Women and Brewing. Few and Far Between? Or Prevalent?

In my local homebrew club there are 3 women, one of them owns a microbrewery and is certified by Siebel.

 

They exist.

 

Definitely a minority. But I would not say rare. I would say 25% of our brew club is women, and two work as brewers.

 

I know of one owned and ran by Women. I am sure there are more, or soon will be. In the old days women made all the beer. but history is not something American's love much of....lol

 

Keep 'em barefoot, not pregnant, and chained to the brew kettle, I say. But seriously folks, the way craft beer continues to grow it's inevitable that more women will be getting in the game. Good, more beer!

 

In my experience, women are underrepresented in craft beer. I think the craft scene would be improved if more women were involved in brewing. As we have seen in a number of examples, women are just as capable, if not more capable of performing any task involved in historically male dominated professions, so the more women in this craft, the better. I would imagine many agree with that statement, or at the very least are apathetic. So the question becomes, what can or should be done about it? While there are a number of sociological factors that drive anyone to brew, which I will stay away from for now, I think the least the beeradvocate community can do is provide a less ignorant environment. Eliminating the blatant sexism and misogyny as well as their more subtle forms (ie the "start your girlfriend of with a fruit beer" comments) that are prevalent on this board will help.

 

I know one young, very talented female brewer at DFH in Delaware and I'm sure there are plenty more. As with any craft industry it's about sparking interest at an early age and removing any "social barriers" that may still exist within such industries. The best society can do is not make a big deal if a woman is or isn't working in the industry, in this day and age it's the woman's choice whether she wants to brew or not. When society gets to the point then it has achieved something.

 

Agreed. There is no reason that women cannot be as much a part of brewing as men. Indeed, it would only be a benefit to the complexity and diversity of what we all get to enjoy in the end - as smogfood so succinctly put it: "more beer!"
But it will take genuine acknowledgement and effort on the part of current brewers to reach out and encourage women to follow their passion into the brewhouse; everyone knows that a club that is either strongly "guy-ish" or "girlish" will make the other gender uncomfortable or hesitant to enter, regardless of the intent of its members.

I also applaud Beer Advocate in allowing a potentially challenging and sticky topic such as this one to be discussed. I'm sure no one wants flamewars of any kind on their forums, but an important issue discussed passionately and reasonably is always a helpful and productive thing!

 

A brewer who happens to be female, Tonya Cornett, has created several beers that I just love, including one that's really high on my all-time favorites list, Ching Ching from bend Brewing. She's now with 10Barrel, but her recipes live on at Bend.

 

It's becoming very prevalent in the Boston area, matter of fact the cover article for this weeks DigBoston (free weekly) was all about women brewers in the city

 

Does diversity really HAVE to exist, though? Not every culture/demographic is into the same things as everyone else. I mean, does it make any difference in the end who makes what?

 

Obviously fewer women brewers than men, but more women are entering the biz. Black Cloister, Toledo's newest brewery's head brewer is female. I haven't had a chance to get there, but I'm looking forward to a visit soon.

 

There are several brewsters round here. Sara Barton was recently the British Guild of Beer writers brewer of the year.Locally, her brewery, Dancing Duck and the Ashover brewery are run by lady brewers.There is an organisation called Project Venus which is a group of them.

http://www.womanthology.co.uk/sara-barton-founder-brewsters-brewery-women-brewing/

 

That's a good and important question. Diversity in and of itself has no value, it's just diversity. It becomes an urgent topic, however, when people want to freely participate in the world, but not all are officially or unofficially welcomed. Think of when, just LESS than one hundred years ago, men asked all these same questions about voting! How ludicrous that argument seems today, but people are still with us who lived during that primitive era. And that that question must be asked (and I feel it essential that it is) is telling of how much further we still have to go.

But just on this thread and in the broader world of brewing, we see plenty of examples of women and other underrepresented minorities who've gained a passion for brewing (and I will count myself among them), so the question is no longer "do they have to" but "how can those don't fit the unwritten profile feel encouraged and supported to go all in?" It's true that it won't matter a bit who ends up making that beer you drink, but, boy, you will notice a different when THAT MANY MORE passionate and creative brewers begin to share their contributions!

 

Ironic that until large scale commercial brewing almost all beer was brewed by women.They were called brewsters.

 

I agree with all that, but I still don't find any reason to flip for joy about a woman brewer JUST because she's a woman. A greater number of hands is a good thing, but I don't care who those hands belong to as long as they do the same things.

 

No it doesn't HAVE to exist and I find that trying to force it to exist isn't good. It shouldn't matter whether you're a minority or not, it should be about your skills. Look at it this way if you're going to have heart surgery do you want the best doctor possible or the person who got hired because they were a minority and the hospital wanted to promote diversity. Same with brewing do you really want a female brewer get a special loan instead of the guy who makes better beer. In the end I don't care who makes it just whether it's good or not.

 

No, not everyone has to be into everything. However, diversity always improves the end product/idea/result/conclusion. Having a variety of people with a variety of perspectives involved in the creative process is priceless. Beer, is both art and science and, in my opinion at least, both art and science are built upon on the creative process. As such, milking everything that is possible from the creative process is optimal (even if it gets messy when doing so). So while I don't advocate forcing people into things they aren't interested in, I do advocate more representation from groups that are largely underrepresented in brewing (women and people of color for examples). Craft beer as a hobby has the demographics of the National Hockey League (maybe not so extreme, ha ha). That's a bummer because hockey has the excuse of the impact of weather and climate on recreational activities. Beer has no such excuse. Beer has been and still is enjoyed the world over, by countless people and in a variety of cultures. There's no reason why the craft community can't reflect that more. So while diversity doesn't HAVE to exist in beer and brewing, I believe we would all benefit if it did.

I think we could all agree to the inherent meritocracy in your statement. However, and I'm not saying you're doing this, let's be careful no to dichotomize the discussion into "get more women involved vs. I don't care who brews it." We all want good beer, that's a given. But let's not advocate the production of good beer exclusively if it means ignoring some very real barriers to different groups getting involved in the profession/hobby.

 

I would actually prefer a minority candidate to do open heart surgery on me. I know that they've probably had to work harder than most to get to where they are and would feel more confident. Additionally, I would rather a mediocre female brewer get a loan to start a brewery than an exceptional male brewer. Exceptional beer already exists and I have access to tons of it, so getting the guy in the game isn't that important to me. Getting that female brewer in, however, increases overall diversity (which my previous posts in this thread discuss the benefits of) and also further breaks down the "boys club" mentality that can permeate the beer world (which is a barrier to entry of future generations of women).