Craft beer brewers love to gather and collaborate on new beers, discuss equipment and ingredients, develop new recipes and, of course, to drink a few. And although these collaborations can often result in new forms of deliciousness, they are also a way for the guys to get together and hug it out.
Or, in this case, the girls.
“Women brewers dominated the industry for 4,000 years,” says Kristen Marlo, bartender at Peaks and Pints in Tacoma’s Proctor District. “There was an Egyptian goddess of brewing!”
Marlo joined other South Sound craft beer industry women to brew a beer together on Big Boots Brew Day, a Pink Boots Society sponsored event held March 8 to coincide with International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day on International Women’s Day. Peaks and Pints will pour the South Sound collaboration at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 30 surrounded by the women who brewed it.
Joining Marlo over the mash tuns at Dystopian State Brewing Co. were Dystopian co-owner Lana Adzhigirey, sales rep Laura Redding and bartenders Amber Lacheney and Margaret Jones-Pryor, Pacific Brewing & Malting Co. head brewer Bethany Carlsen, Fish Tales Ales brewers Stacey O’Connor and Jada Peterz, Pour Betty’s Brewing head brewer Cathy Cox-Shaffer and NW Peaks brewer Ariel Klein. The resulting beer was actually a fraoch, an ancient Scottish heather ale that predates the use of hop flowers as a bittering agent in beer. The women brewers tossed in sweet gale, heather tips, Scottish malts, pomegranate honey and pitched Nordic yeast for a funky, sweet and slightly hoppy brew they call The Shield Maiden Nordic Fraoch.
Started by east coast brewmaster Teri Fahrendorf, The Pink Boots Society aims to educate women about craft beer, and create a place for them to connect as women, rather than “one of the boys” in a now male-dominated industry. The Pink Boots Society was named after Fahrendorf’s iconic brewing footwear, a set of pink boots.
HEAR ME FRAOCH, 6 p.m. Thursday, March 30, Peaks and Pints, 3816 N. 26th St., Tacoma, no cover
