NightHawkz, Anomaly, Feed Me Hip Hop, Haiku de Saison, Silent Language, Feminist, Black Kisses 2018, Amigas y Amigos, and Dreaming of the Usual are examples that demonstrate the thematic variety in its beer branding. There is no recreation of a monastery’s layout or homage to a real monk: it is simply “monkish.” The brewery’s logo is possibly a Celtic cross with rounded tips, but could also be a stylized four-​ leaf clover. It is not “medieval enough” to establish a visual claim to historicity. The motto on the business cards (“Beer. Hope. Love.”) alludes to 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.” In using this cheeky slogan, Monkish Brewing performs the part of the saucy friar who knows his Bible yet also harmlessly subverts it. This is the “monkish” man who, like Friar Tuck, is “both contradictory and comforting […] he may be gluttonous […] but he brings us love and joy and forgiveness in his merry song and foaming mug of abundant ale.”58 Monkish Brewing continues this mixture of modern and medieval effects with its tasting room, which contains several cafeteria-​or restaurant-​sized four-​seat modern tables, but also includes one locally sourced old church pew with the brewery’s logo recently carved into it and a very old and medieval-​looking tall chair whose origin is unknown. The brewery owners simply state that they “don’t know much about this chair that [they] bought at a flea market except that it’s pretty darn cool looking.”59 The aesthetic of the chair, and the emotional response that aesthetic evokes, is what is valuable—​not the story behind the chair or its actual age. The church pew and the wooden chair sit incongruously beside the regular tables in the Monkish tasting room, an excellent performance of the bricolage so often produced by neomedievalism. Laughing Monk in California and Barrel of Monks in Florida are examples of brewers who use monastic neomedievalism to position themselves as America’s answer to—​or expansion of—​Belgian ales:  the former boasts “Belgian and California Ales from San Francisco”60 and the latter invites patrons to “come experience Belgium in Boca!”61 They take their history lightly, using the friendly medieval monk figure not as a historical 58 Kaler, “Who Is that Monk?,” 72.

59 www.monkishbrewing.com/​blog/​the-​tasting-​room.html. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

60 www.laughingmonkbrewing.com/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

61 https://​barrelofmonks.com/​tastingroom/​visit-​us/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

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referent, but rather as a symbol of the intimate friendships cultivated in and through their breweries. Both, for example, refer to their founders and brewmasters as monastic brethren, and Barrel of Monks calls its elite beer club “The Brotherhood.” The Barrel’s origin story is not just about beer making; it is also about male friendship, education, and the self-​knowledge that emerges through these things. In the “About Us” section of their website, Barrel of Monks’ founders describe how during their trip to Belgium to learn brewing techniques, they “learned about themselves as well as the beer.”62 Their Brotherhood beer club invites fellow, though likely male,63 beer drinkers to experience a similar kind of revelation: “Enter into a sacred order that welcomes those who seek a higher level of taste and appreciation. Follow us into the holy trinity: beer, brotherhood and benefits.”64 The Barrel of Monks reflects this commitment to specialized, elite (“higher-​level”) knowledge in its brewing process, which it describes in detail on its website. For this brewery, Belgium becomes local; it is Belgian water, dirt, and brewing techniques that help it to cultivate a Belgian “terroir” in its beer.65 Its use of medievalism emerges mostly in its use of monastic concepts: brotherhood and intimacy, secret knowledge lost to the past, an embodied experience of the divine. It is the idea of the monk, rather than the historical reality, that is valuable. Although “Barrel of Monks” sounds somewhat cartoonish, the company does not reinforce that impression in its branding; there are no images of monks tumbling out of barrels, for example, although somber robed monks illustrate its Vintage line. The brewery’s beer names and descriptions also reflect its symbolically monastic dedication to the craft, if not historicized medievalism. Most of its beers are described using Belgian beer terminology, and their names are more akin to fantasy medievalism than monastic imitation: Abbey Terno, Nuance, Three Fates, Quadraphonic, Wizard, Raspberry Sorcery, Delilah, and Endless Enigma are a few examples. Their detailed descriptions are like those of wine or whiskey: Charmingly tweaked from the Latin term Ab Aeterno which translates to “from eternity” or “since the beginning” depending on who you ask, Abbey Terno is our version of the abbey style Dubbel. This timeless brown beer makes liberal use of delicious Belgian candi sugar that adds notes of toffee, dried fruit, just a hint of chocolate and is dry and sessionable even at 7.5% ABV.66

This type of elegant, specialized description speaks to a drinker who feels they have cultivated the correct taste for appreciating good beer.67 It is a minor form of class 62 https://​barrelofmonks.com/​the-​monks/​about-​us/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

63 At the end of “The Brotherhood” page on its website, the brewery does parenthetically acknowledge female drinkers in its statement about a yearly event “curated to honor our brothers (and sisters) in beer.” However, the default male gendering of the brand is clear—​and not that unusual in craft beer circles. 64 https://​barrelofmonks.com/​the-​monks/​the-​brotherhood/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

65 Although terroir is usually associated with wine, it has become an important feature in craft brewing as well. Hieronymus, Brewing Local, xv. 66 https://​barrelofmonks.com/​our-​beers/​on-​tap/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

67 It does not, for example, define or explain “abbey style Dubbel” or “sessionable” because it is speaking to an audience who is expected to understand such terms.

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boundary-​making and thus brand-​shaping—​if your senses are refined enough to appreciate the flavour notes identified, and if you understand terminology like “Abbey style,” “dubbel,” and “sessionable,” you belong in the exclusive “Brotherhood.” The names of the beers produced by Laughing Monk, on the other hand, signal that brewery’s unique approach to ahistorical neomedievalism. While some beers have a monastic or medieval-​themed name, most are designed for humour or to honour a special person or cause: Doctor Hawking (produced to raise funds for ALS), Brother Elijah, Irreverent Wit, Space Force (a smirking allusion to Donald Trump’s 2018 announcement, one assumes), the Book of Ginger, the Craic, Precious Cargo, Strawberry Pulpit, Boxing Nun, Brother Anthony (for Anthony Bourdain), and Sister Georgia (a tribute to a girlfriend of one of the brewers) are some examples. Unlike Barrel of Monks, Laughing Monk’s descriptions are as brief as possible, usually only the beer type (IPA, witbier, pale ale, etc.) and a collection of key words (“juicy, stonefruit, citrus”; “big, bold, rum-​ raisin”). These branding choices suggest that Laughing Monk, like Barrel of Monks, uses the symbolic resonance of monasticism rather than the historicized reality, but is less invested in the complexity of terroir and the spirituality and intimacy of brewing. Its logo is a monk’s laughing face, and while its owners are cheekily identified as “Brother Jeff” and “Brother Andrew” and some beers are titled “Brother” or “Sister,” the monastic monikers end there.68 The monastic inclusiveness and intimacy of Laughing Monk is also much less gendered than that of Barrel of Monks. Its social media feeds (Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook) clearly position the brewery as a space of inclusion, regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, or race. For example, its beer “The Book of Ginger” was produced to raise funds for the drag queen Gingersnaps (real name Tim Tate), who was the victim of a street attack in San Francisco. Several of its “Sister” beers are hazy IPAs produced to support social justice causes. “Sister Aretha,” for example, raises funds for a civil rights charity in honour of Aretha Franklin, and “Sister Amor” was created to support the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a San Francisco drag queen group of “queer nuns” who devote themselves “to community service, ministry and outreach to those on the edges, and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity and spiritual enlightenment.”69 These gender-​inclusive “monks” supporting gender-​reversed “nuns” is intriguing and memorable because this is not what we expect from monks and nuns. Laughing Monk has infused these medieval figures with modern values, which suggests that this brewery is not so much interested in returning to an idyllic past as radically shifting our view of that past. The relative frequency of drag queen images on Laughing Monk’s social media feeds reveals that this brewery is not as invested in modelling itself as conventionally masculine in the way that many other breweries are (see Chapter 3). The monastic model of brotherhood is used to perform radical inclusivity. 68 The brewery does have a “Monk’s Tales” section of the website that struck me as an allusion to Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. However, Andrew Casteel, cicerone and Laughing Monk founder, said via email that he was not consciously thinking about Chaucer when constructing the website, although he “looked to the Canterbury tales for stories of great indulgence to inspire our beer names.” 69 www.thesisters.org/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

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Monastic Medievalism and Gender: What about the Women?

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Laughing Monk’s inclusion of nuns and sisters in its brand identity is unusual. While its form of monastic medievalism—​welcoming both brothers and sisters to its “order”—​ may be overturning the long-​standing associations of beer with conventional masculinity, this impulse remains relatively unusual in the craft beer world. As discussed in Chapter 3, women comprise a minority of beer drinkers and beer marketing tends to marginalize them. The invisibility of women in the beer industry is long-​standing, from the gradual exclusion of alewives in the Middle Ages (see Chapter 2) to the twentieth century’s postwar naturalization of the idea that women “do not like the ‘taste of beer’ ” (even though there is no general “taste of beer”).70 Christopher Mark O’Brien laments the “collective amnesia” we have about the historical influence that women have had on brewing, and female involvement in beer production now.71 This amnesia often shapes monastic medievalism among craft brewers, which is almost entirely gendered as masculine even though monasticism during the Middle Ages included both male and female practitioners. While it is true that there were significantly more monastic communities for men than for women in the medieval period, nuns brewed beer just as monks did.72 Interestingly, there is relatively little scholarly work on this subject despite the long-​ standing and wide-​ranging research on monks and brewing. Several sources refer to brewhouses in nunneries,73 and in his book on beer in the Middle Ages Richard Unger states that “making beer in a nunnery was also apparently a common practice,” but he does not expand on nuns’ brewing activity.74 Judith Bennett does not discuss nuns and brewing in her book on alewives, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England, but in an informal email exchange with me she speculated that nuns may have received less attention for their brewing because they did not produce beer to the same extent as monks. Male monasteries often brewed commercially as well as for themselves, and they had the finances and space to support a larger brewing operation, while nunneries usually were poorer and without the personal networks available to monasteries. These socioeconomic differences may well have resulted in nuns’ brewing activity being much more local while monks were able to produce and distribute their beer widely.75 In general, it appears that female domestic work is not an object of scholarly interest in the ways that work commercialized by men is, even if these two groups are making the same product. The dearth of representations of “women’s work”—​brewing nuns, alewives, etc.—​ in craft brewers’ monastic medievalism is common across the industry, and is perhaps 70 Darwin, “You Are What You Drink,” 223. 71 O’Brien, Fermenting Revolution, 65.

72 Roberta Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Religious Women (London: Routledge, 1993), 188. 73 Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture, 123; Marilyn Olivia, The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1998), 189. 74 Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages, 29.

75 Judith Bennett, personal email, August 24, 2018.

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unsurprising given the gendered nature of beer marketing in general.76 One notable exception, aside from Laughing Monk’s “sister” beers, is the beer I described in the opening of this book: Naughty Hildegard Extra Special Bitter (ESB) by Driftwood Brewery on Vancouver Island. The bottle’s label depicts Hildegard in profile against a stained glass window, gazing at a hop cone in her hand, but she herself appears to be part of the stained glass as well; this effect is produced through the dark lines that shape her face and shoulders, the contrasting colours, the geometric shapes, and the overall simplicity of the image, which is an adaptation of what appears to be an early twentieth-​ or perhaps late nineteenth-​ century medieval-​style painting.77 The back of the label states that the beer was brewed to honor Hildegard Von Bingen, a 12th century Benedictine abbess, composer, and writer who is considered the founder of scientific natural history in Germany. Her treatise on medicine, “Physica Sacra,” contains the first recorded use of hops as a preservative in beer. This ESB is strong and generously hopped. For Hildegard.

In an email exchange with me, Gary Lindsay of Driftwood Brewing expressed his admiration for Hildegard, commenting upon his sense of her “authenticity” (an important concept in beer branding, as earlier discussed) and praising the range of her accomplishments: “The scope of her influence on so many modern disciplines seems unparalleled! There was no conscious thought originally about the theme of medievalism but more to the direct reference to her innovative contributions to brewing science.”78 Similarly, Brewie magazine praises Hildegard as a “modern-​day heroine”79 and the British Columbia beer blog The Growler published an historical essay on Hildegard, complete with interviews with scholars from the University of British Columbia, and concluded that “she was a total bad-​ ass.”80 There seems to be a desire to see Hildegard and her accomplishments as inherently modern rather than medieval—​as if she was a medieval prototype of a modern woman. The adjective “naughty” in the beer’s name does not eroticize Hildegard, as the word alone might suggest; there is no image of Hildegard saucily pulling up her nun’s habit, no dirty jokes on the label.81 Instead, “naughty” might be seen as differentiating her from other women and modernizing her. She was “naughty” in that she did things that most women 76 There are certainly medieval-​themed craft breweries that are more gender-​inclusive, such as Dragon’s Tale Brewing in California (owned and run by women who use medieval fantasy fiction as an inspiration), although they are usually not monastic-​themed breweries. The idea of a female cleric brewing is so surprising within the industry that people pay attention; there are, for example, many stories in beer publications about Doris Engelhard, a brewmaster nun in Germany:  Tracy Brown Hamilton, “Sister Doris, Beer-​Brewing Nun,” Draft, March 2015. https://​draftmag.com/​ sister-​doris-​beer-​nun/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019. 77 I have found images of this painting online, but with no attribution. The graphic designers who created the Driftwood label (Hired Guns Creative) had no information on the painting’s source either, although they acknowledged that they used it to create the label imagery. 78 Gary Lindsay, email interview, August 20, 2018.

79 “Hildegard and the Hop,” Brewie, 2018. https://​brewie.org/​knowledge-​center/​news/​hildegard-​ and-​the-​hop. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

80 Rob Mangelsdorf, “Beerstory 101: St. Hildegard of Bingen,” The Growler, March 6, 2017.

81 While I was completing the final revisions for this book, I discovered an older version of the label that depicted Hildegard with a halo around her head, lifting up her nun’s habit (like an apron)

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FIGURE 4. The label for Driftwood Brewery’s Naughty Hildegard ESB.

were told they could not; she trespassed onto men’s ideological property. Seeing Hildegard as modern, however, is itself medievalism; in the Middle Ages we see a model to which we aspire to return. It is also a fantasy, to some degree, because Hildegard is what we imagine women can and should be—​intellectual rather than domestic. “Normal” female labour such as brewing is not noteworthy or legendary, but scholastic, intellectual labour is. Much of Driftwood’s other redesigned branding art draws upon mythology and fantasy, with beers such as Crooked Coast, Arcus Pilsner, Son of the Morning, Old Cellar Dweller, and Drawn to Light, among others, memorably illustrated on its bottles. In this mythologized context, Hildegard becomes a legend—​a modern-​day woman before women were modern. While to gather hops. Her stocking-​clad legs are visible to the mid-​thigh and she is wearing red pinup-​ style heels. The design was done by Margaret Hanson Design and is part of an older collection of Driftwood label art no longer in use. The new design, however, is so popular that the brewery sells shirts that bear the image, and in sizes designed for women (which is not always the case with specialized T-​shirts).

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FIGURE 5. Mythologized branding in the labels of Driftwood Brewery.

this is undoubtedly positive, it also implies that conventional female labour—​which usually included brewing in the Middle Ages—​is both invisible and unimportant. Hildegard, because of her intellectual achievements in the field of natural science, is an important figure in the history of beer and is usually acknowledged in both academic and populist/​beer industry sources, which is why it is strange that the use of her name in beer branding and marketing is so rare.82 The craft beer industry is one in which origin narratives—​stories of fathers and founders—​are particularly valuable, and yet I could find almost no other beer or brewery that used Hildegard in its products or brand identity.83 Other medieval and preindustrial beer “fathers” are used to great effect in 82 There is some disagreement about the level of her influence and whether it has been overestimated, but in general her work constitutes some important early records of beer production. See Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages, 27; Cornell, Beer, 62–​63; Garrett, Oxford Companion, 435. In addition, beer magazines such as Beer Advocate, Brewie, Beer Scene Mag, Beer & Brewing, and others laud Hildegard’s contributions. Brewie calls her a “modern day heroine,” which is somewhat confusing given that she lived in the twelfth century, but the sentiment is still clear (“Hildegard and the Hop”). 83 Benchmark Brewing in San Diego makes a triple IPA named after Hildegard (the brewery cites her as the twelfth-​century abbess who was the first to write about using hops in beer) and the Pink Boots Society (a group that supports women in brewing) collaborated in 2018 with Night Shift Brewing of Massachusetts to release a special “St. Hildegard” beer for International

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craft branding. Koch’s popular Sam Adams, for example, honours the eighteenth-​century Samuel Adams, who owned a malt house and was involved in beer distribution when he was not revolting against the British; Adams’ entrepreneurial and independent spirit, according to Koch, enabled him to see “how you could radicalize people.”84 Saint Arnold Brewing, another example of monastic medievalism, uses the historical seventh-​century saint/​bishop from Metz as a lynchpin of its branding, and yet Saint Arnold is only peripherally connected to beer history, through one miracle involving a divinely refilled beer mug.85 One of the top beers in North America, Pliny the Elder by Russian River Brewing, is named so because Pliny the Elder’s Natural Historia was one of the first works to discuss hops, although Pliny does not actually mention beer. There are endless examples of male figures deployed in craft branding in order to establish what Jeff Rice calls a network—​a range of associations—​for a beer or a brewery, but almost no women. Nuns, Hildegard, and St. Brigid of Kildare, who performed several miracles involving beer and whose poetry imagines heaven as a lake of ale (see Chapter 2), all are nearly invisible in the craft beer industry’s medievalizing of its products, just as they were pushed to the margins of the brewing industry itself as it became larger and more profitable throughout the Middle Ages and into modernity.86 This kind of medievalism in beer marketing, which effaces the role of women in its history just as late medieval beer writings themselves did, therefore reinforces the coding of beer as inherently masculine by imagining its supposed origins as masculine. It is also a masculinity that is, by default, white European. This recasting of history has certainly contributed to the lack of diversity in the craft beer industry as a whole and to the naturalizing of beer as a man’s drink. The role of masculinity—​specifically “white” masculinity—​in craft beer circles and marketing is important, and the following two chapters consider it in more depth.

Women’s Day. However, this latter use was, by definition, a special choice because Hildegard was a woman; she has not been normalized as a beer founder across beer branding more generally. www.nightshiftbrewing.com/​calendar/​2018/​3/​8/​international-​womens-​day-​release-​party. Last accessed August 17, 2019. 84 Hindy, The Craft Beer Revolution, 45.

85 A different St. Arnold (not St. Arnold of Metz, who is the saint referenced in this brewery) is the patron saint of hop pickers.

86 There are hints at some Brigid-​themed beers in North America, but I  have only found these scattered occasionally on beer ratings sites, and not via a company. Several beer ratings sites identify a “Brigid Red Ale” by Lucky Owl Brewing, which no longer appears to be in business. A group of three homebrewers in Denver created an ale named for Brigid, but I could only find this via a blog entry from 2011. There is a Brigid’s Well pub in Ottawa and a Brigid’s Pub in Minnesota, although neither of these is an actual brewery. A St. Brigid’s Brewery formerly operated in Washington (until 2015 as far as I can ascertain). See note 83 for Hildegard beers.

