When the Ale Wouldn’t Ferment
For a time, Margery Kempe tried to make a living as a brewer. In medieval England, ale was a daily drink, and brewing could be a practical household business. But it depended on a process that was hard to control: yeast had to turn sugars in the grain into alcohol and bubbles. If fermentation stalled or went wrong, the result could be disappointingly flat—and difficult to sell.
A Business Failure Became a Spiritual Lesson
Kempe’s account of the episode appears in The Book of Margery Kempe, a narrative of her religious experiences that she dictated later in life. She interpreted the failed brewing not simply as bad luck or a business setback, but as a sign that God was chastening her for vanity. That reading fits the way the book presents ordinary events: work, family life, illness, and public embarrassment all become occasions for examining her relationship with God.
The episode also shows the tension between two kinds of ambition. Brewing required attention to materials, timing, and customers; Kempe’s account instead frames her setback through a growing religious commitment. The failed ale did not prove anything about divine intervention, but it mattered in the story because of the meaning she gave it. A batch that would not rise became, for Kempe, a warning about where she had placed her hopes.
