When did beer become a boy's drink?

Nowadays, beer is widely considered to be a boy's drink -- but this wasn't always the case. Listen in as Molly and Cristen recount the history of beer and beer stereotypes.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told
you from House Step works dot Com. Hi, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly. Molly, what

(00:20):
are you drinking right now? Well, Kristen, I'm having a pilsner,
the Simpler Times Pilsner, which is the Trader Joe's brand
of pilsner. Me. Do we're drinking on the job, Molly?
We are, and I want to point out this is
not something we typically do. Though, I'm gonna go ahead
and say I think it's helped the podcast we've done already. Yeah,
I mean I feel loose um and we're not just

(00:42):
drinking to be crazy. Today's podcast is about beer and women,
but we thought to really get in the mindset. We're
calling this research and you know what if if someone says, hey, gals,
while you drinking on the job, that's horribly irresponsible. I'm
gonna blame it right back on you listeners because we're
doing this beer podcast because of responses on Facebook. I

(01:05):
randomly said something about how we should do something on
beer for St. Patrick's Day, and by the way, we
need to do a special St. Patrick's Day episode anyway,
because it's my mother's birthday, birthday, birthday. Nance Uh, but
people said, yes, absolutely, do a beer podcast. And what's
up here while you do it? Yeah, what's up with
these stereotypes of women and beer? Because so we're just

(01:28):
trying to please. So we're just drinking beers. So if
you're of age, feel free to have one with us. Yeah,
I have a beer. Turn this into a drinking game.
It'll be easy if Kristen says, if you will, that's
one point. Hey, I have thanks also to listeners. I
have tried to weed out if you will. Um. Anyways,
we're going to talk about beer and the stereotypes associated

(01:50):
with because and this was something I was never aware
of when I started drinking. Drinking beer is considered unladylike,
as someone informed me when I was twenty seven years old,
and I was like, have been misspen um. But yes,
it's considered the more manly drink of the alcohol drinks
out there. All you have to do is watch a
beer commercial. Molly very true. Yeah, it's it's a bunch

(02:12):
of bros, you know, drinking some buds, enjoying lovely ladies. Yeah,
it's rarely like the ladies enjoying some buds looking at bros.
But if anyone is looking for a commercial like that,
Kristen I are available. Yes, um, we gladly give you
insight on what kind of beer commercial would would sway
us and um, so yeah, it's considered a male drink.

(02:36):
And you found a really interesting article Christin. I think
that kicks off the conversation really well from Salon about
food getting gendered. And this is another common question we
get from people, um who listened to the podcast, is
why is chocolate such a woman's food? And this article
in Salon goes through and says, this is really only
a US phenomenon. It's about how the chocolate is marketed.

(02:58):
It's about how um, you know, we think about chocolate
in the US, and it's become, you know, something you
see in romantic comedies. The girl gets dumped, she gets
a munch of chocolate. Men eat steaks, women eat salad.
She never goes out and gets a six pack of beer.
So beer and chocolate are are you know, linked in
this way besides being two things that I love and
being foods that are highly gendered in that men drink

(03:19):
beer because they just chug it, blah blah, and women
eat chocolate because it's you know, they're women. They love chocolate. Um.
But here's the thing, a lot of ladies are drinking
the beer these days. There was a National Restaurant Association
survey from a couple of years ago. They found that
about half of women are ordering microbrews when they eat out.

