Miller Lite releases a limited-edition can to honor America’s first documented female brewer.

"Beer has been on American shores since before the colonists first settled here," Alex Parker explains on the Molsen Coors Blog but doesn't follow up to explain what kind of beer it was, and made by whom. Do they mean spruce beer, perhaps? 

That brings us to their idea, Miller Lite is celebrating the contribution of women to American brewing history with a limited edition white can honoring Mary Lisle and other ale wives who came before her. The can bears Lisle's name, replacing "Miller Lite," and features an etching of her and information about women in American brewing. Lisle was the first recognized brewster in America, inheriting her father's Philadelphia brewery in 1734. Miller Lite's campaign aims to educate beer drinkers on the significant role of women in brewing, which has often been overlooked, partly due to the fact that most famous names in United States brewing overshadowed her.

“Women have been written out of brewing history in America, and we want to remind people during the biggest beer-drinking weekend of the year that without women, there’s no beer,” says Kelsey Ott, associate marketing manager for Miller Lite.

“Mary Lisle is the first documented brewer in American history, but it took 100 years to record her name. There were countless women who came before her and played an incredibly important role in brewing beer in America.”

Based on consumer research that showed only 3% of beer consumers over the age of 21 knew about the history of women's contributions to US beer, the idea to showcase Mary Lisle’s contributions to brewing history came about.

With ads like "great taste - less filling / Catfight", Miller hasn't exactly been at the forefront in educating people about the history of beer, and elevating women. But that's all about to change.

During the 4th of July holiday weekend, they will donate $5 from every case sold on Instacart and Drizly to the Pink Boots Society, a professional organization that provides assistance to women working in the brewing industry.

So why not get a limited edition case, and raise a cold one to toast the women who make beer today, yesterday and whomever the beer makes were long before the colonists arrived. You can also win a case in a raffle at https://www.millerlite.com/marylisle

Fun fact, when the French in Quebec were all ill with scurvy, the Huron Indian women showed them how to make tea and poultices from the bark of a local tree, probably White Cedar. It cured them all. Later, by switching trees to spruce, they created a higher c-vitamin beer brew and managed to avoid scurvy from then on. Thomas Pichon, writing in 1752, noted that the inhabitants of Port-Toulouse made “la bière très bonne” from “the tops of the spruce-fir.”