Many thanks to the women (and men) of Project Venus for the great evening at The Eden Bar in Grantham last night.
The Project was launching it's latest beer 'Venus Rouge' - a contemporary rendition of a traditional bitter with a scintillating balance of dynamic citrus hops and sumptuously nutty malts.
The ale was enjoyed by everyone there - including a film unit from the BBC, whose presence suggests a growing interest in this industry initiative, which is fantastic for the 'gals' - and consequently fantastic for beer in general.
For those not yet aware, the 'gals' I refer to are a formidable group of senior figures from various craft breweries who have come together to collaborate on the creation of new beers, with the intention of making women everywhere feel more 'invited to the beer party'.
This does not mean they are brewing 'beers for women' (Venus Rouge itself has many qualities which might be termed 'masculine') it's just a way of letting other women feel less like outsiders in drink-territory usually inhabited by the menfolk.
Beer is not for men.
Beer is for enjoying.
And that's something we all like to do.
It's all fairly obvious stuff really, but the fact is that the 'us and them' mentally will persist without efforts like this being made to tweak the way we all perceive things.
So far, the project has involved Sara Barton (Brewsters Brewery) Kathy Britton (Oldershaw Brewery) Michelle Haylock Kelsall (Offbeat Brewery) Sophie de Ronde (Brentwood Brewing Company) and Sue Hayward from (The Waen Brewery).
At the end of the day, if these women can brew beers as good as 'Venus Rouge' whilst also making more women feel comfortable about discovering and loving good craft beer - then I will support their cause as enthusiastically as possible.
In the often grey area of women and beer, the global players Molson Coors recently had a big idea - the already notorious Animée beer.
'Project Venus' is a far better idea.
Let's make it bigger.
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