International Women's Day: Celebrating Women's Contributions to Beer

Craft brewers are saluting women’s suffrage and women’s rights by announcing new beers on International Women’s Day.

Women in the beer business are by no means anomalies. If you saw our article on 8 Women Making a Mark in Craft Beer Right Now, you’ll know a recent survey found 21 percent of breweries had women in a leading role in 2014 — and that’s a bit larger than the national average for all industries.

Here are a few cool things we’ve seen so far.

New Beer to Support Planned Parenthood & Pink Boots

New York’s Shmaltz Brewing is using International Women’s Day to announce its upcoming SHE’BREW Beer, a Double IPA.

The brewery says the sisters of Shmaltz will be coming into town over the next few weeks to brew the beer with head brewer Richie Saunders, brewing supervisor Chris “Duffy” Dufrain and brewer Annalise Ellis. It’ll be available in 4-packs and draft starting in April.

The brewery will donate some of the proceeds from beer sales to Planned Parenthood and the Pink Boots Society scholarship fund.

It’ll be a few weeks until you can try SHE’BREW, but the label art has been released, and it nails the theme. The photo shoot brought together tons of professional women, including reps from the local Planned Parenthood organization and area women who work to support craft beer in upstate New York.

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SMASH the Glass Ceiling Beer

Monday Night Brewing in Atlanta is using International Women’s Day to announce a new beer called “SMASH the Glass Ceiling.”

SMASH is the trendy acronym for the (also) trendy single malt and single hop beers. This one from Monday Night is brewed with rose hips and violence, “two symbols of the women’s suffrage movement,” the brewery explains on its Facebook and Instagram pages.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRWOmE3FMF3/

If you’re close enough to get to Atlanta, the brewery is putting it on tap during tours on the evening of Thursday, March 9. They’ll donate 20 percent of all tour sales to BeLoved Atlanta, a charity that helps women who have survived sexual exploitation.

Big Boots Brew Day

International Women’s Day means thousands of women will join their local chapters of the Pink Boots Society to be part of Big Boots Brew Day.

Big Boots Brew Day was established to “raise the profile of beer to women,” according to the Pink Boots Society. Surf through the #BBB2017 or #bigbootsbrew2017 hashtags on Instagram and Twitter, and you’ll see the big turnout as women across the U.S. participate.

If you know of other celebrations or releases, let us know in the article comments section.

Cheers!

Jess Baker

Jess Baker walked into a beer fest in 2010 and realized beer had come a long way from what her dad had been drinking since the 70s. She served as editor-in-chief of CraftBeer.com from spring 2016 to spring 2020, bringing you stories about the people who are the heartbeat behind U.S. craft brewing. She's a runner, a die-hard Springsteen fan, a mom who is always scouting family-friendly breweries, and always in search of a darn good porter.

CraftBeer.com is fully dedicated to small and independent U.S. breweries. We are published by the Brewers Association, the not-for-profit trade group dedicated to promoting and protecting America’s small and independent craft brewers. Stories and opinions shared on CraftBeer.com do not imply endorsement by or positions taken by the Brewers Association or its members.