I heart beer

I was raised on beer. Literally. My dad began making beer before I was born and has continued, off and on, through the years; he now has a brewery in the basement. I’m a child raised with hops in my back yard, who crushed malt in the kitchen and sampled beers before it was technically legal. I love beer.

So being both a beer lover and a girl I was intrigued to hear that several breweries have plans to release new beers targeted towards women. I probably should have been wary – my favorite beers tend to have lots of hops, yielding an often strong and slightly bitter flavor that turn off many women and some men. Sure enough the girl beer news was not, let’s say, impressive.

The two major releases of “beer for woman” are both “lighter-tasting” and “less gassy”. The Molson option, “Animee” comes in three flavors: clear filtered, crisp rose and zesty lemon. The second option is both better and worse: designed and brewed by a woman, “Chick” beer is “light” and also low-carb. While I admire more than words a woman making the effort to brew her own beer, why does it have to be light beer? And did she really have to use Curlz MT for the logo font?!

The thing is, I know lots of cool women who like lots of cool beers and none of them have pink labels or rose flavoring. Furthermore, I don’t think the pink labels or rose flavoring are things that are going to intrigue my female friends – beer drinkers or not. Before they got to the point of pandering to the lowest common denomenator of what they thought a woman would want in a beer, maybe they should have tried marketing beer to women.

Think about it: when was the last time you saw a beer ad targeted to women? Other than the occasional Corona Light ad (and having a women in a bikini drinking a beer on the beach is hardly appealing to the feminine masses, by the way) can you name a beer who’s made the effort to intrigue the female population? Even Miller, the lite beer “MGD 64” ads target men making toasts and men at parties. Perhaps before we started redesigning beer to fit women the marketing guys could take a stab at things? Try a little education on what tastes good with your brand of beer. Take a humorous looks at how women might deal with their hangovers. Redefine the “bros over beers” with the female camaraderie from a shared six-pack.

I’m heading out tomorrow night for an evening of drinking beers with women. I was recently pointed to a new local group, NC Girls Pint Out (@ncgirlspintout) that focuses on women in the Triangle who love beer. The Triangle chapter is part of a larger Girls Pint Out group spread all over the country. I’m really looking forward to chatting with chicks who appreciate and enjoy the finer aspects of beer – all kinds of beer – without losing sleep over their calorie intake. You go, girls.