Brewhouse

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A building or facility where beer is manufactured and fermented on a commercial or industrial scale
2. An establishment equipped with brewing equipment and vats for the production of beer
3. A structure housing the machinery and vessels used to brew beer from grain and other ingredients

Etymology: A brewhouse is about as transparent as compounds get: "brew" plus "house," a building where beer or ale was made. The first half traces back through Middle English "brewen" to Old English "brēowan," which goes back to a Germanic root meaning to brew, and the second half descends from Old English "hūs," the ordinary word for a dwelling. Middle English shows the compound in several spellings, including "brewhous" and "brouhous," before the modern form settled in. The word is a native formation rather than a loan: English speakers joined two inherited Germanic elements to name a specific kind of building. Dutch has an equivalent, "brouwhuis," built on the same pattern, which shows how naturally the two languages arrived at the same compound.

Synonyms: brewery, brewpub