There were lots of fantastic events put on to celebrate International Women’s Day and I wish I could’ve attended more.

However, I spent a very enjoyable evening at Stewart Brewing, who hosted a Women in Beer night where five women involved in the beer industry, all with very varied jobs, spoke about how they ended up working in the industry, what their current job entailed and how they perceived women in industry from personal experience.

Brewing was traditionally a female’s role, hence the term ‘Brewster’.

While the men were out working in the fields all day, women would brew beer for the thirsty workers, and themselves, to hydrate since drinking water at that time was filled with disease and undrinkable.

The brewing process purifies the water in a number of ways. Firstly, water is boiled with malted barley which kills off any bugs that might’ve been present in the water. The formation of alcohol during the fermenting process and the addition of hops which have an ant-septic property, help to kill off any further bugs that may develop.

For the past few decades, beer has been more associated with males than females but in recent times this is changing, and now the beer industry isn’t seen as such a male dominated one.

The event was organised by Amy Brewer (I’m sure she’s heard a million times how apt her name is), Retail and Marketing Executive at Stewart Brewing who kicked off the evening with a brief introduction as we sipped our beers fresh from the taproom.

I had a Cauld Reekie which was delicious. Sweet vanilla and liquorice made for a nice change from my usual favourite roasted coffee flavours.

Margaux Huissman, a phD student at Heriot Watt then took to the stage to talk about her science background and love of beer. She was so passionate about both subjects you couldn’t really imagine her in any other industry. After working at various breweries doing various jobs, including starting off at the bottling line at Stewart’s, she was now working on her phD in….dry hopping! Which is in collaboration with Heriot Watt and Brewdog.

Next up was Jess Burman who’s a lab technician at Belhaven. It was interesting to hear a very different perspective to Margaux, who had always loved beer. Jess wasn’t really a big beer fan growing up, but after getting the job at Belhaven, her passion for it has grown. She spoke about the strict quality control imposed at Belhaven and how the most important thing to them was that each pint was consistent. She said that the gender ratio at Belhaven is very male heavy, but she doesn’t really see that as a problem, and being a woman definitely isn’t a hindrance as her role models hold senior positions at the brewery. She also spoke about something close to my heart and that’s to never feel intimidated when talking about beer.

Everyone’s taste buds are different and so you shouldn’t feel embarrassed if you can taste peaches while everyone else is getting honey and grapefruits! Sometimes, suggesting something different also puts a different perspective on things for everyone else and allows them to taste flavours they otherwise wouldn’t have.

We then stopped for a break and tour of the brewery which was great. If you get a chance to head out to Loanhead I definitely recommend visiting the brewery. You can book tours in advance and they take place on a Thursday and Friday evening. They also have a lovely taproom and outside seating area which I can imagine being idyllic in summer.

The group re-convened and I spoke to the crowd about my background and views of the beer industry from the blogging side of things as well as working with Lerwick Brewery.

After me, Annie Hill, associate professor of microbiology at Heriot Watt’s International Centre for Brewing and Distilling spoke about how much more women were present on the much coveted course compared to a few years ago which is really encouraging! She stressed that she was a firm believer in everyone having to earn the place on the course, and they weren’t just admitting more females to make up the gender split, which was also really motivating. Last up, Jo Stewart, co-founder of Stewart

Brewing spoke to us about how Stewart Brewing came to be, and the difficulties of the industry now that there’s been such a rise in the number of breweries. We then finished the evening with some more drinks, including the Raspy Engine. I’d had this at Craft Beer Rising in September when it was a much higher ABV and loved it, so was worried the decrease to 5.3% would hamper the taste, but hat’s off to Harviestoun; there was still the hint of raspberry breaking through the dark, roasty malts like a rich dark chocolate and raspberry gateaux.

For me, there were two summarising themes of the evening.

One was that there are more women entering the beer industry off the back of their own interest, rather than being encouraged to do so to fill gender quotas.

Secondly, that being a woman in beer was neither a help nor a hindrance, and we are just seen as equal to men. Both of which are fantastic in my eyes so let’s all raise a toast of our favourite beer to that!

I’d like to thank Amy Brewer for putting on such a great night and inviting me along as a guest speaker.

Stewart Brewing are hosting the Edinburgh Beer Festival on April 16th at their premises in Loanhead. It’s set to be a great event so purchase your tickets now from their website https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/edinburgh-beer-festival-tickets-20895267307