The True Terror Behind Witch Costumes

It's the Seemingly Unrelated Spoooooktacular! We've got a terrifying and spinetingling episode for you this week as we look deep into the history of Witch iconography: the point hat, the broom, the black cat, not the nose though...the nose thing is just exactly what you think it is. Our guide through this spectre of deeply problematic horrors is in fact Michael Johnstone from Walkie Talky Brewing who has to take the reigns because of a Halloween curse placed on Andrew in 1987 that prevents him from leading on main feed spooky episodes. Michael is better placed for this one because we'll be tackling a popular internet question: Were witches actually just beer brewers who ran afoul of Christian anti-drinking sentiments? Find out as we repeat the same incantation as a woman around the cauldron did but get all the credit this Halloween on Seemingly Unrelated! Bibliography:BBC News. “The Vocabularist: What’s the Root of the Word Computer?” Magazine Monitor. February 2, 2016. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-35428300.Bennett, Judith M. Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600. Oxford University Press, USA, 1996.Bhagat, Shaktibala Suraj Kr. Phyto-Filtration: A New Approach of Waste Water Treatment. 3, no. 2 (2013).braciatrix. “Nope, Medieval Alewives Aren’t The Archetype For The Modern Pop Culture Witch.” Braciatrix, October 27, 2017. https://braciatrix.com/2017/10/27/nope-medieval-alewives-arent-the-archetype-for-the-modern-pop-culture-witch/.Brooks, Laken. “Women Used to Dominate the Beer Industry – until the Witch Accusations Started Pouring In.” The Conversation, March 5, 2021. https://doi.org/10.64628/AAI.jre7vwvpy.DOL. “Most Common Occupations for Women in the Labor Force.” Accessed October 27, 2025. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/wb/data/occupations/most-common-occupations-women-labor-force.Editor, Journal. “Where Are the Women? A Detailed History of Women in Computer Science and How It Impacts the Modern Day Industry.” Chicago-Kent | Journal of Intellectual Property, May 23, 2024. https://studentorgs.kentlaw.iit.edu/ckjip/where-are-the-women-a-detailed-history-of-women-in-computer-science-and-how-it-impacts-the-modern-day-industry/.Food & Wine. “Female Brewers Weren’t Accused of Witchcraft — but the Real Story Is Just as Infuriating.” Accessed October 27, 2025. https://www.foodandwine.com/women-brewers-witches-8736642.“How Women Brewsters Saved the World | Craft Beer & Brewing.” January 15, 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20250115184101/https://beerandbrewing.com/how-women-brewsters-saved-the-world/.Levanon, Asaf, Paula England, and Paul Allison. “Occupational Feminization and Pay: Assessing Causal Dynamics Using 1950–2000 U.S. Census Data.” Social Forces 88, no. 2 (2009): 865–91. https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.0.0264.Miller, Claire Cain. “As Women Take Over a Male-Dominated Field, the Pay Drops.” The Upshot. The New York Times, March 18, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html.“Most Influential Women Computer Scientists.” June 9, 2022. https://www.computerscience.org/resources/most-influential-women-computer-science/.Nikolajeva, Maria. “Devils, Demons, Familiars, Friends: Toward a Semiotics of Literary Cats.” Marvels & Tales 23, no. 2 (2009): 248–67.Nurin, Tara. “No, That Halloween Witch (Probably) Does Not Represent A Persecuted Beer Brewer.” Forbes. Accessed October 27, 2025. https://www.forbes.com/sites/taranurin/2021/10/30/no-that-halloween-witch-probably-does-not-represent-a-persecuted-beer-brewer/.Oldenziel, Ruth. “Making Technology Masculine: Men, Women, and Modern Machines in America, 1870-1945.” Bibliovault OAI Repository, the University of Chicago Press 106 (February 2001). https://doi.org/10.2307/2652289.PBS Eons, dir. What Was The First Beverage? 2024. 13:24. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lusWU9zCRj0.