(03:41):
They're not ordering some kind of Mike's hard lemonade alcal pop.
All right, we want Cosmo? Why not a Cosmo? Cosmo? Well, well,
you know, sometimes I love a Cosmo. But they're saying
that far more often then you'd expect women drink beer.
But the fact that it's a microbrew might have something
to do with the advertising, which we're going to get
into later, the ideas that women sip a beer that

(04:02):
tastes good to them, whereas men kind of thrive on
the fact that really, i'm gonna put it frankly skanky beer.
You know, they can just check it back, because I'll admit,
I've got some standards when it comes to beer. And
so they're saying that women are more likely to drink
one that tastes good, that has like this rich brewing history,
and it might be because we have a slightly more
refined palette. That's true, I can appreciate all of the

(04:25):
flavor nuances. There was a really interesting Wall Street Journal
article about how women might be better tasters of beer
and how they have one tasting championships because they are
better able to detect all of the flavors in the beer. Uh.
And while we are, like you said, when a couple
of years ago you were told that beer is not

(04:47):
a ladies drink, It is not lady like to drink beer.
But you should tell you a little friend that. According
to a survey from the UK, dudes think it's cool
and chicks drink beer. Yeah. I can't tell if this
was a fluff piece, just made to make some ladies
feel better while they're drinking habit. Yeah I mean this.
This survey was sponsored by the UK arm of Molson course,

(05:11):
but yeah, apparently men love it when a woman orders
a beer. Yeah, she's down to earth. I like to
think of it kind of like the Rachel Ray effect.
You know, she's sort of down here. She's gonna make
you some good nachos and she'll kick back att with you. Two.
I didn't know there was a Rachel effect. I think
I made that all up in my head. But just
from watching responses, from watching Rachel ray with them, that's

(05:31):
what I feel like happened. That's the whole other podcast.
So even though you know the numbers are there, the
market shares their women are ordering beer on dates. Uh,
thirty percent of beer sales art women, allegedly. Let's talk
about the history of beer. And I want to kick
off this conversation with one of my favorite sentences I've
ever read and stuff Momember told your research history. I

(05:53):
can't wait to hear this. It's from an article in
McLean's and uh, here's the sentence. Why is it? The beer,
as opposed to say wine or color for that matter,
has come to represent liquid masculinity in Canada and abroad. Surprisingly,
this hasn't always been the case. American cultural anthropologist Alandi Aimes,

(06:14):
dubbed the Indiana Jones of Beer, has made it it's
his life's work to reveal the true history of beer
as an ancient symbol of the feminine. Yes, whoa, okay A,
there's an Indiana Jones of beer. Be liquid masculinity. Hello,
see the ancient symbol of the feminine that's usually reserved

(06:34):
for things like moons. Yeah, moons, administration, no correction is
beer boys, it's beer. And you know, when researching this podcast,
there are all sorts of articles about ancient cultures in
which the beer making was a pursuit that only women
could could perform. They were the first beer makers. Yeah,

(06:55):
I mean this crosses hemispheres. We got the Incan culture,
We've got nord cultures. Uh, if you fast forward to
when the British really developed their ales, who's making the beer?
Ale wives, ale wives and brewster's. In fact, in many
of the myths about how beer developed, it's always a
goddess who gives this heavenly beverage to immortal man. And

(07:20):
there's one anectot. I believe it's Viking culture. This is
from ancient Finland. Ancient Finland, that's right, where these goddesses
mix bear saliva, honey and another kind of beer to
make ale, yes, bear saliva. Only women could think of that,
only where we could think of that. Indeed, and um,

(07:40):
this article says that in almost all ancient society's beer
was considered a gift from a goddess and never a
male God. So if we fast forward to the seventeen
hundreds in England when they're developing their ale women a
k a. The ale wives or the brewsters, because brewster
is a female form of brewer, so um, punky brewster

(08:03):
kind of as a conte yeah um. But it's a
common last name, which indicates that many families probably had
a female brewer in their family trade, right, because making
making the ale was a part of their domestic duties.
Because at the time it was very important because it
was a lot safer than the drinking water, and it

(08:24):
also provided an important nutritional content. It was the easiest
way for them to get the nutrients from cereal grains, right,
So it was very much a domestic chore. Along with
making the bread for your family, you would also make
a batch of beer. And it was not until the
Industrial Revolution that we hit a pretty key turning point
in the in the making of beer. And that's when