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MILITANT MEDIEVALISM: NORSEMEN, MYTHOLOGY, AND MASCULINITY THE REINFORCEMENT OF masculine tropes in beer branding—​and indeed, the overall gendering of beer as masculine—​underlies the second major form of medievalism with which this book is concerned. I refer to this category as militant medievalism, which includes any kind of medievalism that uses aggressive, fighting figures, such as Norsemen, Celtic or Norse gods, pirates, or dragons.1 This medievalism, which extends the gendered implications of craft beer to their limits, draws upon Vikings, longships, gods, Valhalla, tankards of ale, fearsome creatures, outlaws, and weapons to represent achievement, strength, and ­masculinity. In both its sincere and parodic manifestations, militant medievalism in craft breweries is used to develop a sense of community and cultivate authenticity, just as monastic medievalism does. Norse or Viking medievalism looms the largest within this category and receives the most attention; it has a long history in North America, from films and TV shows (Vikings, Norsemen, The 13th Warrior, Erik the Viking, How to Train Your Dragon), to comics and their adaptations (Marvel Comics’ Thor, Hagar the Horrible), to kitschy costumes, to neopaganism.2 Since the nineteenth century, North Americans as well as the British have been fascinated by the alternate colonization narrative offered by the Vikings and their sagas. Sundmark describes the transformation in British perception of Vikings from the nineteenth through to the early twenty-​first century as moving from seeing them as brutal, primitive warriors to viewing their violence as a model of heroism and bravery aligned with Englishness: “by the end of the 1950s Vikings had become accepted as part of the cultural heritage of Britain—​as ‘us’ rather than ‘them.’ ”3 Geraldine Barnes demonstrates that, when encountering the Old Norse accounts of voyages beyond Greenland, late nineteenth-​ and early twentieth-​century North American readers “celebrated an ideal of Viking heroism and nostalgia for the moment of discovery” while British readers inferred a sense of loss and regret that the Vikings had left their island for new lands.4 Similarly, Helen Dell argues that the Viking narrative offered to American readers “a less tainted genealogy” that allowed them to escape the “decayed, bloody and debauched Old World represented by Columbus.”5 This notion of the Viking genealogy being, in Dell’s words, “less tainted” resonates with Ben Pitcher’s argument that the appeal of modern Nordic-​style products, defined 1 This category of “militant medievalism” could be broken down into several smaller categories, but given the common thread of aggression throughout, and the fact that Norse medievalism is far more prominent than other forms, I treat them as one category.

2 Faye Ringel, “New England Neo-​pagans:  Medievalism, Fantasy, Religion,” Journal of American Culture 17 (1994): 65–68 (65).

3 Björn Sundmark, “Wayward Warriors:  The Viking Motif in Swedish and English Children’s Literature,” Children’s Literature in Education 45 (2014): 197–​210 (207).

4 Geraldine Barnes, “Nostalgia, Medievalism, and the Vinland Voyages,” Postmedieval 2 (2011): 141–​54 (141). 5 Dell, “Nostalgia and Medievalism,” 123.

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by their structural simplicity, clean lines, and light colouring, is due to the sense of the European north as an origin for Caucasian consumers; the consumption of Nordic culture becomes a return to one’s roots, to a purer form of whiteness.6 While Sundmark argues that the figure of the Viking has become “deracinated” and a “floating signifier” not attached to any specific culture, it is nevertheless true that “Viking” in the popular imagination embodies white European identity.7 The racial implications here are contentious, as a recent example illustrates. In April 2019, as I  was revising this chapter, medievalist Dorothy Kim published an article in Time magazine about the discrepancy between the popular imagining of Vikings as white, superior warriors and the historical reality of Viking communities, which is that they were ethnically diverse.8 The vitriol unleashed at Dr. Kim on social media (namely Twitter and Facebook) clearly revealed the deeply fraught anxieties and anger about what whiteness means, especially in the study of history. Whiteness as a category informs our perception of Vikings, regardless of how “deracinated” they appear to be. I do not wish to draw broad, sloppy conclusions about the ideological currents shaping medievalism in its various forms—​including the beer industry—​but neither can I ignore the fact that modern medievalism is, and has always been, racialized. This issue is addressed in Chapter  6, in which I  examine the medieval models of heroism that structure craft beer stories and branding, as well as the ways in which origin story nostalgia constructs a whitewashed Middle Ages. However, this chapter discusses the Norse medievalism of Viking pubs and beers in order to articulate their distinction from monastic medievalism, with the understanding that while we must acknowledge how some Norse medievalism is imbricated with white supremacy, such medievalism is multivalent and does not always signal such affiliations. The North American craft breweries and brewpubs using Norse, mythological, or other militant forms of medievalism comprise approximately 11–​13 percent of Table 3 (depending on what criteria are used to distinguish between categories) and include, among others, Valkyrie Brewing, Viking Brewpub, Muninn’s Post, Skål, Swashbuckler Brewing, Knights Keep Brewing, 3 Floyds, Angry Erik, Dragon’s Gate, Norsemen Brewing, Barbarian Brewing, Fearless Brewing Company, Longship Brewing, and Odin Brewing. These kinds of names denote danger, aggression, risk, and bravery. In the ­popular modern imagination, Vikings were conquerors, settlers of new worlds, and known for their fearlessness and strength. Indeed, they are so well known for being “ballsy” that an Icelandic craft brewery produced a beer made with smoked whale testicles, which is ideal for “true Vikings,” according to its website.9 Dragons and similar creatures 6 Ben Pitcher, Consuming Race (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), 71. 7 Sundmark, “Wayward Warriors,” 209.

8 Dorothy Kim, “White Supremacists Have Weaponized an Imaginary Viking Past. It’s Time to Reclaim the Real History,” Time, April 12, 2019. http://​time.com/​5569399/​viking-​history-​white-​ nationalists/​?fbclid=IwAR2pr_​_​fWf2SdFLBn7XAVk-​X_​CpYA8swlX_​Q4WkF7Lje-​wSddJQsPLLn9Lo. Last accessed August 17, 2019. 9 The brewery Steðji was quoted in Leah Hyslop, “Yes, Iceland Really Has Launched a Beer Made of Whale Testicles,” Telegraph, January 13, 2015, sec. Food and Drink. www.telegraph.co.uk/​ foodanddrink/​foodanddrinknews/​11340542/​Yes-​Iceland-​really-​has-​launched-​a-​beer-​made-​of-​ whale-​testicles.html. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

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represent powerful, wealthy opponents whose fate is to be defeated by a brave knight. Pirates and outlaws are men enterprising and courageous enough to live outside normal human constraints and laws. These characteristics all align with the ideological framework of craft beer narratives, in which independence, courage, risk-​taking, and conquering are features of the brewery and its founders. To launch oneself into a product market dominated by behemoth corporations such as Anheuser-​Busch InBev certainly requires independence and courage. The ideological imbrication of craft beer mythology (the need to be brave and independent in order to succeed) with Viking medievalism is often an undercurrent in craft beer branding, but sometimes a brewery makes it explicit.10 For example, Fearless Brewing tells customers that “the Vikings of lore feared nothing, and that was the spirit embraced by Ken Johnson, a hard headed Swede if there ever was one, when he talked his wife, Bennett, into risking their life savings on starting a brewery.”11 Similarly, this excerpt from Longship Brewing’s “Story” page makes clear the connection between its Viking theme and its identity as a craft brewer: The pride of the Nordic people was their ability to cross the oceans in ways that no other civilization had done before. With the curiosity of the unknown, this guided them to uncover the world’s riches, solidifying their place in history. It is this same drive of exploration that fills the sails of Longship Brewery in San Diego, CA. We fearlessly seek out bold ingredients combinations and daring styles.12

Norse colonization becomes a metaphor for this craft brewery’s initiative and courage in expanding outside of what is “known”—​perhaps the fizzy corporate lager that blankets North America. The motifs of exploration and expansion may at first seem at odds with a business that must rely upon local connections rather than a global reach. However, Longship represents itself as providing new experiences for its consumers, guiding them on their journey of beer exploration. Similarly, Adam McQueen of Skål Brewpub in Seattle indicates that he is particularly interested in “highlighting the Vikings as explorers and adventurers. They were masters of the sea and lived well off the land.”13 This model is particularly resonant for craft brewers, not just because of the bravery and independence asserted, but because McQueen sees Vikings as being resourceful and adapting their local landscape to their needs (neolocalism without the “neo”). Breweries that employ a Norse or fantasy/​militant concept in their branding often use their product names to reinforce their brand identity, with gender stereotypes frequently reinforced in the process. In my review of various beer lines from these breweries, I observed that in many cases the darker, more bitter, high-​alcohol beers—​beer types that consumers usually read as masculine—​have names that evoke primal aggression and power.14 Some examples are Thor’s Hammer by Central City, War Hammer Porter by Valkyrie, Erick’s Hammer Porter by Angry Erik, Berserk Barleywine by Valkyrie,

10 I use this term not to denote falsity, but in the sense of mythology as a collection of stories told and retold to affirm a community’s identity and status. 11 www.fearless.beer/​ourStory.html. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

12 www.longshipbrewery.com/​home. Last accessed August 17, 2019. 13 Adam McQueen, email interview, September 2, 2018.

14 Darwin, “You Are What You Drink,” 223; Maciel, “Cultural Tensions,” 210.

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Old Fearless Barleywine by Fearless Brewing, and Thor’s Hammer IPA by the same.15 Longship Brewing names its darker, higher-​alcohol beers Abomination, Battle Axe, and Dark Deeds, while Barbarian Brewing uses the names of dark, powerful goddesses for its “masculine beers”—​Persephone Porter and the Morrigan, an imperial stout. In a similar “dark goddess” vein, 7 Devils Brewery vended its line of stouts at the Festival of Dark Arts in February 2018, describing in its blog the “magical menagerie of dark art and macabre entertainment” that was “surrounded by the boldest collection of stouts ever assembled in one place” (emphasis mine).16 3 Floyds Brewing produced a “robust, Aesir porter” called Ragnarok in collaboration with Amon Amarth, the famous Viking metal band, and described it using a Viking warrior mythos: “When Heimdal sounds the Gailar Horn for the last battle, this is the beer the gods will drink.”17 In contrast to these darker, powerful beers, the lighter, sweeter beers produced by such breweries tend to have feminine or lighthearted names, such as Dragon Hops Brewing’s Women’s Work Hefeweizen, Valkyrie Brewing’s Swan Maiden Kolsch Ale, Odin Brewing’s Freya’s Gold Kolsch, and Longship’s Wildlife Guardian Kolsch and its Loki’s Wit Witbier. However, the overall visual branding of these breweries, which includes severe-​looking Viking faces, axes, imposing longships, and skulls, suggests that their predominant energy and public image is one of masculine power. Despite its prominence (or perhaps because of it), this performance of aggressive masculinity is not meant to be taken utterly seriously. Indeed, the average craft beer consumer, who sees him/​herself as making more ethical choices by supporting the local economy rather than big business, is unlikely to support explicit violence or oppression (or the glorification of those things) in real life. This average craft consumer can only enjoy this performance of aggression if it is recognized as just that—​a performance and not an echo of reality. The aggression behind Viking branding is actually play—​what Linda Hutcheon describes as the consciously doubled, “playfully ludic” form of postmodern parody.18 The 1989 film Erik the Viking recognizes the performative, parodic aspect of Viking hypermasculinity and aggression in its opening scene, in which the Norsemen are raiding a village and Erik enters a house with the intent to assault and kill a woman—​not because he wants to, but because he feels it is expected of a true Viking. The woman recognizes his inexperience and pokes fun at it; Erik is embarrassed to admit that he does not like raping and pillaging, and has not really done it before. Their conversation is darkly and uncomfortably funny not just because it is a philosophical debate occurring while a village is literally burning to the ground, but because it is in stark contrast to the caricatured version of Vikings that is now entrenched in our public consciousness—​the raw power and mindless ferocity of Norse warriors, with little thought given to their intellectual or emotional lives. 15 Barleywine, despite its name, is a strong, malty, high-​alcohol (8–​12  percent), often cask​conditioned ale. 16 www.7devilsbrewery.com. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

17 www.3floyds.com/​beer/​ragnarok/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

18 Linda Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 1989), 89–​90.

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Vikings can be parodied in this way because we recognize the two-​dimensionality of these modern reconstructions; their distance from us allows them to become caricatures. Sundmark argues that much of the late twentieth-​century Viking humour is produced by using the expected stereotypes of Viking violence and then contrasting those stereotypes with unexpected Viking behaviour, such as loving animals, getting lost, or being emotional.19 In some cases, the Vikings become cartoonish, funny figures; in others, they remain manly, but the parodic use of violence or hypermasculinity makes us feel as if we are in on the joke.20 Vikings become safe in their temporal and social alterity and in their modern simplification. The reality of the atrocities perpetrated by Norse warriors on the lands they ravaged leaves no space for humour. However, parody can offer relief from a reality that we wish to forget; Hutcheon suggests that “postmodern parody does not disregard the context of the past representations it cites, but uses irony to acknowledge the fact that we are inevitably separated from that past today.”21 There is a powerful, if uncomfortable and usually unacknowledged, irony in the knowledge that the Norsemen whose raiding brutalized people and lands have been translated into something so extreme it becomes goofy. It buries trauma and atrocity and declaws the perpetrators. Vikings become safe in this type of medievalism; their masculinity is recognized as hyperbolic and ultimately nonthreatening, leaving us room to play with it. And playing with power and masculinity is what Norse medievalism, including those versions of it evident in craft breweries, often does. The ludic quality of Norse medievalism in craft beer discourses and spaces not only effaces the brutality of the historical Viking invasions, but also subverts the hyperbolic masculinity noted earlier. In a strange way, the exaggeration of conventionally “manly” qualities in this type of medievalism draws attention to the gender imbalances and stereotypes that characterize it. In some manifestations, such traits are revealed to be a false veneer—​a silly, flattened version of masculinity—​that we can laugh at and dismiss.22 The exposure of hypermasculinity as performance is what fuels the uncomfortable humour in that opening scene from Erik the Viking. Erik, an actual Viking (in the film), is simultaneously “playing” being a Viking. Viking markets or fairs, a staple of Viking heritage tourism in Europe, also engage in the play of Viking medievalism. Halewood and Hannam describe these markets as “carnivalesque performances which emphasize the body and bodily processes, the community, and their relationship with their environment [they are] transgressive spaces where people can come to play.”23 19 Sundmark, “Wayward Warriors,” 207.

20 A similar dynamic of over-​the-​top masculinity that nevertheless retains its appeal is inherent to The Most Interesting Man in the World and the Old Spice Guy, discussed briefly in the previous chapter. 21 Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism, 90.

22 There is an interesting comparison to be made here between Viking medievalism and how the masculinity of Gaston and the Beast are respectively portrayed in Disney’s animated film Beauty and the Beast (another iteration of pop culture medievalism), but this will have to wait for my next foray into medievalism.

23 Chris Halewood and Kevin Hannam, “Viking Heritage Tourism: Authenticity and Commodification,” Annals of Tourism Research 28 (2001): 565–​80 (579).

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Viking medievalism, whether in the form of a market, a movie, or a brewery’s discursive strategies and local spaces, offers a safe venue in which to play at the aggression and violence that are not acceptable in normal interactions. We can imagine a different, perhaps more powerful, yet transitory identity for ourselves. Norse-​themed breweries invite such ludic, carnivalesque, faux aggression in everything from the objects in their taproom, to the shape of the bar, to the images on their labels and the puns in their slogans—​puns that often make light of the violence expected from Vikings. Viking Braggot Company’s motto is “Pillage responsibly.” Angry Erik Brewing enjoins its customers, “Don’t get mad! Get angry!” Its logo comprises a dragon and an axe over a round shield, but its website includes pictures of the owners’ dog drinking beer, and of the owners/​founders grinning while wearing Viking costumes and holding plastic weapons.24 Indeed, it is not uncommon to find Viking costuming items available for casual use at Norse-​themed breweries, such as Longship Brewing and Muninn’s Post, the Viking-​themed bar discussed in the previous chapter. The latter’s main homepage is taken up by a brief video clip of a crowd of patrons in full Viking garb gathered around and sitting on their longship-​styled bar, raising drinking horns and shouting a toast while laughing. Indeed, the cover image of this book was taken from just such an event. Muninn’s Post encourages play in many ways, with the musical and comedy events it hosts, the many board games it keeps on hand, and the costuming items that are sometimes available. On one of my visits there, I availed myself of a plastic Viking helmet with braids attached. As a medievalist, I was aware that Vikings likely did not wear any helmets—​and certainly not horned helmets, nor helmets with fake hair—​but the pub’s self-​conscious lack of historicity and its bricolage of Viking medievalism and historical recreation made it more enjoyable to play with the idea of “Vikingness,” safe in the knowledge that I was not attempting to reconstruct a putative reality. In Longship Brewing’s taproom is featured a very large painting of a Viking longship cresting some waves, and in various newspaper and magazine articles, as well as blog and social media posts, the painting is used as an atmospheric Norse-​themed background against which customers can pose with their friends. In one particularly memorable image from a San Diego Magazine interview, Longship founder Dan Jachimowicz stands with arms crossed in front of the painting, looking a bit like a modern-​day version of Viking explorer himself, but with a smile on his face that suggests he’s enjoying the joke.25 This sense of play is not as pronounced, in most cases, in the monastic-​themed breweries discussed in the previous chapter—​there are not usually monks’ robes and tankards scattered about those breweries, for example. While some monastic breweries use concepts such as prayer and devotion in their marketing materials and brand identity, it is not done in a satiric, hyperbolic, or carnivalesque manner. Instead, such breweries often imitate monastic ideals in order to convey the authenticity of their brewing; they are committed to pure, good beer and they treat it like a religion. Indeed, Heretic 24 www.angryerik.com/​about.html. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

25 www.sandiegomagazine.com/​Blogs/​Behind-​the-​Brews/​Winter-​2018/​Have-​a-​Beer-​with-​ Longships-​Dan-​Jachimowicz/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

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Brewing suggests that “great beer is a religion for many craft beer lovers.”26 Many brewers make such statements, and while they may not mean them completely literally, neither are they mocking. For example, Iron Monk Brewing explained the resonance the monastic theme in its branding in the following way: [W]‌e don’t necessarily brew any particular styles of beer that I would consider Middle Ages inspired, but we do take the process seriously. I think the use of the word “monk” in our name signifies this seriousness. We have a great respect for the science and history of beer. If we aren’t brewing or drinking beer, then we are discussing it or reading about it. This type of study and dedication is similar to the type of immersion in the process that various types of monks have dedicated themselves to for centuries.27

Deep knowledge and study (a scholarly “immersion”) are features of the monastic lifestyle that Iron Monk applies to its beer production. It is beer literacy at the highest level: a serious brewer’s goal is to “read” or interpret beer in every possible way, from understanding the technology of brewing to reading beer’s history to refining one’s taste buds. This process of learning is sincere, but also undergirded with a sense of play (we are, after all, learning about an intoxicating beverage!). This sense of play is evident in the following excerpt from the lighthearted “About Us” story of Chatty Monks Brewing: And then they heard the calling from the sky (or perhaps from their empty glasses): “brew, and ye shall be blessed.” […] By this time, the Monks were cloistered in the Beer Bunker, brewing almost every single weekend, plugging away at new recipes, tweaking the excellent into the extraordinary, and becoming true masters of their craft. […] They were overwhelmed by the peoples’ desire for their ales.28

Despite the playful narration of this self-​consciously neomedieval narrative, in which the brewers receive a linguistically archaic (“ye”) call to brew from the God who directs them (either God up above, or the God of malt and yeast in their “empty glasses”), their devotion to their business is serious. We are not meant to understand their diligence, tenacity, and dedication as hyperbolic or silly, in the way we understand neomedieval, caricatured representations of Viking aggression. We understand that such an exaggerated performance of aggressive masculinity is neither appropriate nor true, but it is pleasurable to play with the taboo in an acceptable manner. Monastic ideals, on the other hand—​isolation, dedication, focus, prayer—​have never been considered taboo, either in earlier eras or in the twenty-​first century. Beyond its playful nature, however, Norse medievalism in craft breweries also emerges out of an investment in authenticity—​that concept to which so much craft-​ brewing discourse repeatedly returns. There is an odd duality in craft brewing’s nexus of Viking medievalism and authenticity; there is both the self-​conscious parody of Viking 26 http://​hereticbrewing.com/​blog/​2010/​12/​17/​birth-​of-​a-​heretic/​. 17, 2019. 27 Matt Sullins, email interview, August 6, 2018.

