Friday, May 20, 2011

Women and Homebrewing

I was recently interviewed for an article on homebrewing for the Domion Post . One of the questions put to me was whether I thought homebrewing was an inherently male preoccupation or if I thought the rising numbers of Female beer drinkers, and female professional brewers would result in the more female homebrewers. The question got me thinking, I had already been mulling over some similar concepts after reading Claire Monk’s blog about the sexism she faces in the UK being a female brewer (I hope things are different here in our more enlightened corner of the south pacific for our female pro brewers) . I said I thought the numbers of female homebrewers would increase even though I currently know of less female homebrewers than I have fingers. The reporter said how another local beer personality had described homebrewing as baking for blokes implying that it’s a male past time. There certainly is an element of blokes pottering in sheds about homebrewing. I would love to hear opinions from any female homebrewers out there.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm one of these elusive female homebrewers :) My other half loves to supervise (and dispense advice) but he's not a follow-a-recipe man hence why it's my domain. I'd probably still want to do it anyway because I enjoy it and I enjoy the finished product :)

I know of a couple of others in similar situations but otherwise I do get the feeling of being a minority... but I often feel that way simply because I'm a homebrewer.

Greig McGill said...

Alexandra brewed a pretty decent APA without any help from me a while back. Well, I answered questions, but didn't offer any advice. She overdid the crystal malt, but that was just lack of experience. She hasn't brewed since, but claims that's just because we don't need two brewers in the house. I'm hoping she moves to cheesemaking! ;)

I don't know any female homebrewers in Hamilton, but there are several active in Auckland. I've never seen the hobby as "blokey", any more than I see beer as a male drink, but then I accept that this seems to go against the norm, based on the tide of male oriented beer marketing.

Actually, last time I visited our rather limited LHBS, there were more girls in there than guys, so maybe I just haven't come across these brewing ladies in the `tron yet!

Kieran Haslett-Moore said...

Good to hear, I suspect it will be the last bastion to achieve beer equality but it will happen.