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A Girl and Her Beer: Pink Boots Society Scholarship Brewing at Drake’s
Photo / Bottom Row: Dee Alcala, Dying Vines; Nicole Erny, Cicerone Program; Alex Nowell, Drake’s Brewing Co.; Gail Ann Williams, BeerByBart.com. Top Row: April Anderson, Moylan’s Brewing; Jade Saldivar, Hop Tech; Tracy Bethune, Brass Balls Brewing Co.; Kelly Saturno, homebrewer.
Earlier this month we hosted a brewing day that was pretty unique, even for us. Our brewer Alex Nowell, generally the sole source of estrogen round the brewery invited the Northern California Chapter of the Pink Boots Society to brew the very first Pink Boots Scholarship Beer. What’s that, you ask? Let’s go back to the beginning…
Alex, long a member of the Pink Boots Society, a global non-profit organization dedicated to promoting women in the beer industry, came up with the idea earlier this year to brew a special batch of beer and use the proceeds to fund a scholarship that will give one woman the means to gain the education necessary to begin a beer career.
Alex approached John Martin with the idea and quickly got approval to host the brew at Drake’s. The next step—pick a beer style and find the ingredients. Alex chose to brew a Saison, a Drake’s first. Then, using her endless charm and persuasion abilities Alex got nearly all the ingredients for the beer donated.
Jon Graber, from Country Malt out of Vancouver, Wash. donated over 1200 lbs of malt including California Select 2-row and White Wheat and Lisa White of White Labs offered up the Belgian yeast strain necessary for making this brew. Overall these gifts amount to nearly $1800. Now, when the beer is ready, every penny of the proceeds from the sales will go directly to fund a Pink Boots Scholarship thanks to these gifts.
When all the ingredients were in house all that was left was to brew the beer. On Sunday, Sept. 4, eight women filled the brew-house: milling, mashing, boiling and laughing as they brewed up a beer that will hopefully help one woman pursue a career in craft beer. The brewers of the day included April Anderson from Moylan’s, Dee Alcala from Dying Vines, and several other Pink Boots members including Gail Ann Williams from BeerByBart.com. Who made this awesome video.
The batch brewed that day, what Alex describes as a classic Saison with a California edge, is yet to be named officially, but will be released on October 12 with a release event at Beer Revolution in downtown Oakland. Other events will follow in mid-October and the beer will be available throughout the Bay Area.