International Women's Day? I'll Drink to That!

Today is International Women's Day, which gives me a good reason to write a few lines about the growing number of women who are choosing to drink craft beer.  Once upon a time, there weren't too many women drinking craft beer, but these days, they aren't just drinking it, they are brewing it too.

I recently viewed a documentary called The Love of Beer.  It's about women in the business of craft beer, from retailers to brewers.  It talks about the Pink Boots Society, an organization of female brewers.  It's well worth a look; you can buy a DVD via the link above.

I'm also glad to see that there are more and more ladies joining the ranks of those of us writing about beer.  I'm starting to see more and more beer books show up by women, such as The Naked Pint: An Unadulterated Guide to Craft Beer by Christina Perozzi and Hallie Beaune and Let Me Tell You About Beer: A Beginner's Guide to All Things Brewed by Melissa Cole (reviewed 2/15/2013).  Plus plenty of magazine columns and blogs.  There's nothing uniquely male about enjoying good craft beer, even if the advertising for most macrobrews seems aimed squarely at the frat boy crowd...

Moving on to beer news, Silver Gulch Brewing of Fox and the Anchorage Airport, has a new beer on tap: Snow Hook IPA.  Here's how they describe it: "This American IPA pairs a traditional malt base with Pacific Northwest hops, a dry finish with a piney/spicy/earthy aroma that accents a crisp body. 7.0% ABV & 70 IBUs."

As of last Friday, HooDoo Brewing in Fairbanks had four beers on tap: their Mild, their Kolsch, their Barley Wine, and their IPA, at 4.0%, 5.3%, 9.1%, and 7.2% ABV respectively.

Haines Brewing has released Black Oak, a version of their Black Fang Imperial Stout that was aged on black oak chips to give it chocolate and vanilla notes.

Canned versions of Denali Brewing's flagship beers continue to make their way into the local markets.  I picked up a six-pack of their Single Engine Red a few weeks ago at the Soldotna Fred Meyers, and understand that cans of their Twister Creek IPA are now on offer there as well.

Further updates on The Culmination Beer Festival on Saturday, 20 April.  It hasn't been decided yet whether or not there will be individual drink tickets.  Here's the exact response to my query:  "I'm going to try not to, but we might have to. We'll see."  However, we do know what the tasting glass will look like:

The festival also now has a very cool logo:

I'm no cooper, but I believe the hammer shown is used to set the staves or something like that when repairing a barrel

Anchorage Brewing Company also now has their own glass:

I understand it has a laser etching in the bottom to serve as a nucleation point.  They are also getting close to releasing their long-awaited Anadromous Black Sour Ale, brewed with brettanomyces, lactobacillus, and pediococcus.  Here's the label:

Can't wait to give that one a try!

Down at Kodiak Island Brewing, Ben Millstein reports that the "long awaited" Night Watch Porter is back on tap.

Here on the Peninsula, Kenai River Brewing released the next beer in their Single Hop IPA series at noon today: Falconer's Flight 7-C's IPA.  Of course it's technically not a "single hop", since Falconer's Flight is a proprietary blend of several hop varieties from Hopunion, one of the major hop suppliers.  But it's still a great way to showcase the properties of the blend, so if you're a hophead like me, be sure to stop by and grab some.

I don't have any reviews to share this week.  It's not that I didn't drink any beer over the last seven days.  It's just that I either drank my homebrew (excellent, by the way, but I'm not about to subject you to a review of it!) or brews that I've already reviewed, like Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barley Wine and Torpedo Extra IPA, and Traquair House Scotch Ale.  But don't worry, I've got some nice, interesting stuff on deck for this weekend, so I'll eb back with some new reviews next week.

Until Next Time, Cheers!