Last

accessed

August

28 www.chattymonks.com/​our-​story-​west-​reading-​brewery/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

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FIGURE 6. The longship bar at Muninn’s Post.

history that recognizes its position as a fantasy of the past, but there is also a sincere investment in Norse heritage, the bravery and tenacity of Viking explorers, and possible modes of Norse representation and recreation. Randy Lee of Valkyrie Brewing, whose website uses various sword images and pre-​Raphaelite-​styled Viking paintings to convey the brewer’s brand identity, identifies the Swedish and Norwegian heritage of both him and his wife as a reason for their brewery’s Norse theme. Lee also candidly states that “people like to dress up for things like the Renaissance fairs and whatnot. They really wouldn’t have liked to actually live in that era.”29 While this is accurate, it is worth noting Michael Lang’s call, in his thesis on Norse medievalism, to differentiate between the popular culture focus on Viking colonization, with its attendant violence and brutality, and Scandinavian historical representations designed to educate the public about the full spectrum of Norse culture, which includes art, domestic practices, shipbuilding, hunting, and other kinds of skills.30 Muninn’s Post, the Viking-​themed bar in Kelowna, British Columbia, was discussed in the previous chapter as an illustration of how affinity spaces and proxemics function in pub environments, but it is also, of course, an example of Norse medievalism that is 29 Randy Lee, email interview, August 14, 2018.

30 Mike Lang, “How Far to Asgard? Viking Metal, Media, and the Construction of Place” (master’s thesis, Indiana University, 2013), 24.

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FIGURE 7. The bricolage of Viking decor at Muninn’s Post.

at once playful and authentic. Muninn’s Post balances the ludic carnivalesque of Viking reenactment (such as my Viking cosplay, referenced earlier) with important Norse signifiers such as the raven or the shield. Owner Leagh Jennings-​Bates explained in an email interview how Norse iconography aligns with Muninn’s Post’s business model: “We believed Muninn, the raven of memory in Norse mythology, was a fitting archetype for the restaurant; a physical representation of days past whe[n]‌towns would gather at the hall and bond as a community, often with food, drink, and games.”31 He recognizes, however, that his use of Muninn as a symbol does not constitute historical recreation, neither do the Viking costume items, the carved longship-​shaped bar, or the other medievalisms that create the pub’s atmosphere: “We recognize that we all look at the medieval period with an unrealistically positive view. […] Muninn’s definitely drew heavily from that fantasy of a tavern where adventurers would go to gather information about the local area, collect quests, and carouse with friends and strangers.” This fantasy of community is supported by the play of ludic Viking medievalism, a practice in which identities are fluid and what Jennings-​Bates calls the “fringe” elements of society, or “nerd culture,” are welcomed. Research has demonstrated the way that local drinking establishments can temporarily dismantle social hierarchies, and Viking-​themed pubs such as Muninn’s 31 Leagh Jennings-​Bates, email interview, June 24, 2018.

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Post catalyze an even more pronounced dismantling because of the carnivalesque and performative nature of the social interactions that occur there.32 Lang, in his discussion of Viking death metal bands, describes modern Viking pop culture constructions as an “imaginary” mix of “both the familiar and the fantasy” that produces communities defined by both physical and digital spaces33 This mix of the day-​to-​day and neomedieval fantasy is evident in Jennings-​Bates’ description of how he and his colleagues shaped the space of Muninn’s Post once they decided on the Viking theme: “Living in North America and starting a business with a very modest budget has ended up as a basic space decorated with bunch of historic weaponry, band paraphernalia, local art, and fantasy/​sci-​ fi themed items thrown up all over the place.” This bricolage reflects the multiplicity of Viking neomedievalism, and the many forms of community constructed by Muninn’s Post—​identities formed by historical nostalgia, desire for play and performance, rejection of mainstream tastes in music or art, and an embrace of the social fringe. Muninn’s Post draws upon a nostalgia for a sense of community that feels lost in the past—​a metaphorical heritage. Neither Jennings-​Bates nor his wife disclose personal Scandinavian ancestry in their establishment’s branding, yet the medieval tavern, to them, models a kind of community that is as powerful as family. However, actual Norse heritage is a valuable asset to some brewers. Skål in Seattle is a brewpub that is deeply invested in honouring its Norse ancestry and using its space as an homage to the life and craft of the Vikings. Owner Adam McQueen is proud of his Norwegian and Swedish ancestry, which was part of his motivation for turning his long-​term pursuit of craft brewing into a Viking-​themed brewpub. However, he also emphasized how he values the Nordic history of the brewery’s area of Seattle: “Ballard (the neighborhood I live in and where our beer hall is located) began as a Nordic fishing village and still has a strong Nordic presence. Many Nordic focused businesses, however, have disappeared as generations passed and Skål is intended to bring back the Nordic heritage of our neighborhood.”34 The neolocalism of Skål, in other words, comprises a desire to recover the local through a reinvigoration of the past Nordic community of Ballard. It is a project invested in the expression and cultivation of authenticity and how that can be both conveyed and cultivated. Unlike many medieval-​themed breweries, whose neomedieval playfulness outweighs historical accuracy, Skål’s cultivation of authenticity extends from geographical space (the area of a former Nordic fishing village) to menu items to furniture and dishes. McQueen specifies that Skål is “not a hollow themed restaurant (e.g., Rainforest Café or Epcot Center),” which I take to mean that Skål values historicity over the carnivalesque interpolation of violence that other Viking-​branded spaces and products deploy. The central feature in its taproom is a large stone fireplace, “much like what you would have seen in a Viking mead hall or longhouse.”35 Its beer can be served in 20-​ounce 32 Maciel, “Cultural Tensions,” 215, Halewood and Hannam, “Viking Heritage Tourism,” 579. 33 Lang, “How Far to Asgard?,” 43.

34 Adam McQueen, email interview, September 2, 2018. 35 Adam McQueen, email interview, September 2, 2018.

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tankards modelled after a Viking-​era archaeological find and created by local ceramic artist Sherry Kirk of Sidhefire Arts. Patrons have the option of consuming their mead in drinking horns, and the meats on the menu reflect the kind of diet Vikings may have eaten: venison, elk, goose, duck, pork, rabbit. The interior decoration, according to McQueen, “incorporates stone, chunky woods, and other elements to make you feel like the place was crafted from bare hands using materials close to our location.” The “feeling” (to use McQueen’s term) that the space was constructed with local materials—​ the aesthetic impression, in other words—​is as important to developing an atmosphere of authenticity as the items that actually were constructed locally and with local materials, such as Sherry Kirk’s tankards. Ultimately, the cultivation of authenticity entails the evocation of emotion and the creation of community connection. McQueen is very aware that Skål is not a pure and accurate recreation of a Viking space; it is not, in his words, a museum. Skål’s “loose interpretation of a Viking mead hall” provides emotional resonance for modern consumers by integrating the features of Viking medievalism we have been taught to expect via film and storytelling:  taboo aggression safely channelled into raucous laughter and large appetites, performed using crafted objects (tankards, bowls, rugs, swords, helmets). Hrothgar’s mead hall in Beowulf (when Grendel is not destroying it, of course) is one of the better-​known medieval examples of such a space. McQueen desires both historical and emotional authenticity in Skål but is aware that the former must sometimes be compromised to aid in the development of the latter: We are a communal, neighborhood beer hall that is building off of the communal nature of a traditional mead hall. The laughter, fun, and mirth will be there! We also realize our logo incorporates horns—​much to the chagrin of many historians who have made that known to us! Horns are forever linked to the Vikings (whether you like it or not) and are part of pop culture. Horns sell and are easily recognizable to the average consumer.36

Horns are indeed deeply ingrained into modern Viking medievalism; they are found in souvenir shops in most Viking-​themed museums or shops, both in North America and in countries originally settled by Vikings, such as Iceland, Norway, and Denmark. Horns are one way in which Skål engages in Viking “play” as described earlier; the carnivalesque inversion of the violent or aggressive into performance. Horns are also featured in other carnivalesque cultural or social performances, such as masked balls and neopagan events. Strange Fellows Brewing in Vancouver, British Columbia, uses horned images and masks in its branding, which conveys the brewery’s desire to overturn mainstream social conventions. One of the brewery’s events is explicitly styled after a medieval-​style ludic carnival.37 Horns thus connect Viking medievalism to a broader current of antiauthoritarianism that positions itself in opposition to the middle-​management rationality of corporate culture. The literal violence of Vikings becomes safe through parody, but 36 Adam McQueen, email interview, September 2, 2018.

37 This Is Their “Feast of Fools”: http://​scoutmagazine.ca/​2018/​04/​04/​strange-​fellows-​brewing-​ to-​host-​2nd-​annual-​feast-​of-​fools-​on-​april-​7th/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

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the underlying ideology of the Viking figure—​one who is brave, who pushes boundaries, who makes conquests—​remains firmly entrenched in craft beer medievalism and in craft beer culture more generally. The antiauthoritarianism and countercultural flavour of Viking medievalism appear to resist conventional models of economic and social authority, but in some ways these features join other types of medievalism in reinforcing such models, as the following chapter attests. Craft brewers who deploy medievalized narratives and imagery at once separate themselves from the homogenous, industrialized world of corporate brewing while also reinforcing rather than resisting certain deep-​seated cultural norms. Chapter 6 explores how this reinforcement of old, entrenched narratives (indeed, medievalism itself) can result in subtle forms of gatekeeping that marginalize those who might feel they do not truly belong in this industry, such as women or minorities. While still enjoying the pleasures and silliness of craft brewing, its stories, its spaces, and of course its products, we must remain aware of the ongoing need to keep the doors open—​to write new people, experiences, and cultures into the old stories, or, better yet, integrate new stories. Table 3: Medieval-​Themed Brewers and Brewpubs.a

1

Brewer (incl. brewpubs that produce their own beer and/​or focus on selling craft beer)

State/​Province

Year Founded (closure if applicable)

1188 Brewing

Oregon

2013

2

1487 Brewery

Ohio

2016

4

7 Devils Brewing

Oregon

2013

3 5 6 7

21st Amendment Brewery 7 Hermits Brewing 7 Sins Brewery

Abbey Brewing Company

California Oregon

New York

New Mexico

2000 2014

2016 2003

8

Abbey Brewing Company

Florida

1995

10

All Saints Brewing

Pennsylvania

2011

9

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Abbey of the Holy Goats Angry Erik Brewing

Apocalypse Ale Works

Apocalypse Brew Works Back Pew Brewing

Bad Tattoo Brewing Barbarian Brewing

Barrel of Monks Brewing

Georgia

New Jersey Virginia

Kentucky Texas

British Columbia Idaho

Florida

2016 2014 2013 2012 2014 2014 2015 2015

109

Table 3 (Cont.)

18

Brewer (incl. brewpubs that produce their own beer and/​or focus on selling craft beer)

State/​Province

Year Founded (closure if applicable)

Bearded Monk

Texas

2015

19

Biercraft

British Columbia

2005

21

Black Monk Brewery

Pennsylvania

2018

20 22 23 24 25

Black Abbey Brewing Black Plague Brewing Blacksmith Brewing

Broken Bow Brewery

Broken Plow Brewery

Tennessee California Montana

New York

Colorado

2013 2015 2008

2013 2014

26

Brother Ass Brewing

Washington

2013

28

Call to Arms Brewing

Colorado

2015

27 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

Burgundian Brewing

Castle Church Brewing Community Castle Danger Brewery Castle Island Brewing Castle Point Brewery

Castle Rock Beer Company Castleburg Brewery

Celtic Knot Brewing

Chatty Monks Brewing Chimp Monk Brewing

Church Brewing Company Church Brew Works

Church Key Brewing

Church Street Brewing

Crowded Castle Brewing

Crucible Brewing Company Deadly Sins Brewing

Desert Monks Brewing Devil’s Kettle Brewing Devil’s Purse Brewing

Colorado Florida

Minnesota

Massachusetts New Jersey Colorado Virginia

New Brunswick Pennsylvania Illinois

Nova Scotia

Pennsylvania Ontario Illinois

Pennsylvania Washington Florida

Arizona Ohio

Massachusetts

Unknown 2018 2011 2015 2013 2016 2016 2013 2013

2020 (est.) 2019 1999 2000 2017 2017 2015 2016 2016 2015 2015

(continued)

110

Table 3 (Cont.)

48

Brewer (incl. brewpubs that produce their own beer and/​or focus on selling craft beer)

State/​Province

Year Founded (closure if applicable)

Devil’s Trumpet Brewing

Indiana

2014

49

Dragon Hops Brewing

Virginia

2018

51

Dragon’s Gate Brewery

Oregon

2011

50 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

Dragonmead Microbrewery Dragon’s Tale Brewery Driftwood Brewing

EagleMonk Pub and Brewery Elora Brewing

Enchanted Circle Brewing Company English Ales Brewery

Ex Novo Brewing Company Four Horsemen Brewery Four Saints Brewing Friars’ Brewhouse

Garden of Eve Farm Brewery Green Man Brewing

Michigan California

British Columbia Michigan Ontario

New Mexico California Oregon

Washington

North Carolina Maine

New York

North Carolina

1997 2016 2008 2012 2015 2016 2000 2012 2016 2015 2018

2016 1997

64

Gruit Brewing

Maine

2010

66

Hell ‘n Blazes Brewing Company

Florida

2016

65 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

Heaven and Ale Brewing

Heretic Brewing Company Holy City Brewing

Horse and Dragon Brewing House of Pendragon

Humble Monk Brewing Iechyd Da

Illuminated Brewworks Inlet Brewing

Iron Monk Brewing Ivanhoe Aleworks Kells Brew Pub

Kinsmen Brewing

Tennessee California

South Carolina Colorado

California Ohio

Indiana Ohio

Florida

Oklahoma Texas

Oregon

Connecticut

2017 2010 2011 2013 2013 2014 2011 2013

Unknown 2014 2015 2012 2017

111

Table 3 (Cont.)

79

Brewer (incl. brewpubs that produce their own beer and/​or focus on selling craft beer)

State/​Province

Year Founded (closure if applicable)

Knights Keep Brewing

New Jersey

2019

80

Ladyface Ale Companie

California

2009

82

Lazy Monk Brewing

Wisconsin

2011

81 83 84 85 86 87 88

Laughing Monk Brewing Lost Abbey Brewing

Lucky Monk Brewpub Mad Knight Brewing Merchant Ale House

Middle Ages Brewing Mill St Brewery

California California Illinois

Tennessee Ontario

New York

Ontario

2016 2006 2009 2017 1998

1995 2002

89

Monkish Brewing Company

California

2012

91

Monk’s Cellar

California

2014

90 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99

100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108

Monkless Belgian Ales

Monks House of Ale Repute Monk’s Pub

Muninn’s Post

Naughty Monk Brewery New Belgium Brewing

New Sarum Salisbury Brewing Norris English Pub

Norsemen Brewing Norsemen Brewing

Odin Brewing Company Olde Bedford Brewing

Olde Burnside Brewing Olde Hickory Brewing

Olde Main Brewing Company Olde Mother Brewing

Olde Peninsula Brewpub Olde Salem Brewing

Oregon

South Dakota Illinois

British Columbia Florida

Colorado

North Carolina Indiana Alberta Kansas

Washington

Pennsylvania Connecticut

North Carolina Iowa

Maryland Michigan Virginia

2014 2007 1978 2015 2016 1991 2016 2015 2010 2016 2010 2014 2000 1994 2004 2015 1996 2017

(continued)

112

Table 3 (Cont.)

Brewer (incl. brewpubs that produce their own beer and/​or focus on selling craft beer)

109i

Ookapow Brewing

State/​Province Florida

Year Founded (closure if applicable) 2013

110

Oswald Brewing Company

Minnesota

2016

112

Paladin Brewing

Ohio

2015

111 113 114

Outlander Brewery Parish Brewing

Percival Beer Company

115

Pie-​Eyed Monk Brewery

117

Purgatory Beer

116 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130

131

Plow Brewing

Quarterceltic Brewpub

RagnaRock Brewing Company Red Dragon Brewery Red Monk Pub

Reformation Brewery Relic Brewing

Renaissance Brewing

Revelation Craft Brewing Ritual Brewing

Sacrilege Brewery

Saint Andre Brewing

Saint Arnold Brewing Company

Saint Benjamin Brewing Company

Saint Boniface Craft Brewing

Washington Louisiana

Massachusetts Ontario

California

Massachusetts New Mexico

Newfoundland Virginia Iowa

Georgia

Connecticut Oklahoma Delaware

California California Ontario Texas

Pennsylvania

2013

2017 2015 2017 2015 2018 2016

Unknown 2015 2012 2018 2016 2012 2016 1999 1994

2014–​2019

2011

New York

2012

Saint J Brewing

Vermont

134

Saint Patrick’s Brewing Company

Colorado

Saint James Brewing

2008

Pennsylvania

132 133

2012

2015

2012

135

Saint Somewhere Brewing

Florida

2006

137

Shenandoah Valley Brewing

Virginia

2012

136 138

Selkirk Abbey Solemn Oath

Idaho

Illinois

2012 2012

113

Table 3 (Cont.)

