Over the last few years, the brewing industry has celebrated International Women’s Day (this year on Sunday 8 March) by holding the International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day. The event is co-ordinated by Unite Brew (www.unitebrew.org) who each year set a theme to which the beers should be brewed. The event is open to all women who brew, whether it is on a commercial basis or if they brew at home as a hobby. The aim of the day is for women who are passionate about beer to get together and brew, learn, network and develop their own personal skills.
The event is worldwide with beers being brewed in Africa, Europe and North and South America. In London, breweries that participated include Brew House and Kitchen, Crate, Mechanic, Mothership, Temple Brewing and Wild Card. Here are a couple of examples of what happened.
MECHANIC BREWERY
Olga Zubrzycka, founder, owner and Head Brewster of this Bethnal Green brewery lead a team of women, all customers and others associated with the brewery. Last year’s theme was ‘foraging’ so Mechanic brewed a Brown Baltic Porter with seaweed and oak chips. The theme this year was ‘Tribute’ and Olga chose to recognise Queen Mary’s Rose Garden in Regent’s Park and the beauty of flowers in general. The beer was a champagne pilsner flavoured with rose petals, rose water and white chocolate called Rose Garden Bubble Bath. It was available in both cask and keg.
Clive Troubman (Brewery Liaison Officer)
CRATE BREWERY
Crate celebrated International Women’s Day over the weekend 5 to 8 March with a tap takeover featuring beers brewed by female brewers and breweries led by women. Their website contained the following message: ‘it’s no secret that in recent history, beer has been marketed as a man’s drink and the industry has been dominated by men. Whilst 25% of people working in brewery businesses are women, according to a 2018 report from SIBA, the proportion falls to 6% among brewers. The craft beer movement has done a lot to modernise the trade but there’s still a long way to go to attract more women into brewing. Only 17% of women drink beer at least once a week compared to 53% of men, according to a 2018 report’.
J D WETHERSPOON
JDW joined in the celebrations with a festival of beers brewed exclusively by female brewers from the UK and overseas. There were all sorts of beers: new, seasonal and speciality. This included vegan and gluten free beers. Some were brewed exclusively for the festival. The beers from UK breweries included: Monty Python’s Dead Parrot (Black Sheep Brewery), Jekyll and Hyde (Vale Brewery), Silkie Stout (Loch Lomond), Candlemaker (Sambrook’s Brewery), Sweet Molly (Wadworth Brewery), In the Nic of Time (Shepherd Neame Brewery) and Queen of Hearts (Bath Ales). There were also beers from Canada, Italy, New Zealand, Australia and the USA. The female brewers include Belinda Gould, Lisa Matthews, Hayley Oaks, Steph Cope, Janet Tailby, Sara Barton, Georgina Young and Dawn Baldry, as pictured below.
Rob Davies from JDW who organised the event, commented, “The festival will be celebrating female brewers from the UK and overseas. It will allow us to showcase their excellent beers. We are promising our customers a range of beers from overseas together with some great beers from brewers across the UK. The festival will be the perfect way for real ale enthusiasts to enjoy a range of beers over 12 days.”
To enable customers to taste as many beers as possible, they were available in special third-of-a-pint glasses at three for the price of a pint. Tasting notes were available in the pubs.
The festival dates were suppose to be from the Wednesday 25 March to Sunday 5 April but unfortunately the pubs are currently closed.
Compiled by Tony Hedger