Definition of "brew"

Elderly people sat indoors, in the damp. shabby houses, brewing malt coffee or weak tea and talking without animation […]

1935, Christopher Isherwood, chapter 11, in Mr Norris Changes Trains, Penguin, published 1942, page 113

Go, brew me a pottle of sack finely.

c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene v]

Hence with thy brew’d inchantments, foul deceiver […]

1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, page 106

I wash, wring, brew, bake, scour, dress meat and drink […]

c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene iv]

There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,

c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene v]

Of course, no one knows what kind of flu season is brewing, the perfect storm of a new strain hitting a largely unvaccinated population or a mercifully mild few months.

2004 October 29, Marco R. Della Cava, “Vaccine shortage pricks tempers”, in Statesman Journal, volume 152, number 214, Salem, OR, page 2A

Grant may have considered that only a performance of the very highest quality could keep him in a job - and the way his players started the game gave the 55-year-old shelter from the storm that was brewing.

2011 January 11, Jonathan Stevenson, “West Ham 2 - 1 Birmingham”, in BBC‎

She had one day to get up very early in the morning to brew, when the other servants said to her: 'You had better mind you don't get up too early, and you mustn't put any fire under the copper before two o'clock.'

1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 6

Six great bottles of one of the Hong Kong brews had been brought to wash down the brandy and the fragments of rice and mee and meat-fibres that clung to the back teeth.

1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 529