Brewer (incl. brewpubs that produce their own beer and/​or focus on selling craft beer)

139

Something Wicked Brewing

State/​Province Pennsylvania

Year Founded (closure if applicable) 2015

140

St. Ambrose Cellars

Missouri

2011

142

St. Benedict’s Brew Works

Indiana

2015

141 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157

158

St. Arnulf Alery

St. Brigid’s Brewery St. Elias Brewing

St. Elmo Brewing Company St. Florian’s Brewery St. Francis Brewery

St. George Brewing Company St. John Brewers

St. John Malt Brothers Brewing

St. Joseph Brewery & Public House St. Nicholas Brewing

St. Pete Brewing Company Steamworks Brewing Stone Brewing

Stone Church Brewing

Stone Church Pizza & Brewpub

Straight to Ale Brewing

Kentucky Washington Alaska Texas

California

Wisconsin Virginia

Virgin Islands (US) Indiana Indiana Illinois

Florida

British Columbia California California

Pennsylvania

Swashbuckler Brewing

Pennsylvania

164 165 166 167 168

The Ale Apothecary

Third Monk Brewing

Thirsty Monk Brewery Thirsty Pagan

Three Taverns Brewery Triplehorn Brewing Troubled Monk

2013 2009 1998 2004 2015 2015 2014 2014 1995 1996 2013

2015–​2018

2010

161 163

2016

South Carolina

British Columbia

162

2007

2009

Strange Fellows Brewing Studio Brew

2011

Alabama

159 160

2018

Oregon

Michigan

North Carolina Wisconsin Georgia

Washington Alberta

2014 2013 2012 2015 2008 2009 2013 2011 2015

114

114

Militant Medievalism

Table 3 (Cont.)

Brewer (incl. brewpubs that produce their own beer and/​or focus on selling craft beer)

169

Two Monks Brewing Company

State/​Province Ohio

Year Founded (closure if applicable) 2016

170

Valkyrie Brewery

Wisconsin

1994

172

Village Brewery

Alberta

2011

171 173 174 175

Viking Brewpub

Village Idiot Brewing Company

Witchdoctor Brewing Company Ye Olde Brothers Brewery

Wisconsin New Jersey

Connecticut Florida

2014 2012 2017 2017

a This table includes all Canadian and American craft brewers and brewpubs I could find that use medieval tropes in their naming, their branding, their décor, or their products. Given the ever-​ changing nature of the craft beer industry and the small size of many craft-​brewing operations, there is no doubt that this list is incomplete, but it gives a general sense of the extent to which medievalism has infused craft brewing.

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Chapter 6

PALE ALES AND WHITE KNIGHTS: CRAFT BREWING, WHITENESS, AND MEDIEVALISM IN 2009, GREG Koch, CEO of Stone Brewing, produced a video titled “I am a Craft Brewer” that preceded his keynote address at that year’s Craft Brewers Conference. The Vimeo caption describes the project as “a collaborative video representing the camaraderie, character and integrity of the American Craft Brewing movement [with] more than 35 amazing craft brewers from all over the country.”1 It is indeed an inspirational video, reinforcing the tropes of freedom, courage, and resistance for which the craft-​brewing industry is known. One statement, however, struck me as oddly unselfconscious: “We are small, community-​supportive, authentic, local, and diverse” (1:09–​1:15). Each term in this list made sense until the last one: diverse. The video included approximately thirty-​ six men and seven women (three of whom did not speak, or hardly spoke). Every single one of the brewers who appeared, male and female, appeared to be Caucasian.2

Seeing Whiteness

The whiteness of the craft-​brewing industry—​the fact that it seems “a bit too pale and male”—​is beginning to be more openly recognized, although it is slow to change.3 Daniel Bedsaul argues that despite the revolutionary language that infuses the industry, it is highly conventional regarding gender and race, with the vast majority of consumers being male and white.4 Erik Withers points out that approximately 80 percent of craft beer consumers are white and upper-​middle class and argues that, “despite some minority involvement, craft beer culture is informed and defined by whiteness.”5 Withers’ 1 Stone Brewing and Redtail Media, “I Am a Craft Brewer.” https://​vimeo.com/​4298464. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

2 I use “appeared” very consciously, because I recognize that some people of colour may “pass” as white. From my position as the viewer, all the brewers in the video appeared to be white.

3 Rowe, “The Unbearable Whiteness of Craft.” In 2016, the US Brewers Association reported the results of an external survey of craft beer drinkers that found that approximately 75  percent were men, 60 percent were white, 10 percent were African American, 9 percent were Asian, and 24  percent were Hispanic. See Julia Hertz, “Today’s Craft Beer Lovers:  Millennials, Women and Hispanics,” Communicating Craft—​ Brewers Association Website (blog), August 16, 2016, www.brewersassociation.org/​communicating-​craft/​understanding-​todays-​craft-​beer-​lovers-​ millennials-​women-​hispanics/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019. While survey data vary depending on a number of factors, in all cases it is clear that white men form the majority of the craft-​brewing industry. See Chapter 3 for additional information about the research on gender in craft brewing. 4 Daniel Bedsaul, “Craft Christianity: Christianity and Craft Beer America” (PhD diss., University of Missouri–Columbia, 2017), 70 5 Withers, “Brewing Boundaries,” 237.

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statement may seem provocative, particularly because the craft beer industry is predicated upon an ethos of equality and the principle that good taste is not aligned with ethnicity, gender, or class.6 The politics of craft beer generally lean towards the left, with interests in social justice and community involvement informing many brewers’ business structure and branding.7 However, the way nostalgia, nationalism, and masculinity have shaped the industry reveals the ease with which whiteness, a category discussed in the following pages, is naturalized and integrated. As this chapter explores, the concepts of nostalgia, nationalism (via colonialism), and masculinity, at least in their invocation in North American craft beer circles, are often the products or imaginings of a culture built on the power of whiteness. The inevitable discomfort this acknowledgement of whiteness evokes in an industry that strives for inclusivity is important and must be faced. While there have been positive steps forward, such as the US Brewers Association’s appointment of its first diversity ambassador early in 2018, the statistics cited earlier show that craft beer remains largely the domain of white men.8 The fact that participants in the craft-​brewing industry view themselves as a diverse group despite clear evidence to the contrary is itself a cornerstone of what Withers and other scholars refer to as whiteness. Inherent to whiteness is a blind spot that allows white people to see themselves as average, the default, as representative of humanity. According to Steve Garner: [W]‌hite people frequently construct themselves as raceless individuals, unfettered by the kinds of collective identifications that they view other people as having. […] [Whiteness] never ha[s] to define itself explicitly. It is seen as the human and universal position requiring no qualification.9

This feature of whiteness allows white values and priorities to be elevated as universally desirable while minorities’ needs are marginalized to the category of special interest, as Ta Nehisi Coates’ essay “The First White President” suggests: “What appeals to the white working class is ennobled. What appeals to black workers, and all others outside the tribe, is dastardly identitarianism. All politics are identity politics—​except the politics of white people.”10 This latent assumption that white values and needs are somehow neutral and not aligned with any particular political perspective is, Coates emphasizes, patently false. Whiteness is, of course, a conceptual and sociopolitical category, not a biological one. A plethora of research has demonstrated how the definition of “white” has shifted over 6 Maciel, “Cultural Tensions,” 214.

7 See, for example, my discussion of Laughing Monk in the previous chapter.

8 This ambassador is J. Nikol Beckham, an African American female scholar whose work is cited in this book.

9 Steve Garner, Whiteness: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2007), 4, 39. See also Neil Altman, “Whiteness,” Psychoanalytic Quarterly 75 (2006): 49, and DiAngelo, White Fragility.

10 Ta-​Nehisi Coates, “The First White President: The Foundation of Donald Trump’s Presidency Is the Negation of Barack Obama’s Legacy,” The Atlantic, October 2017, www.theatlantic.com/​magazine/​archive/​2017/​10/​the-​first-​white-​president-​ta-​nehisi-​coates/​537909/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

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the decades and centuries to include and exclude certain groups of people according to sociopolitical, religious, and class boundaries.11 The term “whiteness” itself is characterized by Richard Altman as a lack of self-​awareness about “the meaning and impact of being white in a multiracial society” and by Robin DiAngelo as “identity, status, and property” conferred by whiteness and the attendant blindness to those privileges.12 Shannon Sullivan defines this idea of whiteness (which she calls “whiteliness”) as habits, practices, and assumptions that are formed through the experience of being seen as white in a white-​majority society. One example she provides is how white people see all public spaces as open to them, while people of colour do not.13 There is nothing biologically essentialized about whiteness; it is, in Sullivan’s words, “transactional” and the product of being in and interacting with one’s environment when one is included in the category of “white.” The “white privilege” experienced by those identified as white (a concept discussed at length by the authors cited in this paragraph) is neither intentional nor avoidable by the individual white person, but nevertheless affects both white people and those deemed to be not white. There are, of course, notable exceptions to the generalization that the craft-​brewing industry is overwhelmingly white, such as the 500-​member Brothers of Craft Beer club, popular African American beer bloggers such as “Ale Sharpton” (real name Dennis Malcolm Byron), the North American Beer Writers’ Guild of Beer Writers’ new “Diversity in Beer Writing Grant,”14 the aforementioned Brewers Association diversity ambassador, Latinx-​ and black-​owned breweries such as Progress Brewing, Harlem Brewing, and Patuxent, and the central role of Garrett Oliver, an African American man, in the craft-​brewing world.15 However, the industry nevertheless remains dominated by white, often male, consumers and producers. Indeed, writers of colour such as Lauren Michele Jackson have noted how craft or artisanal culture in general “tells mostly white stories 11 See, for example, Garner, Whiteness, 100–​109 and 121–​35, for his discussion of how the Irish and the Jews “became” white. See also Geraldine Heng’s explanation of how the concept of “race” itself developed in her book The Invention of Race in the Middle Ages, particularly pages 27–​31. 12 Altman, “Whiteness,” 45; DiAngelo, White Fragility, 25.

13 Shannon Sullivan, Revealing Whiteness: The Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 143–​66. This fact about the accessibility of space is evident even without academic research supporting it, as attested to by the many stories about white people calling the police on black people for peaceful activities See Rachel Herron, “I Used to Be a 911 Dispatcher. I Had to Respond to Racist Calls Every Day,” Vox, October 31, 2018, sec. First Person. www.vox.com/​first-​person/​2018/​5/​30/​17406092/​racial-​profiling-​911-​bbq-​becky-​living-​ while-​black-​babysitting-​while-​black. Last accessed August 17, 2019. 14 The grant, which was introduced in March 2018, specifies that it is designed to reward those writers who have “not traditionally been represented covering the beer industry” such as those “who identify as women, minorities, and people with disabilities.” See the press release at www. craftbeer.com/​editors-​picks/​north-​american-​guild-​beer-​writers-​diversity-​beer-​writing-​grant. Last accessed August 17, 2019. 15 Oliver is brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewing and the author of The Oxford Companion to Beer.

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for mostly white consumers”; craft culture itself reinforces the mechanics of neoliberal capitalism in that those who already have the funds are far more likely be successful.16 Race and class, as is so often the case, are inseparable in their impact upon craft industries more broadly and certainly craft beer in particular. This latter point is an important one. While I  do not have space in this chapter to unravel class from race, before I proceed it is worth noting that class and race are mutually influential and it is often very difficult to disentangle them or identify one as having more influence.17 At the same time, if socioeconomic/​class positions are equal, racial differences will often advantage the white person over the person of colour. For example, while low-​income white people in the craft-​brewing industry certainly struggle to launch their businesses more than some of the financially secure “beer founding fathers” discussed later in this volume, low-​income African American, Hispanic, or Indigenous brewers experience additional barriers based not just on their class or income, but also on their ethnicity. For example, evidence indicates that African Americans are still discriminated against when it comes to securing business and personal loans, either through the banks or through peer-​to-​peer lending systems.18 These consumers experience direct economic and class impacts due to their ethnicity. Because socioeconomic status is so strongly influenced by race, I focus my attention in this chapter on race and whiteness, while also recognizing that class distinctions complicate the discussion.

White Medievalism

It is not coincidental that an industry dominated by whiteness also has a substantial ideological investment in imagining and recreating the premodern in general and the medieval more specifically, often in the service of reinforcing national and personal narratives 16 Lauren Michele Jackson, “The White Lies of Craft Culture,” Eater (blog), August 17, 2017. www. eater.com/​2017/​8/​17/​16146164/​the-​whiteness-​of-​artisanal-​food-​craft-​culture. Last accessed August 17, 2019. 17 In his discussion of this issue, John Hartigan urges that rather than simplistically privileging race over class or class over race, we focus on “the relentless alteration between stresses on class and on race that mark social exchanges in the United States […] It seems that white trash is used in racialized contexts where class and race differences become conflated, overlapping rather than remaining clear and distinct. While white trash emphasizes a certain sense of class threat and contempt, it does so in a situation where the once emphatic cultural boundary between whites and blacks becomes unstable.” In other words, it is in the lower echelons of class identities that racial identities become the most problematic and uncertain. See John Hartigan, “Name Calling: Objectifying ‘Poor Whites’ and ‘White Trash’ in Detroit,” in White Trash: Race and Class in America, ed. Matt Wray and Annalee Newitz (New York: Routledge, 1997), 41–​56 (47). See also Nancy Isenberg, White Trash: The 400-​Year Untold History of Class in America (New York: Penguin, 2016). 18 See Devin G. Pope and Justin R. Sydnor, “What’s in a Picture? Evidence of Discrimination from Prosper.Com,” Journal of Human Resources 46 (2011): 53–​92, and John Reosti, “Why Banks Have a Long Way to Go Serving Black Entrepreneurs,” American Banker 1 (2015).

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of conquest. Medievalism in all its manifestations has a long history of racially whitewashing the European Middle Ages and representing the era as the origin of various white cultures. As Geraldine Heng demonstrates in her acclaimed new book The Invention of Race in the Middle Ages, racial categories were essentialized differently in the medieval period, but race was nevertheless a central tenet of hierarchizing social and economic privilege among groups. However, we are able to ignore such racialization because modernity treats the medieval (and medievalism) as “politically unintelligible,” its “atrocities shunted aside as essentially nonsignificative, having no modern meaning.”19 This allows us to make the Middle Ages more racially simplistic and easier to represent. Similarly, Amy Kaufman argues that medievalism (or neomedievalism, depending upon one’s definition) erases the historical, cultural, racial, temporal, and linguistic differences of the historical Middle Ages and combines selected elements into one “essentialized incarnation of the Western imagination.”20 This collapsing of difference reinforces the unconscious assumption of whiteness at the heart of Western civilization: that white culture comprises a universally human foundation or default and that racialized identities are the only ones that can (and should) be analyzed for their ethnic differences. Cord Whitaker’s book Black Metaphors: How Modern Racism Emerged from Medieval Race-​Thinking, in press while I was completing this book, provides new research challenging the notion of a white Middle Ages and addressing how bodies were racialized in the medieval period, with particular attention to the developing ideological links between blackness and sin. Taking into account these various factors, I consider how white medievalism emerges in the craft beer industry and how the industry itself sustains white medievalism, with a particular focus on how African American consumers and brewers are affected. Within the short space available, I cannot give equal time and space to all minority consumers so I have drawn upon the research already available on craft beer culture and black communities in order to discuss some of the wider issues pertaining to white medievalism.21 In my usage, “white medievalism” refers to any way in which invisible whiteness, as defined earlier, shapes the recreation, imitation, or playful construction of the medieval. In some cases, such reconstructions are explicitly white supremacist; in others, whiteness infuses medievalism in a much less obvious way. In the latter case, there is usually no conscious intent to endorse white supremacist ideals; indeed, there may be an explicitly antiracist identity invoked. Instead, white medievalism tends to emerge in the naturalization of the European Middle Ages as a time of originary whiteness, before immigration and socioethnic mixing purportedly complicated the shape of national identities. White medievalism reinforced colonialism in the early modern period and the long eighteenth century, and it continues to empower narratives that draw upon the colonial impulse. 19 Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages, 27, 21. 20 Kaufman, “Medieval Unmoored,” 8.

21 I recognize that Latinx, Asian, aboriginal, and other minority communities may have different experiences with regard to the craft beer industry, and I do not wish to generalize about those communities based on my discussion of black consumers.

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Beer and Race: Dealing with the Discomfort I understand that my limited discussion here addresses just a fraction of the complex ways in which medievalism, craft beer, and whiteness intersect. I  am also aware that some craft beer consumers may deride this entire topic as needless or ridiculous. I have noticed that when the issue of craft beer and race is raised in black-​oriented contexts, such as blogs or websites run by and/​or catering to an African American readership, productive and interesting discussions occur and the exclusionary nature of craft brewing is recognized.22 However, the responses to this topic on generalized websites reveal very different perspectives. For example, a 2012–​2013 discussion thread on BeerAdvocate. com—​a popular site for craft beer aficionados and brewers—​began with a query about diversity in craft brewing but quickly became heated, flippant, and dismissive. I  have excerpted the original question and some of the responses (enough to represent the majority of the discussion):23 Broodog: Craft beer seems to be of, by and for the white man. I’m trying to compile a list of minority owned breweries. I can only conjure up two. […] Am I missing any? Xrumer: Who cares what nationality you are. […] Beer is beer. MinorThreat: We’re all minorities somewhere. RBassSFHOPit2ME: Brooklyn I  think. But really, craft is widely abailable [sic] for everyone. Funny generalization. Thatinvisibo: I think his point is that considering the proportions of the nationalities in the US, there should be quite a few more breweries by people who aren’t white men. [B]‌ut (from what I can tell) there aren’t. I think the question “Why is that?” is a pretty good one. TheRealDBCooper: I know of several, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to help. Stupid fucking question. Why would someone care? Cavedave: Men are the minority at 45% of pop., so almost every brewery in America is minority owned. Joelwlcx: Fuck this race bullshit. We’re all people, aren’t we? Quit dividing, start drinking. Teal: […] Want to stop the racism? Stop making it a point of interest or issue whenever something comes along. Good or bad. Person makes bad beer? Doesn’t matter their race. Person makes great beer—​doesn’t matter their race. Robwestcott: good grief. seriously? how about let’s worry about something like the latest infected beer, or the trade value of upland sour reserve #3, or when is the next dark lord day, or, or, or something of import. Bleakies: The strong reaction against the OP’s legitimate question is richly suggestive.

22 In my research, the issue of whiteness in the beer industry is most often raised in relation to black communities, as opposed to Latinx, Asian, or aboriginal communities. This does not mean, of course, that the issue does not apply to these communities as well, but it seems to be of most concern in relation to African American drinkers and brewers. Given the limited space available to me here, my discussion focuses mainly on how whiteness in the industry affects African American consumers; they function as my “test case” since I  cannot give equal treatment to the distinct experiences of all minorities.

23 www.beeradvocate.com/​community/​threads/​minority-​owned-​craft-​breweries.102423/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

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Cavedave: Well I am about as down to earth a person you will meet, and I honestly don’t know why it would be a good thing for more minorities to own breweries. More Germans? That I would understand. More English and Belgian immigrants? Makes total sense. But minorities? Perhaps you can explain to dumb fucks like me why that would be good.

I observed similar responses to Dave Infante’s 2015 Thrillist article on this topic (representative responses from the thread are excerpted):24 Judy Wildman DeBoer: What a steaming pile of BS. “Malt Liquor” is BEER by a different name. Does anyone deny that black culture differs from white culture? Beer is a traditionally Germanic and Anglo-​Saxon beverage. Is wine “racist” because it’s not huge on the Latino or Asian scene? You can’t force “multi-​culturalism” on people. They’e [sic] going to gravitiate [sic] towards what they like and feel comfportable [sic] with, ffs. Adam Freeman: this article is racist as fuck Jonathan Marin: OK, I’m going to try to explain this as simply as I  can. First of all if African Americans wanted to open up a brewery they would. There is no law or mysterious forces preventing them from doing so. Kerry Michael Soileau: Wh [sic] aren’t there more Eskimos brewing craft beer? Why aren’t there more left handed people brewing craft beer? Why aren’t there more redheads brewing craft beer? Why aren’t there more gays brewing craft beer? This article is a showcase of politically correct stupidity. David Tonetti: Let go of the white man guilt trip. This is like saying “There is no white boys doing Gangsta Rap”. Everybody has there [sic] place, just get in where you fit in. Embrace our differences and celebrate each other.

