Erica DeAnda (far right, foreground) is joined by woman brewers from Capital, The Lone Girl, Octopi, Thirsty Pagan, Wisconsin Brewing Company, Ale Asylum, Karben4, Vintage, Giant Jones and Company Brewing.
Though women are making strides in the beer industry, it remains mostly a boys club. Fewer than one in three brewery workers in the U.S. are women, according to a study by Auburn University, and by most accounts that holds true in the greater Madison area.
“Beer is very geared toward men,” observes Erica DeAnda, a brewer at Octopi Brewing in Waunakee.
DeAnda is president of the Wisconsin chapter of Pink Boots Society, a national nonprofit on a mission to inspire, educate and empower women involved with all facets of brewing, whether they’re farming hops, working in yeast labs, or writing about beer.
“We try to advance women in their careers and inspire them to get into the beer industry in the first place,” she says.
To that end, the organization offers scholarships for science-based, college-level education for women who make at least 25 percent of their income from working in the beer industry.
DeAnda herself won a scholarship that allowed her to take Chicago’s Siebel Institute of Technology’s online courses in brewing. Pink Boots Society also helps female bartenders become certified cicerones.
Each year in March, members of Pink Boots Society get together and brew beer with a special hop blend in honor of International Women’s Day. This year, the Wisconsin chapter is brewing a limited run of blonde ale called Pink Prism for the occasion.
“Octopi is known for doing all these big IPAs and hazies and stouts, so we’re brewing a really clean blonde,” she says. “It’ll be about 5.5 percent alcohol [by volume], super refreshing. I’m worried that people will be like, ‘Oh, it’s geared toward women, so they brewed a blonde.’ No, we really wanted to showcase these hops. It’ll be a dry-hopped blonde, so it will still have a bite to it.”
The limited-run blonde ale will be available “pretty much everywhere Octopi is sold” as supplies last, DeAnda says, and one dollar from each pint sold will benefit scholarships for women in brewing both locally and nationally. Octopi is hosting a release party at the brewery, 1131 Uniek Drive in Waunakee, on March 9 from 1-5 p.m. A bake sale and a raffle with prizes donated from Wisconsin breweries will also go toward the Pink Boots Society.
Currently, the Wisconsin chapter has only 44 members statewide, including seven women who work at Octopi Brewing, and DeAnda is looking to get more beer-loving professionals involved.
“We’re trying get more people in Wisconsin aware of what we are and what we do, what our mission is,” she says. That includes further encouraging young women like Daisy Sanchez and Natalea Wright, who are both packaging operators at Octopi, to seriously consider careers in brewing.
“Eventually, I think I’d like to own my own business, possibly a brewery,” Sanchez says. “That’s the end goal.”
Wright, who started at Octopi about a month ago, is still learning the ropes. She says it’s too early to say whether she’ll pursue a career in beer. “Who knows? I like to hover around and learn everything,” she says.
Both Sanchez and Wright feel as if they’re on equal footing with their male coworkers. Sanchez is subjected to ribbing, however: “I’ve definitely had a few truck drivers clap after I load a truck.”