(08:45):
the beer goes more into factories and breweries and the
men take charge. Yes, this is pretty fascinating. With the
Industrial Revolution, we start moving. We have the rise of urbanization,
people moving out of the home into the more urbanized centers,
and men are working out of the home, and taverns
become a men's domain. Why taverns because of women, because

(09:09):
of women, because their wives want them in taverns. The
wives are actually all about the guys going to and
hanging out at taverns. That way, they're not hanging out
at brothels with prostitutes. And they decreed they asked bar
owners to make their taverns mail only so that the
prostitutes wouldn't come to the bars to find them there too. Yeah,
and we've talked about women behind the bar, um, the

(09:31):
history of women and bartending, and it's such a it
is kind of fascinating history because in some ways we
sort of shut ourselves in the foot in terms of
of bars, and now we've kind of had to climb
our way back. Um. But but it started as you know,
wives being pretty happy there their men were in a
sanctioned male only environment, right, And along with that and

(09:52):
the industrial revolution, ale wives become replaced by the male
brewers because the women could be on the bar. That's right. Now,
bar culture is pretty responsible for the state of beer
advertising today. And that's because when television first came into being,
people weren't buying them for their homes, but bar keeps

(10:12):
to buy them. And the only thing on because television
was so new there was no programming were sports events.
And nothing sells beer like sporting events. I mean, what
goes better with football than cheap nasty beer? Oh? Nothing? Well,
cheese diad maybe? Oh that's that is the correct answer.
Hot wings. Um. But yes, beer and sports have always

(10:35):
been linked because that was the first thing on television.
There were televisions in the bar, so pretty quickly the
beer makers figured out that if they wanted to sell
their beer, their captive audience was already there. They were
already in a tavern watching the game. Let's put a
beer commercial on, right. But interesting how the women is,
specifically these wives factor into the equation because you gotta

(10:56):
also remember that we had prohibition, and after prohibition they
kind of had to These beer makers had to re
educate the public that booze in the home is a okay,
you know, it's totally fine. So they sort of built
up They also marketed to the women in terms of
beer being something that will make their husbands so happy

(11:16):
after a day at work. He just wants an ice
cold Budweiser and it's just your wifely duty to provide
that for him. And very interesting to me is the
whole reason we have six packs is that that's what
they deemed a woman could carry home from the store, right,
instead of an eight pack. They were like, no, no, no no,
heavy for those dainty ladies. Yeah, and I don't mind that.
I like six packs. They are kind of they're kind

(11:37):
of easy to car, are easy to carry. But I
was a little stripped to know that I could have
been getting eight beers all this time, not necessarily for
the same p um. So. Like we said, beer marketing
has constantly been centered around the male, but we have
an early female advertising icon for beer sales who was

(12:00):
a woman. Her name was Mabel. Mabel. She was this
kindly beer gal who would dispense black label because you
know what rhymes with label, Mabel Mabel. There you go.
So the saying was like, hey, Mabel a black label
and uh there. There's some pretty interesting pictures on the
Internet of how Mabel has evolved over time. Yes, the
first Mabel, I think got pregnant and had to quit

(12:23):
because you know, it doesn't really mix great with with beer.
The I think they knew that at the time. Um,
but you know, it was just a picture that was
always there, so beer very early on this first advertising icon.
That's how we sort of get this idea that beer
makes you attractive to ladies. Well, it's lovely ladies serving
the men the beer. Um. And I'm not trying to

(12:43):
make some kind of feminist statement. I'm I'm just literally
like talking about if you look at beer advertisements, it's
like a cute see you know, kind of girl. Yeah,
st poly girl, a Miller high life girl. You know,
they're they're lovely ladies with beer on a tray. So
the fact that we, perhaps as modern women, are a
little bit alienated from modern beer advertising just has to

(13:03):
do with the fact that we kind of shut ourselves
out of it in the first place. Now, one misconception
that I had going to this podcast was that light
beer was developed as something for women, because you know,
diet coke, things like that, diet sodas are clearly marketed
specifically for for us, because we got to watch our
waistline well, and also, you know, they look at sales

