What it takes to get a drink around here

16 Jun, 2025

Note: Life in medieval England wasn’t easy. This post includes mentions of child loss, unfree labour, and other harsh realities of the time.

Ok, so it’s around the 12th Century and you’ve decided maybe the adventurer life isn’t for you.

Maybe you’d rather just settle down and open an alehouse in your little medieval village. Maybe its not a choice at all, and brewing is your means of survival.

How do you go about it?

Actually, I’m getting a little ahead of myself here...

Who are you?

Roll a d10

1-9: Female
10: Male

Female names:

1. Aelfthrith
2. Agatha
3. Beadohild
4. Cuthberg
5. Edith
6. Godgifu
7. Hildegard
8. Inga
9. Mildrith
10. Wulfwyn

Male names:

1. Adalbert
2. Brihtwold
3. Cerdic
4. Dudwine
5. Eadmund
6. Frithstan
7. Grimbold
8. Oswald
9. Theobald
10. Wulfgar

Female

Brewing ale in this time period is considered a domestic task, so there’s a good chance you’re female:

Roll a d10
1-5: Married
6-9: Widowed
10: Unmarried

Married: You’re already brewing ale for your household, but now you’re upping your game. Your husband probably works the land, and your sales will help supplement his irregular seasonal wages.

Age: d20+20
Resource: d3

Widowed: Your husband died due to manual labour, war or disease. You now rely on brewing to financially support yourself and the children.

Age: d20+30
Husband’s age at time of death: 3d10+20
Resource: d6

Unmarried: You are younger and poorer than your fellow brewsters, and are brewing to supplement your household’s income. Perhaps you have elderly parents or were orphaned with siblings to care for. Brewing for you is about survival.

Age: d12+17
Resource: 1

You might also be a bondmaid—your parents were villeins, or simply too poor to care for you, so you were put to service in a wealthier household. You brew and sell unlicensed ale from the back door of your master’s home.

Age: d8+12
Resource: -2

Male

It’s highly unusual for you to be a brewer in this time period, yet here you are:

Roll a d10
1-8: Married
9: Widowed
10: Unmarried

Married: Your alewife is head brewster while you manage the sales, hauling the ale to market, and collecting payment.

Age: d20+20
Resource: d3

Widower: Perhaps you are continuing your wife’s profitable or long-established alehouse.

Age: d20+30
Resource: d6

Unmarried: An independent brewer like yourself is very rare, but perhaps you learned your trade while in service to a monastery, or as an assistant at a town brewery.

Age: d12+17
Resource: 0

Age at marriage

For those applicable, what age were you when you were married?

Men: roll 2d4+20
Women: roll 2d4+17

Children

For every year of marriage up until the wife’s age of 34+d6, roll a d4. On a result of 1, a pregnancy occurs.

For each pregnancy, roll 1d10:
1: stillbirth
2-4: child dies young
5-10: child survives

What are you brewing?

• Small ale - 3HD [11]
• Strong ale - 3HD [11]
• Second mash brew - 2HD [7]
• Posset ale - 2HD [7]
• Oat ale - 4HD [14]
• Brown ale - 4HD [14]
• Metheglin - 4HD [14]
• Herbed ale - 5HD [18]
• Braggot - 5HD [18]
• Festive ale - 5HD [18]

What does your alehouse look like?

Roll a D6 and add your resource score.

0-1: Canvas Tent or Lean-to
2: Dugout hearth pit
3: Timber brew stall
4: Backroom corner or porch bench
5: Lean-to extension to house
6: Dedicated roundhouse or full hearth room
7: Cruck-framed brewhouse or shed
8: Converted smithy or stone barn
9+: Permanent timber tavern or gatehouse

What food do you serve?

Use your resource score:

Poor (-3 to -1)

• Hearth-scraped oatcakes
• Horse bread (bran loaves)
• Raw produce from garden
• Thin bean or nettle pottage

Modest (0 to 1)

• Coarse barley or rye bread
• Salt pork slices with beans
• Stewed cabbage or onions
• Boiled eggs (when available)
• Small cheese wedges

Comfortable (2 to 3)

• Pease pottage with collops
• Roast root vegetables
• Curds and buttered bread
• Barley pudding or fruit mash
• Honeyed oatcakes (on holidays)

Prosperous (4+)

• Roast chicken or offal pies
• Spiced lentil stews
• Fresh rye bread with herbed butter
• Ale-trenched eggs
• Sweetmeats or dried apples

What other services do you offer?