The negative responses range from borderline white supremacist (asking why we should care if minorities are involved in brewing since it is essentially a white product) to more innocuous yet still damaging manifestations of white defensiveness (stating that race does not matter and we should all be colour-​blind). As noted earlier, this refusal to recognize the impact of race is a privilege experienced by those who are white, while the preferences of people of colour are often shunted into the category of “identity politics,” where they can be safely disregarded. In her book White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo explores white discomfort when discussing race and explains the hidden psychosocial architecture supporting white resistance to discussing racial issues. DiAngelo contends that the inability of many white people to consider the effect of race in society is due to the white population’s long-​term insulation from even thinking about race. Whiteness is deracialized in North American society; it has come to represent the universal, the human. White people therefore expect to be seen as individuals and judged on individual achievement, not on their race (because whiteness is the absence of race). Often, a white person’s response to the idea that their ease of access to certain spaces or to resources is in part due to their white identity is anger and defensiveness. This intense discomfort at acknowledging the impact of race is, according to DiAngelo, white fragility. DiAngelo issues a challenge to white people: 24 Infante, “There Are Almost No Black People Brewing Craft Beer.”

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To challenge the ideologies of racism such as individualism and color blindness, we as white people must suspend our perception of ourselves as unique and/​or outside race. Exploring our collective racial identity interrupts a key privilege of dominance—​the ability to see oneself only as an individual. We need to discuss white people as a group—​ even if doing so jars us—​in order to disrupt our unracialized identities.25

It is uncomfortable to acknowledge systemic racism in our society, and it can feel like a hopeless task to combat it. Indeed, as a white person myself, I felt that discomfort in writing this chapter. However, as Shannon Sullivan passionately argues, ignoring our own privilege or disavowing our whiteness does nothing to ameliorate the challenges faced by people of colour. Much like DiAngelo, she insists that “white people cannot give up striving to become aware of the racialization of space and place.”26 It is therefore crucial that the beer community talks about these issues openly and actually listens to the experiences, and desires of people of colour, rather than assuming that the industry’s lack of diversity is somehow a natural outgrowth of cultural differences. We see this white fragility and unwillingness to take a different perspective in many of the responses cited earlier that fail to recognize the barriers that people of colour face. L. A. McCrae, owner and founder of the black-​ and queer-​oriented Black Star Line Brewing, observed first-​hand the effects of race on her business.27 Anger and hatred at her brewery’s proud identity as black-​and queer-​friendly manifested in various kinds of graffiti and abusive, bigoted messages. McCrae also noted more subtle versions of white dominance that other writers have noted, such as the cultural exclusion that many black drinkers feel in entering the average craft brewery, the difficulty that brewers of colour have in securing business loans,28 and the institutional targeting that she believes her brewery faced.29 Such systemic exclusion is felt in numerous ways. Dave Infante’s interviews with people of colour regarding craft beer culture all agreed on the whiteness of the average craft beer taproom and the discomfort they felt, as a visible minority, in entering. One interviewee expressed her feelings on the subject in a way that revealed the deep sociocultural expectations associated with craft beer and how whiteness shapes the accessibility of public space: 25 DiAngelo, White Fragility, 89. 26 Sullivan, Revealing Whiteness, 159. 27 Black Star Line Brewing was forced to close, but there are plans to reopen.

28 Many craft brewers of colour wishing to establish their practice as a business have indeed turned to crowdsourcing from their community rather than seeking funding assistance from a bank or credit union; a few examples are Patuxent, Sankofa, Cajun Fire Brewing, Black Frog Brewery, and Band of Brothers. For a discussion regarding the institutional barriers that people of colour have faced (and continue to face) in the United States when attempting to secure loans for home or business see Infante, “There Are Almost No Black People Brewing Craft Beer,” and Ta-​Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations,” The Atlantic, June 2014. www.theatlantic.com/​magazine/​archive/​ 2014/​06/​the-​case-​for-​reparations/​361631/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

29 L. A. McCrae, email interview, October 13, 2018.

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It seems like craft beer has been closely tied to an experience that a lot of people of color either don’t want to be a part of or don’t feel welcome engaging with. I think of white guys in thick-​framed glasses and flannel shirts drinking at tables crafted out of reclaimed wood next to their Manic Pixie Dream Girl.30

Craft beer, its white hipster qualities signalled by the “thick-​framed glasses” and reclaimed furniture, has become synonymous with whiteness. It is, in Infante’s words, “whiter than a ski lodge. Whiter than Whole Foods in a suburb.” In other words, the culture of craft beer, which is often lauded as welcoming to anyone and as race-​and class-​ neutral, is actually shaped by features associated with upper middle-​class whiteness, to the extent that non-​white (and perhaps also low-​income) drinkers may feel out of place. This white default in craft beer environments is revealed in hundreds of minor ways, from origin stories that focus on European settlement, to an absence of people of colour working in the taprooms, to a negative response to raising the issue at all. Josh Noel describes one of these small moments in his discussion of how Goose Island Brewing (one of the oldest and largest craft brewers in the United States at the time) attempted to market one of its new ales. Goose Island’s distributor, US Beverage, immediately resisted the name “312 Urban Wheat Ale” because “the word urban connoted something Goose Island didn’t intend—​gasp—​black America. [Owner] Greg [Hall] drove around Chicago, snapping photos of the word urban in its many uses:  banks, clothing stores, salons, record shops.”31 In order to defend his use of the term “urban” for a craft beer, Hall had to provide evidence dissociating it from black culture. Shannon Sullivan argues that black and white people “inhabit space in different, non-​reciprocal ways” and that spaces that seem neutral—​and in which white people move around and assume they have access to—​are often racially demarcated in ways that only people of colour experience.32 This sense of not belonging in a given space leads to consumers of colour not patronizing craft beer environments, thus reinforcing the false idea that black drinkers just don’t like beer as much; these assumptions perpetuate inequality in the industry. African American beer blogger “Ale Sharpton” attributes the dearth of black involvement in the craft beer industry to a lack in what he calls the “Three Es: Exposure, Experience, and Education. The African American community as a whole is simply deprived of these efforts with the poor assumption they simply are not interested, don’t have expansive palates, or don’t have enough to spend on the better crafted beers.”33 He further notes that many African American drinkers do, in fact, have the income to spend on pricier beers—​in other words, class or socioeconomic status is not necessarily the issue here—​but the lack of those three E’s lowers black engagement in the industry and thus sustains the perception that they do not like or cannot afford craft beer. Lou Littlefield, an African American woman who manages the Locust Cider 30 Infante, “There Are Almost No Black People Brewing Craft Beer.” 31 Noel, Barrel-​Aged Stout and Selling Out, 113–​14.

32 Sullivan, Revealing Whiteness, 146–​48.

33 Dennis Malcolm Byron (“Ale Sharpton”), email interview, November 9, 2018 I refer readers to his blog at http://alesharpton.blogspot.com/​.

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Taproom in Fort Worth, emphasizes the systemic exclusion of African American drinkers from the craft beer industry in an interview with Fort Worth Weekly; she admits she is shocked when she sees another person of colour in a craft beer environment and points out that most craft beer locations do not make black consumers feel welcome.34 Craft brewers of colour, particularly African American brewers, recognize this issue of cultural belonging and are attempting not to emulate white craft beer culture, but to develop their own. In 2018 a new beer festival, Fresh Fest, was developed in order to support and showcase black-​owned breweries and artists and to encourage black participation in the craft beer industry. The 2018 festival was a huge success and more than 3,000 participants were expected at Fresh Fest 2019, which was held in August.35 It is ­certainly not the case, as some internet commenters stated, that African American drinkers simply do not like beer. Black-​owned breweries’ conscious turn to black-​ friendly craft beer and craft beer environments is evident in their use of non-​institutional fundraising sources, in the rejection of beer’s colonial histories (discussed later in this chapter), in the brewery names and branding (Harlem Brewing, Band of Brothers, Black Frog), and even in the language they use. Harris Family Brewing, for instance, which calls itself “Your Urban Craft Brewery,” thus embracing the black associations of “urban” rather than rejecting them as Goose Island’s distributor did, uses an informal vernacular style that reflects African American Vernacular English (AAVE):36 We started brewing small batches in the kitchen right here in Harrisburg, inside the city […] in the hood. Friends would come and see what we were doing and say “Yall jokers crazy black people don’t make beer”. […] See we would go to craft breweries locally and feel out of place, and we liked craft beer. It just seemed like it wasn’t for us until we started making our own. […] At a backyard cookout in 2014 we finally heard those words “Yo you made this? In your Kitchen? Yo pour up another one.”37

The informal, extemporaneous style (“See we would go to craft breweries”) and references to the urban black community (“in the hood”) suggest that Harris Family Brewing is speaking to a known audience—​or to an audience it hopes will feel known. The speech patterns used to describe local drinkers’ reactions to its product and goals (“Yall jokers crazy”; “Yo you made this? […] Yo pour up another one”) are associated with urban black speakers, thereby signalling the brewery’s place within the African American community. In his discussion of the book Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English and the History of AAVE in North America, William Kretzschmar emphasizes that people “speak the language that is right for their community” even when that language 34 See the interview with her here: Edward Brown, “Crafting Inclusion: Does Fort Worth’s Craft Beer Scene Have a Diversity Problem?,” Fort Worth Weekly, October 24, 2018, sec. Arts. www. fwweekly.com/​2018/​10/​24/​crafting-​inclusion/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

35 https://​freshfestbeerfest.com/​. Read an interview with the festival’s founders here:  www. citylab.com/​equity/​2018/​08/​the-​first-​black-​beer-​fest/​567275/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019. 36 See note 28.

37 www.harrisfamilybrewery.info/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

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does not adhere to the standards of “correct” or standard English. The vernacular spoken in black communities is, he argues, perceived as authentic within those communities while standard English is not. This “contradiction between correctness and authenticity” contributes to the solidification of cultural identity within specific groups, and marks individual speakers as belonging in a particular group.38 Harris Family Brewing uses a black-​oriented vernacular not just to connect with its local customer base, but to convey its brewery’s own authenticity—​its right to belong. Authenticity, as discussed in Chapter 3, is a primary consideration across the craft beer industry. Craft brewers of colour develop the authenticity of black craft beer culture not just through language, but also through taste. Black Star Line Brewing, for example, highlighted the value of sweet beer in the face of the North American preoccupation with hoppy, bitter beer. Earlier in this book I discussed the gendering of harder-​to-​drink beers (very hoppy IPAs, sours, intense stouts) as masculine. Black Star’s owner, L. A. McCrae, sees these types of beers as representative of manly, white North American beer culture, and her intent was to open up new areas of the industry to appeal to a wider range of drinkers. Her launching of the #sweetbeermovement hashtag was borne out of her desire to encourage diversity in craft beer circles: It has been my experience that the craft brew industry is full of beards (white men with beards), […] and that is the primary focus. The current palettes of beers focus on that which is desirable for people of European descent. Many of these beers are overly hoppy and extremely bitter. This desire to have much more heavily hopped/​hopped forward beers is of course, a matter of preference. We could also collectively ponder the socio-​psychological effects of desiring something so bitter. For example, it is often said that when someone is craving something sweet to eat, they often need sweetness in their lives.39

The sweet beer trend has been met with chagrin by some drinkers, and there is certainly room to debate the implications of how taste preference is cultivated and whether an ethnic component underlies the desire for hoppy versus sweet beer. However, what I  find most interesting is the conscious desire to welcome and reinforce tastes that are not conventionally admired in craft beer circles. McCrae rejects deeply engrained features of white craft beer cultures (in this case, the attraction to bitter beers), and embraces the opposite—​the beers traditionally seen as feminine.

Brave Men and True: The Entrepreneurial, Warrior Spirit and White Medievalism

Just as the influence of whiteness in craft brewing is often subtle—​at least to white patrons—​white medievalism has the most impact when we cannot see it. The obvious 38 William Kretzschmar, “Public and Academic Understandings about Language: The Intellectual History of Ebonics,” English World-​Wide 29 (2008): 70–95 (74–75).

39 L. A. McCrae, email interview, October 13, 2018.

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forms, such as the deployment of medievalism in the service of white supremacy, are the most alarming (although perhaps not the most influential when it comes to the beer industry). Michael Lang describes how, in the 1990s, representations of Vikings were used by neo-​Nazis and other radical right-​wing groups to symbolize the origins of white culture, causing record labels to become very cautious about their connections to Viking-​themed music groups for fear that they would be tarnished by the association.40 The suspect in the 2017 Portland train attack had previously praised Vinland, a reference white nationalists use to identify themselves as “Vikings in a new land continuing the ancient battle for the preservation of their people,” according to fascism historian Shane Burley in an interview with The Guardian.41 Many of the white supremacists that marched on Charlottesville in August 2017 chanting “Blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us” carried medieval-​ style shields, flags, and helmets. Canada is home to a far-​right vigilante group calling itself the Soldiers of Odin, as well as a smaller group called the Sons of Odin identifying itself as a neighbourhood watch club. Both groups use Viking imagery and symbolism and espouse an ideology of racial purity in Canada. Medievalists have pushed back against this appropriation of their field of study, publicly condemning the use of the Middle Ages to support white nationalism and challenging one another to adjust course content and teaching methods in order to diversify the field of medieval studies. The Medievalists of Color Collective is an important voice in these discussions, as medievalists consider how to change the public image of the medieval period as well as to ensure awareness of the racial diversity of the Middle Ages in their own classes.42 Outside of the classroom, more medievalists are contributing to public discussions about the Middle Ages and its appropriations.43 Within the academy, new research, such as Heng’s 2018 book The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages, Whitaker’s forthcoming book Black Metaphors, and pedagogical movements to decolonize medieval studies syllabi are helping to de-​naturalize the perception of the European medieval period as one structured and dominated by whiteness.44 We see various forms of white medievalism, from the seemingly innocuous to the explicitly facist, in 40 Lang, “How Far to Asgard?,” 29.

41 Jason Wilson, “Suspect in Portland Double Murder Posted White Supremacist Material Online,” The Guardian, May 28, 2017. www.theguardian.com/​us-​news/​2017/​may/​27/​portland-​double-​ murder-​white-​supremacist-​muslim-​hate-​speech. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

42 See https://​medievalistsofcolor.com/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

43 The following blogs are examples of such interventions into public discourse:  www. medievalists.net, www.inthemedievalmiddle.com, and www.publicmedievalist.com. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

44 See a practical example in Luke Fidler, “Teaching Medieval Art History in a Time of White Supremacy,” The Material Collective (blog), August 12, 2017, http://​thematerialcollective.org/​ teaching-​medieval-​art-​history-​time-​white-​supremacy/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019. Sometimes responses to these efforts interpret the decolonization of the classroom or syllabus as somehow infringing on academic freedom or being biased against whites. See Maev Kennedy, “Cambridge Academics Seek to ‘Decolonise’ English Syllabus,” The Guardian, October 25, 2017, www. theguardian.com/​education/​2017/​oct/​25/​cambridge-​academics-​seek-​to-​decolonise-​english-​ syllabus for a brief summary of the response to Cambridge’s movement to make English syllabi more inclusive. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

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the anti-​immigration Odinist groups and the Charlottesville neo-​Nazis, in fantasy-​based “tribal” bellydance artists, in Disney films located in a vaguely medieval era with exclusively Caucasian characters, in modern rhetoric lauding the Western “crusade” against racialized terrorists (while ignoring white mass murderers in North America), and even in our familiar narratives of heroism, bravery, and conquering. This latter example may at first seem only tenuously connected to white medievalism, but I argue that narratives premised upon individual heroism, which emerged as a common trope in medieval French and English knightly romances, are difficult to disentangle from whiteness; the ideology of individualism has become inextricably linked to white values and culture in modern North America.45 White medievalism therefore inheres in the structure of, and assumptions about, narratives about heroic questing and conquering. Superhero tales are one example. Grant Gearhart’s reading of the film Batman Begins suggests that the process of Bruce Wayne’s self-​fashioning as the superhero Batman reflects the development of individualistic knightly identity in medieval romances. Wayne’s Batsuit is a modern-​day version of knightly armor—​one of the central features defining knighthood.46 A knight’s armor visually signals not just his knightly status, but also (through crests or coats of arms) his allegiances and his social positioning. However, it is not merely the wearing of armor that confers knightly identity; it is the arduous process of self-​fashioning via training, rites of passage, and an insistence upon agency over passivity, in whatever form that agency appears.47 Wayne’s travel for training before he becomes Batman echoes this pattern. Ryan Naughton reinforces the significance of knightly agency in his assertion that the knights of medieval romance “must actively construct their outward knightly identity and thus validate both their innate nature and their position as a member of the fighting class.”48 This class identity requires active performance as well as financial resources. In the late medieval period, a time in which the mythology of knighthood was solidifying into a subject of both parody and adulation, the accoutrements—​armor, horse, land—​that enabled a knight to 45 In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo repeatedly returns to the appealingly opaque nature of individualism, a concept which actually encodes white values by denying that race can effect one’s opportunities and success: “Individualism is a story line that creates, communicates, reproduces, and reinforces the concept that each of us is a unique individual and that our group memberships, such as race, class, or gender, are irrelevant to our opportunities. Individualism claims that there are no intrinsic barriers to individual success and that failure is not a consequence of social structures but comes from individual character […]race is irrelevant.” See DiAngelo, White Fragility, 10.

46 Grant Gearhart, “Suiting Up the Hero: Legacies of Medieval and Renaissance Armor and Identity in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins,” Journal of Popular Culture 50 (September, 2017): 665–84 (666).

47 Roberta Davidson explores how Malory construes action differently in his Morte Darthur when knightly characters are imprisoned (reflecting, perhaps, Malory’s preoccupation with knightly action during his own imprisonment). Action can entail resistance to torture, internal self-​control, and even writing itself. All of these actions are a type of conquering—​although a conquering of one’s weakness rather than a conquering of an external foe. See Roberta Davidson, “Prison and Knightly Identity in Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur,” Arthuriana 14 (2004): 54–​63. 48 Ryan Naughton, “The Construction of Knightly Identity in Late Middle English Romances” (PhD diss., Purdue University, 2010), 4.