(13:26):
now and a lot of that light beer market is
driven by women. But originally that's it's like you said, Christian,
it's a really interesting turning point in the seventies, Miller
introduces Miller White and to me and to you probably Kristen,
they had the sort of natural opportunity to bring in
these ladies who are figure conscious, who thought beer had
too many calories, don't want a beer gut um. And
instead of you know, approaching this says, oh, here's a

(13:48):
good female alternative, they get the manliest guys available. They
get the sports stars of the day, they get Mickey Spillane,
who writes, you know, those gangster novels, and they have
them appear in the advertising and pain saying light beers
aren't sissy, they're the manliest beers of all because you
can drink so much more of them. Yeah, it's kind
of funny. It's like Miller Light was creating a need

(14:10):
that wasn't there. They weren't trying to keep these men
from putting on beer guts. They just wanted them to
have a lighter beer so they could drink more. Because
if you've had a Miller Light, it is uh frighteningly
close to drinking water. Christal Miller Light will never sponsor
us now, but it tastes great and it's less filling
dang so um. You know, it kind of took a

(14:32):
whif that light beer market becomes something that was a
little bit more girly. I mean, they knew up front
this was sort of quote unquote the girly drink. It's
for the calorie conscious, but they turned it into something
that you can just drink more of. And there was
one commercial where this guy was surrounded by Miller light
cans and I guess the advertising rules prohibited them from
implying that he drank them all, so he just said
something like, it's not like I drank them all, but

(14:55):
the joke was that he did. And so if you
if you were drinking light but you could drink more
of it. And you know this, this idea of chugging
versus sipping is one that still exists today. If if
an advertiser has to weigh his marketing dollars, the stereotype
is that guys chug a beer and the girls are
sipping their nice microbrews. So of course they're gonna they're
gonna come up with like a bikini clad model, uh,

(15:17):
selling beer, because you know, it is what sells, and
that's what their market is. And I would just like
to add that Miller made a brilliant move when it
brought out its light version, because check this out, Molly.
Between nineteen seventy three and ninety eight, Miller sales went
from just under seven million million barrels too over thirty

(15:40):
one million barrels, making it the most dramatic period of
expansion ever recorded by a beer maker. And you know,
and that's the thing is, you can't really fault the advertisements. Um,
you can be conscious when you view with them, but
the fact matters they work. There is a reason why
it's just dude sitting around drink and bruise and women
are you know, nowhere to be seen in they're the

(16:00):
person serving the beer or a sex subject. And all
the articles that I found from the past few years
that discuss beer marketing and women, it's constantly churning up
the same problems of you know why, it's all men.
It's all men. It's all men. It's you know, painting
the women in commercials as kind of bimbos, And we're

(16:20):
still marketing towards men, even though research has shown that
indeed women are making up a sizeable proportion of the
beer buying market. And you know, it's kind of funny
because we've talked about, let's say, for example, movies, how
we wish there were more movies that adequately portrayed a
female perspective, that everything is from the male perspective on film.

(16:42):
Males get the the higher salaries, they're directing movies more,
and so our answer is always usually like, be really
conscious of what you consume and try and consume more
female oriented movies. I don't think the answer should be
just drink more beer. That's an irresponsible message, but um,
it's something to note. And I think that's something that
came up and in our actally read from Brewing Techniques

(17:02):
about women who are brewing their own beer, because that
uric came with a list of female brewers so that
you could you could be a patron of a female
brewed beer. And speaking of female made beers, we do
have to call out the Pink Boots Society. I don't
really know why they call themselves a pink through society,
but the Pink brow Society, Uh, that is dedicated to

(17:26):
women brewers and female lovers of beer, because there are
plenty among us. So that's one one place if you
wanted to, um check it out. And well, I think
the major takeaway from all of this podcasting that we've
been doing is that, a, yes, the ladies invented beer,
you know, so let's recognize the ancient times are ancient

(17:46):
roots with bears, with bear saliva and honey. That's all
we needed. Um. But if that's where we're two today,
the fact of the matter is brewers, both large and
small women drink beer. Yes, Christina, I approof of this,
and ladies, you know what, just don't be afraid to
drink a beer. If you like a beer, have a beer. Yeah.

