Photograph by Brinson + Banks; Hair and makeup: Harmony Kubiak ; Location: Elsewhere Brewing Greenhouse Taproom
The first brewers of beer, in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, were women. The Sumerians even had a goddess of beer, Ninkasi. And in England, women called alewives handled the commercial making and selling of brews well into the 1500s. Nevertheless, the American craft beer revolution has been a decidedly White male–driven movement. But in Atlanta, several prominent women are taking back their sacred rite and making the craft beer scene a space for everyone—and, in so doing, elevating the Southeast as a cradle of beer culture.
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Caroline King launched Bitch Beer, her podcast turned upcoming TV show, because she was tired of walking into bottle shops and feeling intimidated.
The New Orleans–born filmmaker and comedian had moved to Atlanta in 2016 to focus on her film career, and had explored craft beer through the city’s rapidly growing brewery scene. She loved the taproom atmosphere, the variety of styles, and learning about beer, how it was made, and who made it. What she didn’t care for were the self-appointed gatekeepers she encountered along the way. “I really liked the beer, but I didn’t know much about what I was drinking,” says King. “I’d listen to all these craft beer podcasts and read all these beer blogs, and they were all done by bearded White dudes that were snobby, talked shit about beer, and made you feel stupid.”
King brewed up Bitch Beer in 2017, naming it for the so-called “bitch beer” malted beverages such as Zima that men used to foist on her at parties, when all she wanted was an actual beer. On the pod, King uses her comedic chops to break through the beer-bro barrier and interview the growing number of women in the industry, making craft beer more approachable for everyone. In 2022, she received a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion grant from the Brewers Association, craft beer’s American trade group, to bring Bitch Beer to the small screen as a travel docuseries. She plans to roam the country and spotlight women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people adding their own unique flavors to the great craft beer vat. She premiered the pilot at last spring’s Craft Brewers Conference in Las Vegas, but says she can’t announce the network that’s picking it up just yet. “I’ll sort of be the Rachael Ray of beer,” King quips. “I want people to feel confident when they walk into a brewery, package store, or the beer aisle at the grocery store.”
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Today, consultant LaTreace Harris, aka The Beery Godmother, appears in taprooms and restaurants to sprinkle her passion and knowledge on beer-serving staff. But when her own craft beer fairy tale started 20 years ago, Harris had to teach herself.
Harris was an avid football fan, watching games with her male family and friends. She was a wine and cocktail drinker, but all she saw in the man-cave fridge was beer. “The men told me, ‘We’re not buying specific wine for you; go get a beer and figure it out,’” says Harris. “I was drinking Blue Moon and Stella [Artois], which were very different from other beers and from each other.”
The novelty piqued Harris’s curiosity. She found that the more she learned about why these beers were different, the more she enjoyed drinking them, and the more new beers she wanted to seek out. She became a regular at Sweetwater, the now-shuttered Red Brick, and other craft breweries popping up on the nascent Atlanta scene. She’d “nerd out” with her fellow beer drinkers and brewers, and she soon realized that she enjoyed talking about the subject. Harris also noticed that many of the “beertenders” and servers at these places didn’t seem to know much about the pints they were pouring. In 2023, Harris obtained her certification as a Cicerone (essentially a beer sommelier), gathered her 15 years of experience as a private math and science tutor, and started The Beery Godmother, a consultancy for beer-centric businesses. That same year, she was named one of Wine Enthusiast magazine’s “Future 40 Tastemakers.”
Harris says that education guides curious drinkers toward the flavors they’ll like; wakes them up to the full sensory experience of beer (the smell, the foam, the feel); and, most importantly, relays the joy of craft beer to everyone at the bar. “Everyone doesn’t have to think about beer on the Master Cicerone level,” says Harris. “Just make sure your staff is passionate. When they talk to your customers, that passion and care should come out.
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Jen Blair is one of only 28 Master Cicerones, the highest level of beer tasting and knowledge certification, in the world—and one of just five women. But Blair says that rare global distinction is nothing compared with the isolation of being the lone female judge at a craft beer competition. “Beer judging can be closed off; there’s a large gatekeeping element,” she says. “I’ve judged with men with whom you could tell it was a problem. And I know women who’ve had a bad experience their first time, and they would stop coming.”
Blair is used to going it alone. A couple years after graduating from law school, she started home-brewing in 2012 when it was very much a man’s hobby. A few years later, she passed the exams to become a certified Cicerone and certified beer judge, before leaving her legal career to hold various administration and education positions in the beer industry in Charlotte and Atlanta. In 2021, as she prepared to take her Master Cicerone exam, she launched her online beer courses geared toward women and nonbinary people studying for their own certification exams. She expected maybe 40 people to sign up; she got more than 700. Her beer education program has extended to her own Under the Jenfluence YouTube channel; she is also a cohost of the False Bottomed Girls beer podcast.
“It showed me that there’s this huge audience that want to be involved in this,” she says. “There are people beyond what I call the ‘Sainted Old White Men,’ who always talk about IPAs and who everyone turned to for the same well of knowledge. Nobody is born knowing these things. This info comes from somewhere, and if I can find it, anyone can. It was almost like I was giving them permission to learn about these things.”
The importance of diversity in beer judging goes far beyond its intrinsic value. Judges from different backgrounds broaden the knowledge base, the flavor profiles, and even the descriptors for what they taste, which can in turn expand the conversation about beer. “You don’t have to force everything through a narrow categorization,” says Blair. “If you’re from West Africa, you can use those descriptors from your culture, call out a papaya flavor when others are mistaking it for mango. The more diversified the palates are, the better-rounded feedback brewers will get. And the better the overall conversation around beer will be.”
This article appears in our October 2024 issue.
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