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perform his knightly status required not just a can-​do attitude, but significant wealth as well. The “becoming” of knighthood in many (not all) cases was therefore somewhat fictionalized, as many would-​be knights already occupied a place of privilege that allowed them to perform the bravery and heroism a knightly identity required. Returning to Batman Begins, we see Bruce Wayne as modelling this type of knighthood in that his unusual access to economic resources allowed him to pursue heroic self-​fashioning in a way that others could not.49 The hidden privileges of both historical and literary medieval knighthood—​the innate nobility that supposedly naturalizes knightly status, the influx of wealth that enables the required performative identity—​are adapted into later hero stories, as Gearhart’s analysis of Batman suggests. However, a similar narrative emerges in the stories of entrepreneurial success that circulate in modern Western societies. This is particularly true of North American societies, in which entrepreneurial identities are informed by notions of individualism and independence, which Robin DiAngelo describes as inherent to the “white frame,” the American dream, and even the values of colonialism.50 Nikol Beckham attributes the “nearly religious valorization of entrepreneurship in American culture” to neoliberal ideologies in which the capital-​producing labour of the independent entrepreneur is seen as more inherently valuable than working as an anonymous body on the production line or a paper-​pushing middle-​management bureaucrat.51 Indeed, entrepreneurship is a central tenet of neoliberal discourses, and since the financial crash of 2008 entrepreneurial activities have increasingly included craft or artisanal labour.52 According to Suddaby, Ganzin, and Minkus’ discussion of Matthew Crawford’s book Shop Class as Soulcraft, craft workers move beyond hobbyists to become independent tradesmen who “retain a degree of autonomy, a vocational dedication to quality and a sense of purpose and meaning in work that has long since been eliminated in the cubicle-​based reality of a typical ‘knowledge worker.’ ”53 The movement towards craft production offers an escape from the anonymous cubicle and the corresponding satisfaction of using one’s specialized knowledge to produce something that is authentic, valuable, and masculine.54 The craft beer industry is, of course, one subset of the larger craft movement, and it is particularly invested in the knightly narratives of heroism and individuality, and in positioning those narratives against corporate culture. In the origin stories of the craft-​ brewing “revolution,” we see images of fat-​cat capitalists running the beer giants and towering over the underdogs (craft brewers) whose “pluckiness” helps them win the 49 Gearhart, “Suiting Up the Hero,” 666–​67. 50 DiAngelo, White Fragility, 10, 34, 89.

51 Beckham, “Entrepreneurial Leisure,” 81. 52 See Tomas Marttila, The Culture of Enterprise in Neoliberalism: Specters of Entrepreneurship (New York: Routledge, 2013), and Roy Suddaby, Max Ganzin, and Alison Minkus, “Craft, Magic, and the Re-​enchantment of the World,” European Management Journal 35, no. 3 (2017): 285–96 (290).

53 Suddaby, Ganzin, and Minkus, “Craft, Magic, and the Re-​enchantment of the World,” 290. 54 Elliott, “The Rationalization of Craft Beer,” 63–​65; Maciel, “Cultural Tensions,” 207.

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day—​or at least find some success.55 Beer writers often reinforce this valorization of independent craft brewers in the language used to describe them. One example is beer historian Steve Hindy’s recollection of a particular photo of Jack McAuliffe, founder of New Albion (one of the first craft breweries in North America), that captured McAuliffe’s heroic identity: [The photo] shows him leaning, with one muscled arm, on an ancient cast-​iron keg-​ cleaning contraption that looks more like a medieval torture device. […] He is the picture of a noble pioneering craft brewer, with a square jaw, level gaze, and thick dark hair falling over his ears and across his high forehead. He’s wearing a short-​sleeved collared shirt and a leather apron. His jeans are splattered with what must be whitewash or paint. His smile is as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s.56

This description of the McAuliffe photograph invites us to imagine him as essentially ­premodern, an embodiment of the simple, strong, independent masculinity at the heart of the craft-​brewing industry. His physical markers—​the “muscled arm,” “square jaw, level gaze, and thick dark hair,” and “enigmatic” Renaissance smile—​all signify the strength and silence that a man should evince. Words such as “ancient,” “medieval,” “noble,” and “pioneering” connote a premodern time and technology, but in their usage here they also offer a hope that we can somehow recreate that time. McAuliffe, the Renaissance man and “noble pioneer,” still one of the lone figures on the craft beer scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s, courageously laboured over his brewing, incorporating inspiration from old English and Scottish recipes in order to create his own version. He consciously took up the mantle of a heroic conqueror by imitating Sir Francis Drake when he (McAuliffe) named his brewery New Albion, after Drake’s naming of the west coast of America in 1579.57 McAuliffe fully understood the symbolic resonance of such a choice, and the power of beer stories in general, as his own words attest: “History is important in the brewing industry […] but if you don’t have a history you can just make one up.”58 Francis Drake erased the indigenous histories of the American west coast and created a new history by casting the land as a revived version of an ancient England (Albion). Similarly, McAuliffe’s naming of his brewery created an imagined history of his product by invoking a symbolic genealogical connection that erased the temporal, technological, and cultural differences between the beer of his New Albion and the ales from England. Like the authors of medieval romance who told tales of Guy of Warwick or Bevis of Hampton with at least some awareness that these were imagined and symbolic national histories, McAuliffe’s own account of his creation of New Albion recognizes the fictiveness of origin stories and conquest. In addition to the medievalized naming and imagined genealogy of his brewery, the narratives about McAuliffe and New Albion deploy a generalized form of white 55 Beckham, “Entrepreneurial Leisure,” 83–​84. 56 Hindy, The Craft Beer Revolution, 15–​16. 57 Hindy, The Craft Beer Revolution, 14.

58 Quoted in Hindy, The Craft Beer Revolution, 14.

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medievalism through the framing of his origin story. Hindy describes him as “noble” and a “pioneer,” words which invite us to see McAuliffe as a conquering knight or colonizer, and such language is common in other stories circulating around New Albion’s founding.59 Beckham argues that origin stories have a “naturalizing function”; by definition, they present histories teleologically, seeing an end in the beginning.60 This naturalizing allows recipients of the narrative to see only the heroic aspects of entrepreneurial craft brewing—​their independence, rebelliousness, and revolutionary goals—​ and overlook the function of the unacknowledged social and economic privileges that were foundational to the brewer’s background. Beckham points out that most of the “founding fathers” of craft brewing, including McAuliffe, Fritz Maytag, Ken Grossman, Matthew Reich, and Jim Koch, came from the world of business and in fact had significant resources upon which to fall back if their ventures were to fail.61 Indeed, many of them did experience failure, which beer writers often present as a form of bravery, a paternal sacrifice for the brewers to come afterwards.62 Even, so, for the most part these were wealthy white men (or at least white men whose social and familial circles helped to sustain them) whose position of privilege was effaced by the powerful narrative of their courage, innovation, and individuality; they became figures representing the American dream, even though by most accounts they already embodied an American dream of sorts, by way of their family, ethnicity, and class.63 This phenomenon closely echoes the “heroic fantasy” enacted in American pop culture medievalism, in which the story is told of “the local boy who, through his gumption, imagination, and hard work, achieves financial and familial success. Thus, these [narrative] sites recreate a peculiarly American Middle Ages: the Middle Ages of Democratic Possibility.”64 The individuality, agency, skill, and innate character attributed to knights in medieval romance narratives emerges in 59 It is worth noting that McAuliffe had two female business partners who helped with both the business and the brewing when he opened New Albion. However, Jane Zimmerman and Suzy Denison are often not mentioned, or receive just a brief acknowledgement, in the mythologized origin stories around McAuliffe. For more information regarding McAuliffe’s status as a revolutionary pioneer, see Rice, “Professional Purity,” 243–​44. 60 Beckham, “Entrepreneurial Leisure,” 83.

61 Beckham, “Entrepreneurial Leisure,” 84, 96. In her email to me, L.  A. McCrae made a similar point: “There’s a history of brewery owners in this country using their ‘family money’ (often un-​ earned wealth, passed down through the generations), and being able to leverage their homes and property as collateral to begin their business. By intention and design, minorities have been ‘de-​collateralized.’ ” 62 Hindy, The Craft Beer Revolution, 16; Ogle, Ambitious Brew, 299.

63 In pointing this out, I do not wish to imply that the process was easy for these brewers or that they essentially risked nothing. They certainly did put a great deal of labour and financial resources into their breweries and praise of that work is merited. However, it is worth balancing this narrative slightly in order to recognize that their socioeconomic status accorded them privileges that would not have been experienced by the impoverished, women, or people of colour. The heroic, almost medievalized fantasy of meritocracy in these cases therefore requires some nuancing. 64 Aronstein and Coiner, “Twice Knightly,” 213.

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modern medievalism—​particularly modern white medievalism—​as “democratic possibility” premised upon meritocracy; in such a system, race has no presence or impact. Democratic medievalism is therefore appealing but also problematic; it is essentially a reinforcement and naturalization of whiteness. Colonial conquering shaped North American notions of democracy and independence, and, in a similar way, medievalism structured (and structures) the representations of colonial conquering since European colonization began. In her book Periodization and Sovereignty, Kathleen Davis demonstrates how the legal underpinnings of medieval feudalism were imported into the project of colonial expansion to justify the slave trade and European sovereignty over colonized lands. If the North American aboriginal can be translated into the feudal subject, the conquering of the Americas becomes a heroic and justified quest rather than a genocidal tyranny. Early pioneers were descendants, new versions, of the (literal) knights who originally stepped onto American shores. This dynamic is echoed in craft beer histories and pioneers; Jack McAuliffe of New Albion Brewing is a conqueror as much as was Sir Francis Drake, “founder” of New Albion on the west coast. Davis expands upon the deep connection between medievalism and colonialism, and her thoughts are worth quoting at length: [T]‌he genealogies of “the Middle Ages” and of colonialism are intimately entwined. The construction of a “medieval” period characterized by irrational superstition was fully involved with the identification of colonial subjects as irrational and superstitious [these two concepts] emerged together, each simultaneously making possible and verifying the other. Likewise, the analysis of land systems in colonies went hand in hand with the development of the concept of a “feudal” Middle Ages, and this analysis played out in administrative decisions regarding the organization and control of land for the purpose of extracting wealth, even as it concretized a feudal medieval past.65

The erasure of aboriginal histories was thought to be justified because the colonial project attributed land sovereignty to the European emigrants. The symbolic ownership of land is a feature of much craft neolocalism, which uses natural resources and icons to ascribe uniqueness and value to its products. Craft breweries often refer to local geographical features and resources, but usually in the context of white histories; aboriginal histories or terminology are rarely acknowledged. Dagenais and Greer compare the disruption and destruction of aboriginal histories in colonized countries with the temporal rupture of medievalism, in which the medieval is separated from the modern and construed as a space of alterity whose influence upon modernity can be carefully controlled and shaped. Like the aboriginal histories whose boundaries and expression have now been fully framed by white histories, “the Middle Ages can only exist through typologies that define it as interval, as void of meaning on its own.”66 Medievalism thus 65 Kathleen Davis, Periodization and Sovereignty: How Ideas of Feudalism and Secularization Govern the Politics of Time (Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 20. See also ­chap. 2, “Feudal Law and Colonial Property,” 51–​74.

66 John Dagenais and Margaret Rich Greer, “Decolonizing the Middle Ages: Introduction,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30, no. 3 (Fall, 2000): 431–48 (435).

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provides space for contradictory uses: it at once valorizes the colonial project and the supremacy of whiteness (the new knights), but also justifies the legal dismissal of non-​ whites as irrational, uncultured, and primal—​in other words, as medieval. Many craft breweries, medieval-​themed or not, deploy the language of the colonizer and therefore “medievalize” their histories indirectly. I  wish to emphasize that this is not because these breweries have a hidden racist agenda; indeed, many craft breweries consciously advocate for social and racial justice, as this chapter addresses in its conclusion. However, colonial language and concepts are built into the ideological structure of North American society. Our use of them is revealing but not necessarily intentional. One notable example of such language is in the “Our Story” section of the Sons of Toil Brewing website:67 In reading the History of Brown County [Ohio] we came across this passage which became the inspiration of our name and overall theme. Our family like many in this area came from a long line of farmers who made their living through hard work and sacrifice:

“Green Township was slow in being peopled and improved; the land from Greenbush up to the northern boundary line comprising fully one-​half of its acreage, is very flat and level, and was for years very swampy. The lands of Green have been ditched and drained, and now compare favorably in productive quality to any of Brown County. The old pioneer foreigners will leave a goodly heritage for their sons and daughters to enjoy. All honor is due to those horny handed Sons of Toil, who left their native land and crossed the ocean, cast their lot in the swamp lands of Green Township, and by hard labor and unceasing toil, have made it what it now is.”68

Such descriptions, which focus on the value of pioneer labour and the transformation of the land, rely upon an erasure of aboriginal histories. The book cited by the Sons of Toil website was published in 1883 and lauds the pioneers who “saved” the beautiful lands of Ohio “from savages and wild beasts” and “converted a wilderness into the smiling region we now behold.”69 Frightening wildness becomes a foil to happy, “smiling” civilization. The representation of pioneers as saving the lands from savages and rendering those lands useful to their new owners remains trenchant in modern American histories, of course. One brief example from the same region is the Cincinnati Museum Center website, which refers to Ohio as “largely uninhabited prior to European settlement,” but immediately proceeds to describe patterns of habitation in Ohio by the Fort Ancient culture, the Shawnee, and the Erie Indians over the centuries. The post then specifies that “European settlement was slow at first in Ohio because of the fear of the Shawnee and other tribes.”70 The power and persistence of colonialism permits this contradictory perspective: the land is at once uninhabited, but also filled with frightening native tribes. The pride taken in the hard work and land cultivation performed by the pioneering 67 Sons of Toil is not explicitly medieval, but rather a generally premodern-​themed brewery (it is included in Table 2).

68 www.sonsoftoilbrewing.com/​our_​story. Last accessed August 17, 2019. 69 The History of Brown County, Ohio (Chicago: Beers, 1883), 11.

70 www.cincymuseum.org/​node/​627. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

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“Sons of Toil” centuries ago is premised upon the notion that the land had no value or utility before value and utility were defined by the correct landowners. This creation of history (which requires the erasure of coexisting or preexisting histories) is emotionally powerful in its invocation of origin, and it is that inspiration that Sons of Toil Brewing draws upon as it develops its own history and locates that history on Ohio’s land. The white medievalism of the craft beer industry inheres in that colonial invocation of imagined origin, through which the European medieval heritage becomes the root of independent entrepreneurship in North America. The history of craft brewing thus becomes conflated with white histories and excludes non-​white histories even as it may attempt to recruit people of colour into its story. If medieval and colonial histories have been racialized as white, they will not resonate or have value to those who are not white—​those whose stories remain hidden. Beer branding in North America is rife with images of white warriors, monks, and kings, with the implication being that these are universally meaningful symbols in this society.71 However, brewers of colour are increasingly refusing to participate in perpetuating these histories that are not their own. Black Star Line Brewing’s L. A. McCrae, whose comments about diversity were cited earlier in this chapter, emphasizes the significance of history (and de-​privileging white history) in opening up space for black brewers in the beer industry: Leaders in the craft brew industry have long forgotten the original history of brewing and fermentation. That history arising from the women in African villages and tribes making these libations for their people. After the portioning of Africa, we notice an increase of various beer styles all across Europe. Beer was colonized.72

Throughout this book I have identified Europe and the Middle Ages as imaginary, not historical, origins of brewing. Africa and the Middle East are forgotten in the vast majority of beer branding. However, some black brewers are turning away from the Eurocentric medievalizing of beer and instead incorporating African narratives and African histories into their branding. For example, Sankofa Brewing of Washington, DC, developed its brand identity using the Ghanaian and Nigerian heritage of its owners. “Sankofa” is a Ghanaian word that means “go back and get,” according to the brewery’s website. The owners explain that they chose this word as their company identity because “Sankofa is a symbol for the understanding that in order to ensure a strong future you must return to collect and understand your past.”73 In other words, Sankofa Brewing does not reject origin, but instead establishes its own origins and discards the medievalized, European origin that has been naturalized in the beer industry. In a similar way, White Lion Brewing of Springfield, Massachusetts, owned by African American brewer Raymond Berry Jr., deploys the African folktale of the white lion to shape its craft identity: 71 This is, of course, a generalization. There are exceptions to this kind of historicizing, such as Ninkasi Brewing, a large craft brewery run by two (Caucasian) men who named their business after the ancient Sumerian goddess of fermentation. 72 L. A. McCrae, email interview, October 13, 2018.

73 www.sankofabeer.com/​about. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

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The legend of the White Lion has been shared by word of mouth for centuries. Folklore declares that White Lions are children of the Sun Gods and maintain mythical status. The White Lion has become a symbol to citizens from around the world; portrayed as a rare phenomenon and an extension beyond any color, creed, gender or race. The White Lion serves as a sign of good found in all mankind. Anyone blessed to gaze upon this rare gift will be sanctified with prosperity.74

The invocation of oral tradition and the universalization of African folklore (there is no caveat that this is an African tale) is a welcome change in an industry that has generally universalized European histories. These are small but important movements towards a more representative and inclusive craft beer industry in North America.

Beer and Belonging

I conclude this chapter not with the word “diversity,” a term whose meaning has been stretched and worn and squeezed out of it, but with “belonging,” a much more intimate word, one that reflects what most craft brewers want their consumers to feel.75 But with social structures in place that frame certain spaces and activities as unwelcoming to those who are not white, how can we cultivate a sense of belonging in the craft beer industry and promote an inclusive use of history? There are no simple answers, because the problems themselves are deeply rooted in North American culture; they were not introduced by craft brewers and consumers, and the industry cannot simply remove them. I think consumers and brewers can take a number of small steps to improve what is ultimately a positive industry, one that benefits the local community and economy. For one, we can recognize how often craft breweries support social justice and community-​ minded causes despite the negative structural factors of society discussed earlier; some breweries fundraise to support the queer community, some invest in environmentally responsible water usage, some buy out seats at hard-​right rallies to reduce attendance, some become employee-​owned rather than boss-​driven companies, some regularly support local artists, some were designed from the ground up as an advocacy organization as well as a brewery, and some develop outreach programs for marginalized (impoverished, previously imprisoned) populations.76 These efforts should be 74 https://​whitelionbrewing.com/​about-​us/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

75 Sullivan rejects calls for multiculturalism and diversity as adequate responses to systemic racism. In such responses, she argues, “the unequal power relations evoked by the language of race are flattened out into a mere multiplicity of diverse cultures to be celebrated and affirmed. Such power-​flattened multiculturalism erases the images of terror that white people have evoked in black people for hundreds of years” (Revealing Whiteness, 127).

76 See Matt Hershberger, “How the Craft Brewing Industry Is Leading the Political Revolution,” USA Today, May 3, 2018, sec. 10best, www.10best.com/​interests/​food-​culture/​how-​the-​craft-​brewing-​ industry-​is-​leading-​the-​political-​revolution/​; Robert Glennon, “Could Craft Breweries Help Lead the Way in Water Conservation?,” Pacific Standard, January 2, 2018, https://​psmag.com/​environment/​ crafting-​solutions-​to-​water-​shortages-​in-​brewing; “How San Francisco’s Laughing Monk Brewery

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supported and publicized. On a less obvious level, however, a sense of belonging can be reinforced when brewers and brand managers resist, as much as possible, the ease of white medievalism and embrace the multicultural character of European history—​or explore the Middle Eastern and African origins of beer in their marketing and branding. And of course, breweries must continue to hire people of colour and include them in their advertising materials, branding, and imagery. Recognizing how “whiteness” has become an invisible default is the first step towards making such changes. As I struggle to close this chapter, I am acutely aware of how this brief discussion is inadequate to the task of understanding the complexity of this topic—​how whiteness has indelibly shaped both medievalism and craft brewing in North America, and the extent to which the intersections of these threads go unacknowledged. My final suggestion for improving the industry is essentially what I  emphasized at the beginning of this chapter: talking about it. Despite our discomfort, we need to drag it out into the open and recognize the barriers that some people face in the craft beer world, despite the best intentions of brewers. Keeping these issues invisible and brushing them off, as most of the commenters did in the threads I cited earlier, simply protects the status quo and provides false reassurance that no change is needed. And yet change is clearly required. We should not expect all people of colour to desire to join in the craft beer scene, but they should not experience cultural or financial barriers to participation because of their race. Talking about it is the first step to opening the doors wider and welcoming in more people to enjoy the craft beer experience.