(18:06):
And if you don't like beer, feel free to try
other kinds. I mean, they're there's a huge spectrum of beers. Yes,
we will find one that you like. I'm more of
a wheat beer person myself. I'm not really a big
fan of I p A s Oh. I love I
p A s. You you load hops into a beer
so so much hops. I'm not a hoppy kind of
cow oh. I love to hop. But you know what,

(18:27):
It's okay, though, Molly, because you know what, like, I'll
get my I'll get my home garden, you get your
I p A more for me? Yeah, and we will
we will imbibe Kristen, I just want to ask you
on the record, after doing a podcast, after having two
beers at eleven am, would we do it again? I
think we should do it every week. I mean, I've

(18:48):
had a great, great time. Well, really, Molly, I don't
think that you should be asking me. I think we
should probably be asking our listeners. Listeners, could you tell
we were drinking. I don't really want to know the
answer to that question, but if you do have something
to say about beer and yeah, if we you know,
if you want to talk to us a better morning drinking,
then you can email us at mom Stuff at how

(19:08):
Stuffwork dot com, um, and that's our email address. Just
don't email my boss what's going on. So in the meantime,
I've got an email here about our Kissing podcasts, and
this is from Karen. She says, I was listening to
the Kissing podcasts over the weekend and was happy to

(19:28):
hear you mentioned Germans so much. However, I wanted to
set the record straight on German having fifteen words for kiss.
I've studied German for about twelve years and lived there
for for part of the time, but I only know
four and three of them are colloquial terms. Other nouns
might include kiss as one part of the meaning, but
are not synonyms of cuss Instead. I'm guessing that the

(19:51):
source you quoted included compound words. Compound words like these
happen often in Germans, since it is in English. English
better morphologically a equipped to build new words. So some
of the compound words she mentions are words for kiss
of brotherly love, kiss on the hand, good night, kiss,
farewell kiss. So sorry to pop your bubble, but German
speakers are no more creative and kissing language than we

(20:13):
fair English speakers. They can simply say what they mean
with one word instead of an entire phrase, which I
still find impressive language. It's so funny. It is all right.
I've had an email here from Laughlin about our dream podcast.
He writes, I just listened to your dreams podcast, and
I wasn't going to write in because I agree that
talking about one's dreams is totally boring. But since you
specifically asked, I'm a man whose dreams to not at

(20:36):
all correspond to the quote unquote mail dreams you were
talking about. In fact, in my twenty eight years of life,
I don't know if I've ever dreamed about finding money,
fighting or killing someone, or having sex with a stranger.
I dreams you usually much more like the types of
dreams women supposedly have. I was actually kind of shocked
by the claim about men's dreams being all about violence
and sex, since I don't remember ever hearing someone talk

(20:56):
about having a dream like that. I was wistfully unaware
that my dreams are strange, and now I'm apparently some
kind of androgeneous dream rebel and androgenous dreams rebel. I
believe it's the name of our album, isn't it Customs.
Maybe that's the first Bloody Corsets album we put out
with our lovely producer Lizzy as our basis. Hope you

(21:16):
play basically sweet Bassis all right? If you have any
emails for us, our email address is mom Stuff at
how stuff works dot com. You can follow us over
on Twitter at mom stuff Podcasts. We'd love for you
to like us at Facebook as well. I know we
asked so much and give your your beer recommendation. Yes,
what kind of beer do you drink? People? Let us know,

(21:36):
because I mean I'm lazy. I'm just gonna pick up
a six pack PBR and call today so enlighten me.
And then finally, you can read our blog during the week.
It's stuff Mom never told you at how stuff works
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(21:57):
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