Fill Yer Boots

March 11, 2014, by Crafty Pint

Fill Yer Boots

It takes little more than a cursory glance around the room at an industry event – or perhaps a quick game of "count the beards" – to realise the beer world is rather dominated by males. But, ever so slowly, that balance is being redressed. Nowadays, you’ll find an increasing number of women working both in front of and behind the scenes to get some of your favourite local beers from brewery to bottle to bar and beyond. Whether that means doing the physical brewing, having ownership in a company, hitting the road as brewery representatives, hosting educational events, organising festivals, running beer bars and everything else in between, there’s a notable and welcome hint of the woman’s touch.

Helping lead the charge in ensuring this trend continues Down Under, Australia has an all-female brewing collective known, rather aptly, as the Women of Beer. It consists of a cast of characters from across the wider beer spectrum whose raison d'etre is to get together annually, brew a collaborative beer and use the occasion as an opportunity to raise the profile of women in the beer industry.

On Saturday just gone, the collective assembled for their fourth brew, one that saw a few changes to the usual order of business. The first was that the venture went interstate; where all previous Women of Beer brews had been done in Victoria, this new version was brewed at Young Henrys in Sydney (where WoB stalwart Sam Füss recently signed on as a head brewer). The second is that the brew was scheduled to be a part of the International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day (IWCBD). And there was a smattering of fresh faces too, with Allison MacDonald from Matilda Bay and Charlotte Grant and recent Good Beer Week / Temple Brewing Scholarship winner Carrie McLachlan, both of Little Creatures Brewing, along for the ride.

“The brew day was great,” says WoB founding member and Beer Diva Kirrily Waldhorn. “We had a few newbies to the Women of Beer Collective, which was fantastic. It’s always great to be extending the circle and meeting other inspirational women in our industry.

“We were super organised with a schedule mash-in at 10am, and by quarter past we had mashed in and were set to go. There were no issues along the way thanks to the incredibly efficient brewhouse at Young Henrys which Sam has well and truly become one with.

“It all went like clockwork really and by 2pm, we were into fermentation. Another great brew day with the gals.”

The IWCBD is a global initiative that involved assembling teams of women from the beer industry in various countries and doing much as our own Women of Beer have been doing: brewing a beer and helping make a bit of noise about the growing role of women in the industry. The idea was that each collective would follow the same recipe guideline to produce the same beer, albeit with slight changes allowing for a few local tweaks. That brief was to brew a 4 percent pale ale using Cascade hops.

With the Women of Beer not being afraid to dabble in different and somewhat bolder styles (previous releases include a spiced Belgian Tripel called Ninkasi’s Angel, Hildegarde’s Chardonnay barrel-aged Bière de Garde and 2013’s Heilala Vanilla Milk Stout), a lightish pale ale wasn’t necessarily the next logical choice – notwithstanding the fact that they’d already been plotting the new recipe prior to getting involved with the IWCBD. So, having contacted the organisers to get the OK, it was agreed that the Women of Beer wouldn’t brew a pale ale but they would still follow the general guidelines, such as using Cascade hops. It was, in effect, the same cause but a slightly different beer. Well, perhaps a little more than slightly because what they’ve brewed is a Salted Caramel Ale.

“We always want to brew something that’s a little outside of the box and given the timing of the brew day and the release of the beer being some time in Autumn, we thought a brown ale would be great for the cooling climate,” says Kirrily Waldhorn, the Beer Diva. “I had just made a dessert using salted caramel and thought, ‘Why not!’

“We chatted about how we could create the flavours starting at potentially brewing a gose [a salty, sour beer of German origin] but then decided a rich, malty brew with the addition of Murrays Pink Salt (a nod to females!) should work. The wort was tasting incredible on the day so we are all really excited for this beer.”

Some of the profits from the sale of the beer – as with the rest of the IWCBD brews – will go towards the Pink Boots Society which encourages females to follow and advance careers in the brewing industry and helps with things such as scholarships. As for when and where the beer will be released, that’s yet to be confirmed but stay tuned for details, including those of the Women of Beer showcase taking place as part of Good Beer Week 2014, for which the program goes live on March 12.


The lineup for the 2014 Women of Beer brew pictured above featured (left to right) Kirrily, Sam, Michelle Payne, Allison, Charlotte, Tiffany Waldron (Beer Girl Bites), Agi, Chloe Lovatt (Matilda Bay), Carrie, Csilla Swain (Spiegelau Glassware).

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