+ Imprint.City Are Transforming Bayview,” McGuire Real Estate (blog), July 5, 2017, www.mcguire. com/​blog/​2017/​07/​laughing-​monk-​brewery-​imprint-​city/​; www.laughingmonk.com; Maggie Hennessy, “With Bungalow, Middle Brow Is Building a Home for Social Justice,” October: Falling for Beer (blog), March 4, 2019, https://​oct.co/​essays/​middle-​brow-​beer-​bungalow-​social-​justice; http://​tapsocialmovement.com; www.ladyjusticebrewing.com. All websites were last accessed August 17, 2019.

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Chapter 7

CONCLUSION: THE ALCHEMY OF ALCOHOL The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. […] It makes him for the moment one with truth. […] The drunken consciousness is one bit of the mystic consciousness.1

WITH THIS BRIEF chapter, I conclude my foray into the lives and legends of craft beer and the ways in which medievalism and masculinity have shaped the industry. As I do so, I must acknowledge a question that haunted me when I first conceived of this project:  does it matter that this book is about beer? Could my analysis of contemporary medievalism apply equally to any other food or beverage, or any other artisanal product? Perhaps I  could have discussed independent coffee roasters or soap makers instead. Perhaps the beer is immaterial; it is the crafted nature of the product that lends itself so readily to medievalism and anti-​corporatism. Of course, I  decided that the beer is certainly not immaterial; the beer, indeed, is the point. In response to a question about his long-​standing connection to the brewing industry, Fritz Maytag, founder of Anchor Steam Brewing, responded by focusing on the nature of beer itself:  “Ultimately, it stems from the alcohol. Alcohol changes people’s state of consciousness. Even one beer can make a person a little mellower […] and that is a bit magical.”2 The “magical” quality of beer, which has long undergirded its appeal and cultural resiliency over the centuries, is the focus of this concluding chapter. In addition to its social and economic centrality in a wide range of cultures over the centuries, beer is also an intoxicant and a product that emerges through the metamorphic power of fermentation. It is, in part, because of the inebriating and transformative qualities of alcoholic beverages that alcohol has such a long history with us; it is “embedded in social relations and sociocultural systems” of societies across the globe, from villages in developing nations with limited infrastructure and technology, to the most technologically advanced cities.3 In the epigraph that opens this chapter, philosopher and psychologist William James, brother to the writer Henry James, suggests how alcohol’s properties may expand our intellectual horizons and open up the possibility for deeper contemplation, introspection, and awareness. Like many others, James also notes how alcohol 1 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New  York: Longmans, Green, 1917), 387. 2 Lindley, “Small Beer,” 40.

3 Gefou-​Madianou, Alcohol, Gender, and Culture, 1–​2.

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allows us to cast away our inhibitions, to say “Yes!” when we would otherwise say a dour “No.” He suggests that intoxication can empower us to bypass the strictures of rationality and access a higher consciousness. His comments, which at first appear to ignore the myriad health and psychological problems associated with alcohol misuse, are actually appended to his acknowledgement of the problems with alcohol and occur within a wider discussion regarding mystical experiences. However, it is clear to James and (and, I think, to most other people) that despite the hangovers and other, more destructive, accompaniments to alcoholic indulgence, human beings will continue to use alcohol to bond with others, to celebrate, and to mourn. Alcohol, and even intoxication specifically, remains part of many social rituals in many different cultures.4 While the integration of alcohol into social and religious practices has a long history in non-​Western cultures, my brief discussion here considers its social and religious meanings in the European medieval period and how those meanings might extend to modern North American beer culture.5 In addition to my own commentary, I give more space in this concluding chapter for somewhat lengthy direct quotes of spiritual, revelatory, or personal experiences related to beer or inebriation as recorded by various writers, from the medieval period until last year. Alcohol has always been important in Western cultures, and personal experiences of it carry meaning—​sometimes symbolic, sometimes moral, sometimes practical. Christian theology, the ideological underpinning of European societies in the Middle Ages, has at its core the power of alcohol to save and transform. The doctrine of transubstantiation holds that the celebrant, upon ingesting the Eucharistic wine, is temporarily one in body with God, as Christ’s literal blood manifests in, or as, the wine.6 This wine is not consumed at a level that could intoxicate, 4 James Nicholls, “Gin Lane Revisited:  Intoxication and Society in the Gin Epidemic,” Journal for Cultural Research 7, no. 2 (2003): 125–46 (127).

5 For an introduction to these histories, which have not been touched upon in this book, see Gefou-​Madianou, Alcohol, Gender, and Culture; John Wilkins and Robin Nadeau, “Introduction,” in A Companion to Food in the Ancient World, ed. John Wilkins and Robin Nadeau (Chichester: Wiley, 2015), 9–​11; and Justin Willis, “Drinking Power: Alcohol and History in Africa,” History Compass 3 (2005): 1–​13 (particularly the bibliography, which provides a useful range of sources for the history of drinking and colonization in African countries). 6 There were several theological perspectives regarding the nature of Eucharistic bread and wine. In the early medieval period, these views could be generally separated into two main categories: the Augustinian and Ambrosian understandings of the Eucharist, the former being more symbolic and the latter being more literal. In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas’ interpretation of the Eucharist and definition of transubstantiation came to govern Eucharistic theology and did so for centuries. In Aquinas’ view, “Christ’s presence [in the Eucharist bread and wine] [is] both a physical reality and something that is completely beyond the senses” (Jennifer Garrison, Challenging Communion: The Eucharist and Middle English Literature [Columbus:  Ohio State University Press, 2017], 12). For a much more thorough discussion of Eucharistic theology, see Garrison, Challenging Communion; Thomas Izbicki, The Eucharist in Medieval Canon Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); and Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

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neither does wine have the same cultural associations as beer, but it is nevertheless important to acknowledge the metaphysical role that alcohol had in European Christian culture. Jennifer Garrison explains that medieval laypeople were taught, through both authoritative and informal sources, that the Eucharist “could grant believers everything from personal fulfillment and complete identification with the suffering body of Christ to salvation and the unification of fractured communities.”7 The Eucharist wine was far more than an empty symbol; it had the power to transform, to regenerate, to cleanse. The reality—​the “substance”—​of Christ was believed to inhere in the “accidents” of the Eucharistic bread and wine. In his discussion of the eighteenth-​century pathologizing of addiction, specifically alcoholism, James Nicholls indicates that during this time drinking started to acquire “peculiar metaphysical meanings that would remain characteristic of the representation of drink and drug consumption for the next two centuries.”8 While it is no doubt accurate that metaphysical connotations of drunkenness increasingly accrued as such behaviour became pathologized, these connotations existed long before the eighteenth century. Indeed, they have existed for millennia. Contemporary trance dances induced by alcohol are likely derived from premedieval and certainly non-​Western cultural rituals.9 However, such spiritualizing of alcohol was an element of medieval and early modern Christendom as well. Going back a century earlier, to the early 1600s, the “Water Poet” John Taylor was writing prolifically (although not necessarily elegantly) about the spiritual benefits of beer for both his contemporaries and those in the medieval past. Taylor’s work could form its own separate chapter, or even book, but even a brief exploration of his beer writings reveals something of the drink’s cultural nuances: 7 Garrison, Challenging Communion, 1.  Garrison goes on to argue that this oversimplification of Eucharistic theology was not accepted by all, and that some authors were invested in exploring the complicated relationship between the figurative and literal in the Eucharist. 8 Nicholls, “Gin Lane Revisited,” 128.

9 For a unique, first-​hand perspective on modern-​day trances precipitated by alcohol and dancing, see the travel account of Tamalyn Dallal, filmmaker, traveller, and professional dancer: Tamalyn Dallal, 40 Days & 1001 Nights: One Woman’s Dance through Life in the Islamic World (Lynnwood: Melati, 2007), 156–​60. Dallal shares first how she learned about these trance dances (and their use of alcohol) from others:  “Taariq told me about groups of women called kibuki who play music and do trance dances. […] These women can be hired to ward off evil spirits in houses, and they also hold ceremonies of their own. Typically, they are led by a wizened old woman. Participants consume large quantities of liquor […] but never experience hangovers.” She then attends some of these events and shares her first-​hand experience: “The lady who escorted me into the room in the beginning brought a tea cup full of brandy, opened my mouth, and poured it down my throat. […] As more and more women fell into trance, the scene got wilder.” From a subsequent gathering: “I was instructed to kneel before Biashura, who doused my legs and hands with brandy, then poured some down my throat. Some of the other women hit me on the back.” These examples are from Zanzibar, but Dallal elsewhere discusses similar trance dances such as the Zar in Egypt.

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With a toaste it [beer] is the poor man’s comfort; the shepheard, mower, plowman, and blacksmith’s most esteemed purchase; it is the tinker’s treasure, the pedlar’s jewell, the beggar’s joy, and the prisoner’s loving nurse; it will whet the wit so sharp that it will make a carter talk of things beyond his reach; it will set a bashful suitor a wooing. […] It sets an edge upon retorick; it is a friend to the muses, it inspires the poore poet […] it mounts the musician above Ecla; it makes the ballad-​maker rime beyond reason […] it puts eloquence into the oratour; it will make the philosopher talk profoundly, the scholar learnedly, and the lawyer acutely and feelingly.10

Beer’s intoxicating properties, in Taylor’s view, excite one’s innate inspiration and skill. It is a treasure that everyone, from the poet laureate to the lord or lady to the poor shepherd, can afford and enjoy. It sharpens intellect and feeling rather than dulls them. Distilled spirits, in contrast, were seen as more likely to precipitate a dangerous type of intoxication, while beer, when consumed in moderation, would not. In his review of previous writings on beer (mostly from the Middle Ages), Taylor castigates a medieval poet, described anonymously as a “shameless writer,” who referred derisively to beer. Taylor explains how this poet received his comeuppance for such heresy: This fellow, by the perpetual use of water (which was his accustomed drink), fell into such convulsions and lethargick diseases, that he remained in opinion a dead man; however, the knowing physicians of that time, by the frequent and inward application of ale, not only recovered him to his pristine state of health, but also enabled him in body and braine for the future, that he became famous in his writings, which for the most part were afterwards spent with most aleoquent and aleaborate commendation of that admired and most superexcellent true brewage.11

This story is amusing, particularly the detail about the writer nearly dying because he drank water instead of beer, and the “ale” puns on “eloquent” and “elaborate.” His miraculous recovery by the “inward application of ale” at first seems to a modern reader merely satiric, part of the humour, but when one considers the health benefits of beer, particularly dark beer, perhaps not. The reader is invited to laugh at the faux seriousness with which Taylor condemns this man for drinking water, but the general message about the wonders of beer is, I believe, sincere. Taylor’s discussion of the medieval love of beer is relatively accurate, as Chapter 2 of this book suggests. However, the relationship between inebriation and spiritual revelation or transformation is also evident in medieval texts, particularly devotional literature. The Middle English mystical text The Ladder of Foure Ronges, a fifteenth-​century translation of the twelfth-​century Carthusian devotional treatise Scala Claustralium, uses the sensory experience of intoxication as an analogy for the nature of divine contemplation:

10 Marchant, In Praise of Ale, 57–​58.

11 John Stevenson Bushnan, Burton and Its Bitter Beer (London: Orr, 1853), 41.

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So doth God Almy3ty to his loveris in contemplacion as a tauerner that good wyne hath to selle dooth to good drunkeris that wolle drynke wele of his wyne & largely spende. Wele he knowith what they be there he seeth hem in the strete. Pryvely he wendyth and rowndith hem in the eere [ear] & seyth to them that he hath a clarete [claret wine], & that alle fyne for ther owyn mouth. He tollyth hem to howse & 3evyth [giveth] hem a taast. Sone whanne they haue tastyd therof and that they thynke the drynke good & gretly to ther plesauns, thann they drynke dayly & ny3tly, and the more they drynke, the more they may. Such lyking they haue of that drynke that of none other wyne they thynke, but oonly for to drynke their fylle and to haue of this drynke alle their fylle. And so they spende that they haue, and syth they spende or lene to wedde surcote or hode & alle that they may for to drynke with lykyng whiles that them it good thynkith. Thus it faryth sumtyme by Goddis loveris that from the tyme that they hadde tastyd of this pyment, that is of the swettnesse of God, such lyykyng þei founde theryn that as drunkyn men they did spende that they hadde.12

While this excerpt from the Ladder does not use beer to illustrate its point, it conveys the symbolic power of alcohol. It is also, significantly, an addition to the original Carthusian text, which did not include this meditation on divine drunkenness. I have quoted it at length because this section demonstrates the way in which inebriation and even addiction were hermeneutically flexible concepts before addictive behaviour was pathologized.13 In this vision, God is a tavern keeper that allows his patrons a taste of wine so amazing that they cannot stop thinking about it and imbibing it. In a gesture towards the mystical notion of mutual divine indwelling, this wine consumes them, even as they consume it. They are intoxicated by God and they will give anything to keep drinking; the slow, repetitive process of divine addiction described here stylistically reinforces the intense imprinting of God’s influence on one’s mind and heart. The altered state of inebriation is as close as we can come to expressing that divine connection. Margery Kempe, the wife, mother, mystic, and brewster introduced in Chapter 2, also used intoxication as a metaphor for divine revelation: Than was hir sowle so delectabely fed wyth the swet dalyawns of owr Lorde and so fulfilled of hys lofe that as a drunkyn man sche turnyd hir fyrst on the o syde and sithyn on the other wyth gret wepyng and gret sobbyng, unmythy to kepyn hirselfe in stabilnes for the unqwenchabyl fyer of lofe whech brent ful sor in hir sowle. [Then was her soul so delectably fed with the sweet dalliance of our Lord and so fulfilled of his love that just like a drunken man she turned first from one side then to the other

12 Phyllis Hodgson, “ ‘A Ladder of Foure Ronges by the Whiche Men Mowe Wele Clyme to Heven.’ A Study of the Prose Style of a Middle English Translation,” Modern Language Review 44 (1949): 466. 13 A similar interpretative reconceptualization occurred in response to those suffering from mental illness. Instead of being thought of as ill or insane, such people were sometimes considered specially blessed by God. For example, the “lunatyk lollares and lepares aboute” (C:IX:107) referred to at several points in Piers Plowman, seem to have unique access to the divine. See Lawrence Clopper, “Langland’s Persona: An Anatomy of the Mendicant Orders,” in Written Work: Langland, Labor, and Authorship, ed. Steven Justice and Kathryn Kerby-​Fulton (Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), 144–​84.

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with great weeping and great sobbing, unable to keep herself under control due to the unquenchable fire of love which burned so fiercely in her soul.] (2310–​14)14

For Margery, and for other mystics as well, a divine revelation was incompatible with order and rationality. Just as the tavern owner in the Ladder provides drink to his patrons, the Lord feeds Margery’s soul “delectabely” with his “swet dalyawns” until his love so fills her that she feels like a “drunkyn man” in her overwhelmed state. She sees her response as spiritually authentic, which is confirmed later on when a priest reads to her an excerpt from the Stimulus Amoris in which the speaker expresses a similar experience: “I bowe, Lord, thei that se me irkyn and rewyn, not knowyng me drunkyn wyth thi lof [I submit to you, Lord, those who see me are irked by me and pity me, not knowing that I’m drunk on your love]” (lines 3639–​40). Like Margery, the speaker in the Stimulus tries to make those around him understand that his wild behaviour is due to his divine inebriation—​he is drunk on the love of God. Julian of Norwich, the famous mystic whose writings inspired Margery, also described divine connection in terms of sensory experiences, although not specifically as inebriation: And than shal we all come into our Lord, ourselfe clerely knowand [knowing] and God fulsomely [completely] havyng; and we endlesly ben al had in God, Hym verily seand [seeing], and fulsomly feland [feeling], Hym gostly heryng [spiritually hearing], and Hym delectably smellyng, and Hym swetely swelowyng [swallowing]. (1539–​42)

Julian, like Margery, Taylor, and the author of the Ladder, links sensory experience to intellectual and spiritual revelation. We—​the followers of Christ—​will know ourselves as we are “had” in God, at which time we will truly see, fully feel, spiritually hear, and sweetly and delectably smell and swallow Him. The ambiguous syntax here, however also, allows the possibility of God smelling, feeling, seeing, and swallowing us. Julian offers both readings at once in her careful sentence structure, thus exemplifying how we might dwell in God as he dwells in us. These uses of drunkenness as a metaphor for revelation were certainly different from Gower’s use of the same metaphor to illustrate a lack of judgment or perception.15 In the middle of this spectrum –​inebriation (metaphorical or not) as either revelation or as blindness –​we have figures such as Criseyde, the eponymous heroine of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde. When she, an independent, quiet, and reclusive widow, first sees Troilus in his post-​battle parade glory, she notices his discomfort with public acclaim and something in her begins to change: For which [the parade and cheers] he wex [grew] a litel reed [red] for shame When he the peple upon hym herde cryen That to byholde it was a noble game

14 Citations taken from Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe.

15 I briefly discuss this section of his Confessio Amantis in Chapter 2.

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How sobrelich [soberly] he caste down his yen [eyes] Criseyda gan al his chere aspien [saw his whole face] And leet it so softe in hire herte synke That to hireself she seyde, “Who yaf [gave] me drynke?” (Troilus & Criseyde, II:645–​51)16

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Criseyde likens this moment, in which she allows thoughts of Troilus to “synke” into her heart and mind, to intoxication. Since she is a character who relies upon her own strength and self-​control, this admission of (in Gower’s words) love-​drunkenness signals an important shift. There is a small release of her own emotional control here, as she begins to “caste and rollen up and down /​withinne hire thought” (II:659-​60) everything she knows about him. Even to allow Troilus space in her mind is to give up some of her control, to enjoy her inebriation. Shortly after this moment, the narrator specifies that she did not fully fall in love with him all at once (sensibly, Criseyde does not believe in love at first sight), but that “she gan enclyne/​to like hym.” (II:674-​5) She gradually falls in love, after that first brief moment of intoxication, and it is a powerful love that she ultimately –​and tragically –​must lose. The slow development of her feelings makes the final loss, I would argue, much more profound and painful. In this example, the drunkenness metaphor is neither an incredible divine revelation that leaves one shaking on the floor, nor is it the foolish blindness that Gower castigates men for falling into. It is, instead, a moment of openness in a woman who keeps herself closed –​an openness precipitated by her recognition of uncertainty and weakness in someone who appears to be strong. Criseyde’s love-​inebriation does not destroy her judgment and intelligence; instead, it moves her to think more deeply and risk vulnerability to pursue an unexpected connection with someone else. The effects of alcohol were considered potentially revelatory and even transformative, but the process of creating it was itself mysterious. Brewing has its own magic; fermentation is, after all, a transformative process. Richard Unger describes some of the superstitious rituals associated with brewing in the medieval period, such as making the sign of the cross on barrels or ensuring silence during fermentation times, but the mystique of beer remains with us today.17 The mystery of fermentation and flavouring—​ the art of the brewmaster—​is conveyed in craft brewers’ descriptions of their product and process. This focus turns consumers away from the Weberian rationalization of the industry (see Chapter 2) and towards a view of brewing based on intuition and experience rather than pure science. The Ale Apothecary in Oregon, for example, emphasizes its owner’s use of “knowledge and hindsight gained from the last 200 years of industrial brewing” in order to “create beers that embody the spirit of the last 2,000 years of cottage and farmhouse beer; unpredictable, wild, and totally independent.”18 The 16 I would like to thank Dr. Cathy Hume for reminding me of this brief reference to metaphorical inebriation, a moment that I have always found very compelling. 17 Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages, 39.

