Women Only: Craft Beer Segregation?

On November 29th of 2011, a women-only beer tasting event was held at the Supreme Bean in Eugene, Oregon. This event was promoted on the Brewpublic blog as a “Beer Tasting and Discussion,” and featured special guests Alison Grayson (Producer/Director of the femme-centric ‘The Love of Beer’ documentary), Erin Kemplin (Stone Brewing rep), and Em Sauter (founder of Pints and Panels). According to the event listing, minors were welcome. Why not men? I have always most enjoyed inclusive beer events where women, men, and all those in between are enjoying beer together. To be told there is a public beer event that I am not allowed to attend based on my gender identity or physical structure was maddening. For a community that impressed me most by its inclusionary, laid-back, and overall friendly nature, this seemed like the antithesis of Portland beer culture.



I made my way over to Brewpublic to post a critical comment underneath the promotional event listing and noticed that someone had already done it. Ashley Routson (aka ‘The Beer Wench’) had left the following opinionated response:



My opinion was reinforced, and I was glad to be sharing a viewpoint on this issue with a seemingly intelligent, open-minded woman. In an effort to expose the other side of this issue, I sought out Grayson, one of the event’s special guests, to educate myself in the benefits of such community division.

In Grayson’s opinion, “Beer can be an intimidating beverage.” She finds these women-only events to be situations which “provide women with a warm, perceptually safe environment for them to enter a beer bar, talk to a friendly beertender, and start learning about beer.” She believes that the women who attend these events enjoy the opportunity to “educate other women, share beer, and have their own night.” I understand the desire to want a night out with the girls, but Grayson’s use of the phrase “perceptually safe” was troubling. Does the presence of a man at a craft beer bar indicate danger? Routson believes that “[this] is more of a personal problem than a direct fault of the craft beer industry.” I brought this up to Ezra Johnson-Greenough of The New School blog, who responded with the following comment:

“Are you telling them that they have to drink around only other women to be comfortable? How is that helping matters? Teri Fahrendorf hinted at this in [an] interview that perhaps the best way to promote women to drink craft beer is not marketing specific beer to them or creating exclusive groups but making them feel comfortable and welcome… Go out and have a beer and sit at the bar like any other guy might.”

If comfort and safety are really the issues here, why aren’t these groups hand-picking acceptable men? I’d happily submit to a background check or interview in order to gain the acceptance and trust of the female members of the Portland beer cognoscenti. The philosophical answers that I encountered while interviewing this varied group made me think there was more exclusionary business going on than I had initially imagined. I never really thought twice about local ladies’-based beer club LOLA (Ladies of Lagers and Ales) being totally exclusionary until Johnson-Greenough dropped the following bomb on me:

“I heard about the group forming and I am friends with many of the women that were in the group and I thought it sounded like a great fun idea. My original impression or what I was told was that it was just a social beer group for women and nothing about exclusivity. I asked a couple of my friends (Amy Welch, Nicole Kasten, Alison Grayson) in the group about coming to a meeting and they all thought it was a great idea. Then after apparently bringing the issue up in a meeting or on the groups forums or something they came back to me saying that I was denied… Once I was told I could come to a meeting but I had to dress in drag.”



If Johnson-Greenough’s comments are indeed correct, LOLA’s brand of ‘exclusivity’ is bordering dangerously on sexism. I attempted to join LOLA’s forum on Facebook in early December to elicit some responses to this accusation, but have not been granted access. Perhaps my attempt to give them a fair say here was hindered by their lack of male acceptance. Or maybe they’re still mad at me for jokingly creating DONG (Dudes of Northwest Grog).

Back in early 2010, I was enjoying some fine ales with friends at a neighborhood bar when the LOLA crew arrived to hold a meeting. It was made clear to me that the area of the bar designated for their meeting was not to be violated, and I was not welcome to join in their beer sharing. At the time, I thought my rejection was only a product of my lack of prior commitment. Angelo De Ieso of Brewpublic has had a similar experience: “I've been asked to leave a few places where women were to gather for meetings. I respect these people's wishes, though I don't necessarily think that men need to be excluded or silenced in order to empower the position of women in our community of craft beer.” Frustrated, I briefly entertained the idea of creating a male-only tasting group. I went as far as designing a logo, but no actual meetings or enlistment ever occurred. The reaction I received upon sharing the initial concept of DONG was so overwhelmingly negative and a lesson was learned. De Ieso was one of the biggest critics of DONG at that time, enforcing what he referred to as “feelings and interests I felt obligated to protect for personal reasons.” Having almost been through the experience of becoming a total hypocrite, I imagined there must be other local men-only beer groups or events, so I checked.

I came up a bit short. This is all that I found after hours of scouring the Oregon beer scene:



And after checking in to it deeper, turns out women were also welcome (and actually encouraged). All of this negativity just seems to go towards bolstering a simple statement that Johnson-Greenough made to me, “Starting an exclusive group is sort of like building a wall around yourself.”


Article contributors: (l to r) Ezra Johnson-Greenough, Alison Grayson, Angelo De Ieso, Ashley Routson

You’ve got women like Grayson, and the decision-makers at LOLA, who appear to foster this exclusionary behavior in order to fully enjoy their personal craft beer experience, yet Grayson herself doesn’t encounter a biased world. “Occasionally, you still find the rare person who thinks that beer and brewing is a man’s place, but that’s definitely not the norm.” Still, “as a woman, going to a bar by yourself isn’t a particularly positive experience.” In my opinion, it all goes back to the “personal problems” referenced by Routson. Perhaps I choose to surround myself with the inclusionary people; those who have found their places as valuable community members, those who do not rely on the crutch of segregation. I would understand if the Portland-area craft beer scene was a big, woman-hatin’ boys club. And if I thought it was, I’d say so. I can assure you that it is not. In general, Routson agrees: “not one single man in this industry has ever talked down to me because of being a woman.” Making her mark as an bold, opinionated, often-audacious, and well-informed female may help. Perhaps the bias in the beer world is reserved for all newbs, and it’s those with a thin skin that need to be held up by their peers.

It’s difficult to neatly conclude my thoughts here. I’d prefer for you, as the reader, to form your own conclusions and encourage discussions surrounding this topic. I’ll leave you with a question that Johnson-Greenough posed to those involved in women-only groups and events:

“What is your objective as a group? Is it to promote craft beer to women? Or is your goal to be a [women-only] social group? [If] you want to have girls’ night I don’t think anyone would think twice about it. But your promoting exclusivity.. is promoting a separation between the sexes.”

Is this where we are heading?

Some images have been liberated from various facebook accounts, and some screenshots taken from brewpublic.com. Used freely under the Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing United States Entrepreneurship Act of 2007. All original content is copyright 2011 Portland Beer and Music.