Every year for the past three years, female representatives of the Victoria brewing industry have gathered to make a special beer. And this year they’re brewing it for Good Beer Week. They come from breweries big and small, as well as the marketing side of beer, and they have just one goal in mind: to create an amazing beer and have a damn good time doing it. This collective is called the Women of Beer and they met last Saturday to brew their annual beer.
The collective currently consists of: Sam Füss of Old Salt Brewing, Karen Golding from Red Hill, Aine O'Hora from Carlton United, Jayne Lewis from Two Birds Brewing, Chloe Lovatt from Matilda Bay, Nardia McGrath (brewer at large), Kirrily Waldron (Beer Diva and NSW ring in!), and Tiffany Waldron from Beer Girl Bites. Yes, that’s right, Victoria has that many women in the brewing industry – and there’s probably a few more scattered about too. Earlier, the group had had a serious planning session over a few pints to discuss what they wanted to make this year and it was decided to brew a vanilla milk stout.
To aid in the creation of this brew, yet another lady joined in: Nicole Carr of Heilala Vanilla. Heilala care just as much about vanilla as the Women of Beer care about good ale and lager – perhaps even more. Cultivating sustainable, flavoursome vanilla is incredibly time-consuming and labour intensive. The flowers are only open for four to six hours and have to be hand-pollinated during this period. The flower then takes nine months before it matures into a fully grown bean and must be carefully dried to preserve its full flavour – and you thought making beer was hard work! The collective knew they needed the best vanilla they could get their hands on and Heilala are always keen to learn new ways to put vanilla to use.
So, on Saturday, the Women of Beer gathered at the Red Hill Brewery on the Mornington Peninsula. As gypsy brewers, the girls migrate from brewery to brewery each year. And this year their hosts really put on a show, with lovely beers on tap for refreshments, apple pies, and gorgeous weather! Also in attendance were more entrepreneurial women: Babes on Grill, a couple of lasses who whipped up some amazing South American-inspired barbecue treats.
The brewers weren’t the only guests; Red Hill had also opened up their cellar door for the day. There was a steady stream of people passing by the brewhouse on their way from car park to beer taps – and quite a few stopped to have a look at what was going on. I may be imagining this, but people didn’t seem nervous about coming up to have a look at the brew shed and ask what was going on. Perhaps this is because, as it was women who were crowding around the brewing equipment, they assumed they were all guests too and felt it was okay to come over.
While this could be perceived as a slight negative – people assuming women couldn’t be brewers – it had a positive result, as more people learnt about beer. Plus, they could easily see women were just as capable of being brewers, when they witnessed Chloe stirring the sticky mash, Jayne climbing out from the kettle having assembled the filter, or Kirrily scraping out the spent grain.
There were certainly no princesses here; everyone chipped in, whether it was loading the milled grain into the mash tun, dipping into the kettle to take gravity readings, or the final clean up – quite a test with a dark, sticky stout! Let’s just say that a milk stout with plenty of oats in it is not the tidiest of beers to make.
A successful mash was followed by rather slow sparge and run-off, with the oats having far too much say in how quickly the kettle was filling up. But with patience taught to them by Mother Nature and brewing, the collective eventually got all of the wort into the kettle, where it was hopped in a restrained matter. The vanilla was added at a later stage, with much sniffing of the delightful product of Heilala (I could smell the open jar of paste from about a metre away, even over the heavy smell of wort boiling). The resulting brew will hopefully be a smooth, silky treat, with touches of vanilla supported by a firm malt base.
All in all a very successful day, with a good brew, awesome hosts, and a great time had with some grand gals!
The Women of Beer’s brew will be launched at The Fox Hotel in Collingwood at 3pm on May 19. Throughout Good Beer Week the Fox will be featuring beers crafted by women as part of their ‘Girl Power’ showcase.
Thanks to Kate Jordan for her first article for The Crafty Pint. The Kiwi beer lover (and avid knitter) is now ensconced in Melbourne and can be followed on Twitter here. You can view the rest of her excellent photos of the brew day here.
