11 min read

The Importance of Ale

From the 1300s to the late 1700s, the most popular drink was ale.

Ale, also known as “small beer”, was nutritious, easy to produce and cheap. It was consumed every day by every person in medieval England, including children, as the alcohol content was low, only serving as a preservative. It was a drink necessary to public health, as it provided hydration and nutrition in a time when sources of safe, fresh water were extremely unreliable. Records show that workers in some industries, such as agriculture, could even choose to be paid in ale rather than traditional currency.

Wine was expensive, owing to the complex nature of production and cost of sourcing ingredients, and European style hopped beer had not yet reached England, so the market was dominated by ale, particularly among the lower classes. It had a short shelf life and wasn’t transported well, necessitating small scale local production in medieval towns. In 1577, there was one alehouse for every 142 inhabitants per town. This novel business structure meant that women were able to participate in the industry. They became brewers, known as Alewives.

What were Alewives?

It wasn’t merely that women were able to take part in the brewing industry – they dominated it. Evidence from medieval records includes regulations that appear to treat brewing as a purely female endeavour.

Alewives would brew in their homes, most often using malted barley or oats. They often made ale at first just for their family, selling the excess, then expanding to take on local customers from nearby families, transitioning to a small scale commercial enterprise. Women were allowed to continue their trade because it was a simple scaling up of the responsibility they had to provide food and drink for their own family, and public perception was generally positive.

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Foundwork is delighted to announce that the 2022 Foundwork Artist Prize has been awarded to Marseille and Essex-based artist Dominique White. As honoree, White will receive an unrestricted $10,000 grant and studio visits with each of the 2022 jurors who include esteemed curators, gallerists, and artists: Edgar Arcenaux, César García-Alvarez, Lauren Kelly, Eva Langret, and Javier Peres.

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Three artists were named to the 2022 short list: Anna Perach (London), Junghun Kim (Netherlands/South Korea), and Chris Zhongtian Yuan (London). Each of the honorees and shortlisted artists will be featured in interviews as part of the Foundwork Dialogues program to be published over the coming months. For more information, visit www.foundwork.art/artist-prize.

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The 52-foot-long papyrus was found in the Saqqara archaeological area. The ancient artifact contains declarations and spells from the Pharaonic Book of the Dead to assist those who have passed away in their afterlives.

Egypt’s Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, announced the discovery earlier this week during an Archaeologists’ Day event organized by the Egypt Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. Waziri said the papyrus, which was fully restored at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, is being translated into Arabic, and will be presented at the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum.

The papyrus was discovered inside one of 250 wooden sarcophogi found at the archeological area last June. Researchers and archaeologists have been working at the site for more than two years. Just in 2022, archaeologists uncovered hundreds of mummies, a pyramid of an unknown queen, five painted tombs, the tomb of an ancient dignitary, and a sarcophagus belonging to King Ramses II’s treasurer.

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Iraqi American artist Michael Rakowitz has called on the British Museum to return an artifact to Iraq in exchange for the donation of a large-scale work by him.

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Rakowitz has proposed the gift of his 2018 Fourth Plinth commission in Trafalgar Square to the Tate Modern, a British Museum affiliate overseen by the U.K. government, in exchange for the latter sharing ownership of an Assyrian artifact with Iraq. He began exploring the exchange in 2020, according to the Guardian, and is now moving closer to becoming a reality.

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