18 https://​thealeapothecary.com/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

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hand-​drawn version of the brewing process featured on its website uses a mix of scientific and mystical terminology: it begins with the “11,000 year old snow melt from our aquifer” and moves down to a mix of handwritten terms that accompany the illustrations, such as “saccharomyces,” “magic,” “brettanomyces,” “mystery,” and “pediococcus” before proceeding to “chance” and “wild & open fermentation.” The archaic term “apothecary” itself, with its connotations of both magic and science, fits well with this brewery’s vision of its own creative process; its beer is partly scientific—​standardized and measured—​ but by necessity is also part “chance” and “magic.” Ron Jeffries of Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales expressed this idea when he explained to beer writer William Bostwick his perception of himself as a brewer: I think of myself as an artist. My vision is to create something beautiful and wonderful—​ the ever elusive, ever changing perfect beer. Perfect for that moment, right there, for what you’re doing. […] The next day, things will be different. Every instant has its own perfect beer, then it’s gone. That’s the fleeting art of the brewmaster.19

Corporate beer owes part of its profitability to regularization and consistency:  it is always the same. Beer brewed in small increments by craft producers, on the other hand, will never be fully consistent batch to batch, particularly not if those producers are producing farmhouse beers or saisons. And that unpredictability is part of the joy of both creating and tasting such beers. Bostwick describes his own pleasure in releasing himself of the obligation to codify and standardize his own brewing when he spent several months making beer at Rogue Brewery’s farm property in Oregon. After the first month, Bostwick and his girlfriend had gone feral. The beer-​labeling system we had been using, promising ourselves we’d spend the summer meticulously honing our craft, had dissolved as well. It was a mess. […] On a fateful afternoon, while setting the table […] I reached deep into the back of the fridge and grabbed the coldest bottle. “SSN” was all it said. The mystery brew poured cloudy into our jelly jar glasses. But a sip dispelled all doubt. Bitter and refreshing, fizzy and cold, grainy but dry. […] Perfect for that moment, perfect for the season.20

What I  enjoy most about Bostwick’s anecdote is the way he and his girlfriend must accept having “gone feral” before they can create and then choose the perfect beer for their summer picnic. It was a “mystery” whether it would work, but the revelation of taste clarified their understanding and, in a moment of catharsis or conversion, “dispelled all doubt.” It is described almost as a religious experience. However, it was only accessible to them once they had ceased to insist on rational control over all aspects of their brewing (despite their intentions to run a tight ship, so to speak). It was through their feral mess that the mysterious perfection of a farmhouse ale could be experienced. Like Criseyde, they need to give up some control. Jeff Rice, when he complicates the definition of beer terroir through his love of so-​ called regional styles not produced in the region of origin, provocatively suggests that 19 Quoted in Bostwick, The Brewer’s Tale, 110. 20 Bostwick, The Brewer’s Tale, 94–​95.

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such chaos—​he refers to it as being “fucked up”—​enables us to appreciate craft beer not only sensorially, but also emotionally: Terroir is not a place-​based experience in the ways we have come to understand it. If I—​and everyone else who loves saisons and semidry slightly funky beers—​continue drinking these fine beers from Krebs, Oklahoma, our sense of terroir will be completely fucked up. To be fucked up is to be completely confused about any given taxonomic distinction. […] When we are fucked up, we have to allow our senses, tastes, and intellectual framework to open up to Krebs, Oklahoma, the way we have opened up to Portland, Maine, or Portland, Oregon, or Belgium or any other aggregated sense of place. Because of one brewery? Yes. That’s all it takes. […] [It] distributes terroir and fucks up whatever we may think is the natural order of beer and location. Distribution fucks up assumptions, particularly when that distribution is not only physical (moving beer on trucks) but emotional.21

The resistance of beer’s pleasures to the guidelines of traditional terroir complicates (or “fucks up,” in Rice’s memorable formulation) our expectations but also leads us to new and unforeseen tastes and experiences. In this way, similar to Bostwick’s “feral” beer selection, the “wrong” space or place for a beer becomes the right one. Other breweries and brewers also reject the rational and the scientific (at least in their branding and literature) in an effort to capture something of beer’s mystique, to tap into the drink’s potential to give us an unforgettable—​or unexpected—​experience. Craft beer drinkers, according to some research, are more likely to be attuned to the sensory and emotional appeal of imbibing. For example, Gómez-​Corona et  al.’s study revealed that a ritualized, almost sensual experience was part of the enjoyment of craft beer. Drinking it is a slow, “reflexive process.” One consumer in their study commented that “you’d rather be alone, calm, to taste it well, feel it well, drink it little by little, really concentrate in the beer, in tasting, catering and everything else.” Consumption of craft beer is “oriented towards special and ritualized moments.”22 Ritual, both as its own meditative practice and as a path to awareness, has its own mystique, which craft brewers such as Strange Fellows Brewing reinforce. Strange Fellows’ Vancouver tasting room—​that proxemic place for drinking and sharing—​is decorated with odd masks that evoke images of carnivalesque wildness or ancient rituals cloaked in secrecy. The brewery’s events include the Feast of Fools, a costume event seemingly designed to echo Bakhtinian medieval carnivals, and a Midwinter Viking Revelry.23 The reversal of all the “S”s on the menu 21 Rice, Craft Obsession, 114–​15.

22 Carlos Gómez-​Corona, Héctor B.  Escalona-​Buendía, Mauricio García, Sylvie Chollet, and Dominique Valentin, “Craft vs. Industrial:  Habits, Attitudes and Motivations towards Beer Consumption in Mexico,” Appetite 96 (2016): 358–67 (363–64).

23 From the brewery’s 2018 event announcement for the Feast of Fools: “Since the days of Chaucer, the Fool’s Day has played an important role to society’s health by allowing folks to let off a little steam. Medieval clerics celebrated the Fool’s Feast as an outlet for their innate foolishness, lest they be too silly year-​round.” See https://​strangefellowsbrewing.com/​2018/​03/​feast-​of-​fools-​april-​7-​ 2018/​. The Viking Revelry information is found here: https://​strangefellowsbrewing.com/​2019/​ 01/​midwinter-​viking-​revelry/​. Websites last accessed August 17, 2019.

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board enhances the “strangeness” cultivated in the tasting room space—​a strangeness echoed, of course, in the company’s name. Some of the beer descriptions suggest that the brewery’s products can provide spiritual or personal revelation. The description on the back of a bottle of Wayfarer Barley Wine hopes that this drink “may be your first step on the path to enlightenment.” The self-​consciously silly description on the bottle of Strange Resemblance Wild Saison ends with a gesture towards beer’s potential to grant knowledge: Doppelgangers are considered to be bad luck, even a harbinger of impending death. They could be a long-​lost twin, of course, or merely one who bears a strange resemblance to you. Worst case scenario, they are an evil twin from a parallel universe & intent on hijacking your life. […] This beer with its fruity, bright character will reveal treacherous intentions.

Like the Wayfarer, Strange Resemblance promises a certain kind of enlightenment. Indeed, Strange Fellows as a whole is premised upon recognition, identification, and knowledge; if you go looking for fellow beer lovers, fellow oddballs, you will certainly find them. Strange Fellows invites you to see your own strangeness a path to belonging. Oliphant Brewing is perhaps the oddest brewery I have encountered, and the one that most intentionally rejects reason and order. Its website has the appearance of being created in a trance-​like or intoxicated state, with language that barely arrives at coherence. With its use of the medieval word for elephant (oliphant) in its name, this brewery takes medievalism’s alterity to a new level. The mantra on its homepage reads as follows (I have centred the text to reflect its appearance online): we’re not possessed by the devil—​no mama—​we’re possessed by the oliphant mort and treezus, brewers and acolytes, is oliphant brewing we is oliphant we make beer let unreason reign24

The embrace of “unreason,” the rejection of traditional sentence structure, and the invocation of possession (by the ancient brewing Oliphant?) enjoins the reader/​customer to expect the unexpected at Oliphant, to anticipate that perhaps they will be taken somewhere new and strange through the experience of beer. This refusal to meet conventional expectations continues throughout Oliphant’s website; even its beer descriptions give no sense of what the beer is actually like, which is highly unusual for a brewery.25 For example, its west coast IPA called “cats, cats, cats!!!” is described as follows: 24 www.oliphantbrewing.com/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

25 After the descriptions, there is sometimes a very short list of words or ingredients, but this is the totality of the beer taste profiles.

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is how many cats our dear jeffy has. i have one cat and one dog. trevis has tine caetss, errrrr! mark has 2 docks, and josh doesn’t isn’t real. no amimals at all. so knowing that, how many perts does jeramie have? tell me in the taproom. each wink is the amount of animals. Good luck!26

Possession does indeed seem an apt way to describe Oliphant’s style; its language resists any attempt to generate meaning or produce interpretation.27 Consumers’ choice of beer to taste will be, in part, based upon intuition rather than rational assessment. Of all the breweries I surveyed for this book, Oliphant was the one that pushed most strenuously against reason, order, and rationality—​the tenets of corporate capitalism and neoliberalism, in other words. It does not provide its own history or describe its own beers, as one would expect; it does, however, express its hope that it can “bring you an enjoyable experience” either in the taproom or in “the forgotten spaces in the yet unexplored regions of your mind, or wherever you may roam, this world and others.” In other words, Oliphant positions its beer as an experience that could enable drinkers to access unknown parts of their consciousness, to reach a higher level of awareness. Like the medievalism informing its name, Oliphant urges a return to something we were before and have always possessed. The brewery is, in fact, extending and testing the limits of an ethos common to most craft brewers—​the idea that through a unique, embodied experience of community and drinking we can touch something in ourselves that we have lost. The corporate paradigm of rationality and profit cannot offer such metaphysical possibilities. Perhaps what we have lost is an awareness of our past, either our own or our culture’s. Perhaps we want to return to a place where (to borrow Julian of Norwich’s metaphor) we see, smell, taste, and swallow our local environment. Maybe we want to recover those features of brewing that dissipated throughout the Middle Ages as women were slowly erased and professionalization shaped the beer business. These various senses of loss energize modern craft brewing. Brewing is an art, as Ron Jeffries puts it. It emerges from the past as an object we wish to recover and (re)create, but also fully embodies our present:  regional terroir, local yeasts and fruits, dirt and air. North American society has become one that lives in the present; we easily lose awareness of the past. Perhaps the increasing presence of medievalism among craft brewers signals our awakening to those lost spaces and a desire to recover them. It is not perfect—​we have much to change if we wish to be fully inclusive when we invoke the past and imagine the future—​but I think it is a sign of hope. The ability to embrace intuition, change, and revelation while not rejecting the benefits of technological advancements or ignoring our histories will, I believe, allow both producers and consumers of beer to experience and understand this amazing drink as fully as possible. Part of our experience must be not just the tasting, but also the talking. Let us keep beer in our histories. 26 www.oliphantbrewing.com/​ontaptogo/​. Last accessed August 17, 2019.

27 The entire website maintains this style and structure; I encourage readers to explore it.

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With that, I  close with the wonderful beer storyteller, William Bostwick, and his poetic meditation on brewing, infused with medievalism and inspired by his time with beer “shaman” and owner of Moonlight Brewing, Brian Hunt: In the Viking age, a “beer keeper” was a good storyteller. Riding the razor’s edge between drunk and sober was an art. And after a beer-​sated day, with the bird of unmindfulness fluttering and the Budweiser can spinning, after I  spill even more beer on my [voice] recorder, then turn it off altogether, with notebooks closed and words unbound with potent brew, Brian seems less like a trickster and more like a guide. Beer is a journey. Get on the bus; he’ll drive.28

28 Bostwick, The Brewer’s Tale, 48.

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INDEX

alcohol, mystical and/or transformative, 19, 26, 67, 137–48 alcoholism, 35, 139 Aelfric, 27 Alewives. See Beer industry, women’s involvement in Arthur (King), 9, 13, 18

Becket, Thomas (Archbishop), 28–30 Beer, “crafty”, 44, 49, 52, 54–56 Beer industry advertisements and marketing, 17, 52, 55, 62–65, 70, 88, 94, 96, 102 festivals, 51, 100, 124 legal status of (regulations, legislation, mergers), 48–50 medieval history of, 28, 30, 37–39, 43–45 Prohibition’s effect on, 47n1, 48, 50 women’s involvement in, 38–41, 44–45, 65, 91, 92n76, 95n83, 115, 133. See craft brewing and gender Bompas & Parr (experience design company), 87 Boushie, Colton (trial), 3, 12 Brewers Association, 48n6, 49–50, 52, 55, 69n7, 115n3, 116–17 Brewery, corporate (macro), 47, 49–52, 55–56, 82, 99 Brewery, craft, 1, 55–57, 61, 62n71, 74–91, 98–100, 104–5, 108–13, 122n28, 124, 137, 143–47 Barrel of Monks Brewing, 89–91 Beach Fire Brewing, 58, 79, 83 Black Abbey Brewing Company, The, 81–86 Black Star Line Brewing Company, 122, 125, 133 Boston Brewing, 55–56, 95

Cannonball Creek Brewing, 58–59 Chatty Monks Brewing, 103 Dead Frog Brewery, 70 Driftwood Brewery, 1, 58, 92–94 Elora Brewing, 58–59 Fearless Brewing, 98–100 Harris Family Brewing, 124–25 Heretic Brewing, 102–3 Horseshoe Bay Brewery, 52 Iron Monk Brewing, 85–86, 103 Laughing Monk Brewing, 87, 89–92, 134n76 Longship Brewing, 98–100, 102 Lost Abbey, The, 76–79 Monkish Brewing, 88–89 New Albion Brewing, 58, 129–31 New Amsterdam Brewing, 51, 58 New Belgium Brewing, 75–76 Okanagan Spring Brewery, 43–44 Oliphant Brewing, 70, 146–47 Russian River Brewing, 96 Saint Arnold Brewing, 95–96 Sankofa Beer Company, 122n28, 133 Sons of Toil Brewing, 132–33 Stone Brewing, 62n71, 65, 77, 115 Strange Fellows Brewing, 56, 107, 145–46 Sweetwater Brewing, 57–59 Three Floyds Brewing Three Taverns Brewery, 74–75 Valkyrie Brewing, 99–100, 104 White Lion Brewing, 133–34 Belgian and Belgian-style beer, 31, 73–76, 89–90 Brewing guilds, 30, 37–39, 45 Brewpubs, 60, 62, 67, 69, 72, 78, 96n86 Muninn’s Post, 60, 79–80, 102, 104–5 Skål, 99, 105–7 Brigid (saint), 22–23, 96n86

154

154

Index

Cano Mac Gartnain (medieval Irish prince), 24–25 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 9, 13, 145n23 Canterbury Tales, The, 33–34 Troilus & Criseyde, 142–43 Churchill, Winston, 13 community, 2, 14–16, 25, 34, 58, 60, 64, 69–70, 73, 78–82, 86, 91, 101, 104–6, 116, 123–24, 134, 147 craft brewing attachment to place. See Neolocalism and authenticity, 31, 53–56, 66, 69–70, 78, 93, 102–3, 106–7, 125 defined, 53–56 and gender, 60–66 See Beer Industry, women’s involvement in and race, 115–18, 120–25, 128–35 revolutionary language in, 3, 19, 56–60, 56n46, 69, 71–72, 74, 82, 115, 128, 130 and social justice. See social justice (craft breweries)

drinking and seduction, 35, 40–43 songs about, 18, 31, 33n38, 35–36 drunkenness/intoxication, 26, 30–37, 88, 137–39, 141–42 of women, 35–38, 42–43

Early English Text Society, 11–12 Eglinton Tournament, 10 Erik the Viking, 100 Exeter Book, 25–26 Friar Tuck, 73, 87–89

Gerald of Wales, 29, 31 gluttony, 29–33, 35, 87 Great Exhibition of 1851, The, 10–11 gruit, 23, 43

hero narratives, 2, 7, 13, 64, 67–68, 72, 75, 97–98, 125–34 Hildegard von Bingen (saint), 1, 92–96 hops, 1, 22n4, 23, 43–44, 93, 95n83, 96

John Barleycorn (folkloric figure), 25–26 Kempe, Margery, 38–40, 141–42

Lachmann, Karl (philologist), 12 Langland, William. See Piers Plowman Luther, Martin, 80–85 Lydgate, John, 9, 41–42

Malory, Thomas, 8, 127n47 masculinity, 36–7, 42, 48, 53, 60–67, 69, 91, 96–7, 100–101, 103, 116, 125, 128–29, 137 medievalism defining, 2–7 history of, 8–16 monastic, 19, 73–96, 102–3 Viking/Norse, 19, 79, 97–107 whiteness and, 7, 98, 118–19, 125–35 monks and brewing, 27–31 theme in modern craft breweries, 73–96, 103 versus nuns in brewing, 92 Morris, William, 10–11 neolocalism, 1–2, 18–19, 54, 57–60, 69–70, 72, 99, 106, 131

parody, 60n62, 79, 100–101, 103, 107, 133 Piers Plowman, 31–32, 40–42 playfulness, 79, 88, 100–105, 107, 119

racism, systemic, 116–18, 121–23, 130–31, 133–35 See Medievalism, whiteness, and Craft brewing, race Reinheitsgebot, 43–44 Renaissance Faires, 14–16 See also Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), 14–15 Skelton, John, 42–43 social justice (craft breweries), 3, 91, 116, 134–35

155



tasting rooms/taprooms, 76–77, 79, 81–86, 85n40, 89, 102, 106, 122, 124, 145–46, 147 taste (as flavour, judgment, and identity), 17, 30, 44, 48, 51, 53, 56, 59, 61–65, 76, 89–91, 125, 144–47 Taylor, John (The Water Poet), 34, 139–40 terroir, 2, 24, 90, 144–45, 147 transubstantiation, 19, 138, 138n6, 104

Index

155

Vikings. See Medievalism, Viking/Norse violence, 4, 7, 13–14, 63, 79, 97, 101–2, 104, 106–7

war, 12–13, 18 white supremacy, 12, 98, 119, 126–27, 132. See Medievalism, whiteness, and Craft brewing, race wine, 17, 22, 24, 26–30, 27n20, 33, 38–39, 84, 90n65, 138–39, 138n6, 141 World’s End, The, 67–69, 78

156