Poor (-3 to -1)

• A place to lean or sit outside
• Hot water or a shared bowl to wash up

Modest (0 to 1)

• Shared fire warmth
• A bench or hearth-seat
• Dice, cards, or gossip

Comfortable (2 to 3)

• Hot meal on request
• Sleep on pallet of straw (barn or floor)
• Stable for a traveller’s beast
• Message delivery to nearby farms

Prosperous (4+)

• Room and board
• Hired help
• Protection (hired guard)

How many alehouses in your village?

1 brewster per 40 residents

Brewing ale

Brewing procedure:

• Each recipe has a skill level expressed as a HD.
• Roll higher than average to succeed (noted in square brackets).
• Each time a die result is 6, it is locked and will always count as a 6 on subsequent rolls.
• Once all die are locked, the recipe is considered mastered.
• For failed brews, roll on the mishap table.
• Failure does not necessarily mean the ale is undrinkable, but they are at risk of fines if the ale-taster visits.

Additional:

• Attempting a brew requires a recipe and the required materials (coming soon).
• Attempting a brew method higher than their resource score attracts a -1 penalty for each additional level.
• Having a tutor adds +1 die to the pool.
• Having a dedicated assistant adds +1 to the roll.

Mishaps

1. Bitter - too sharp or acidic
2. Cloudy - improperly filtered or contaminated
3. Corrupted - spoiled or soured
4. Feeble - watered down or poorly fermented
5. Stale - flat or vinegary
6. Scorched - burnt taste

Brewing example

Small ale - 3HD [11] The brewster rolls 3d6, with a result of 8 (3,4,1). This is below the required result of 11. This week’s batch fails due to poor fermentation—resulting in a feeble ale (4 on the mishap table).

The following attempt, the brewster rolls 13 (6,2,3). The brew succeeds. Because they rolled a 6, on the next attempt, they only roll 2d6 and add the locked 6 to the total.

Alehouse examples

Let’s roll up a few alehouses and see how it goes:

The Common Cup

Godgifu, 26-year-old alewife, married Wulfgar the smallholder at age 22 and they are yet to have any children.

While Wulfa works the fields, Godgifu brews a few extra gallons of brown ale each week.

From her humble roundhouse, she sells to neighbours and passersby who sit on a bench by her doorway.

Occasionally she gets fined by the ale-taster for unlicensed sales.

While neighbours might gossip about her lack of children, she has the time and focus to tend a proper fermentation and to perfect her craft.

The Merry Widow

Aelfthrith is 45 years old. She married a little late at 23, but she was the second daughter, and her father struggled to raise another dowry.

She lost her husband 6 years ago to illness. Of her five pregnancies, two children survived—a girl aged 13 and a boy of 8. Her brewing provides a modest income for the three of them.

Aelfthrith brews weekly batches and sells to her neighbours. Her daughter helps mash, and her son gathers kindling. In her longhouse, locals sit at a bench drinking ale and eating stewed collops by firelight.

The Blessed Rest

Cerdic, a 21-year-old novice at the Abbey flees the cloister after three harsh years of scriptures and beatings.

Armed with modest brewing knowledge, he sets up a makeshift brewing tent beside a popular trod.

He sells rough ale to travellers, especially pilgrims, charcoal burners, and verderers.

Cerdic is tolerated but he knows that the local reeve’s patience is short. He’ll need a patron, a wife, or a license before winter comes.

Verdict:

According to my research, Aelfthrith and Godgifu are pretty bang-on for the sorts of brewsters seen around the 11th to 13th Century.

Cerdic is much less plausible, but his stats should only show up about 1% of the time.

Author’s Note:

The dice rolls and percentages in this post are an attempt to simulate English alehouses between 1000AD to 1200AD.

They are intended to be used during prep to generate realistic alehouse NPCs in an historical or low magical setting. Though I do see potential for a brewing mini-game if players ever decide to open an alehouse.

This is a work in progress and needs refinement, especially the ale, food and services tables. I would also like to expand it further when I get the time.

Sources

1. Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World, by Judith M. Bennett (1996)
2. English Agricultural Output 1250-1450: Some Preliminary Estimates, by Stephen Broadberry, Bruce Campbell and Bas van Leeuwen (2008)
3. Ale Production and Consumption in Late Medieval England, c.1250–1530: Evidence from manorial estates,by Philip Slavin (2012)
4. Haven Of Health, by Thomas Coghan (1636)
5. Anglo-Saxon England, by Sir Frank M. Stenton (1971)
6. The Forme of Cury, by The Master Cooks of Richard II (c. 1390)
7. https://www.sarahwoodbury.com/life-expectancy-in-the-middle-ages/
8. https://www.sarahwoodbury.com/child-mortality/
9. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy

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