Do you know how I know that it really is the golden age of beer here in British Columbia? I followed the women.
OK, I didn’t literally follow the women at last weekend’s Vancouver Craft Beer Week finale. That would have been weird and creepy. Also the security guards politely asked me to stop.
The truth is it was hard not to notice the women. They were all over the place. When the massive PNE grounds were just about full my friend and I scanned the crowd for a quick head count and both came to the conclusion that at least half of the attendees were women, possibly more. And our data is most certainly reliable: we’re both happily married men with young children — it’s our job to quietly notice lovely young ladies and then continue on with our business of being happily married men.
For years the big beer companies have quested after the discerning and elusive female demographic with such tricks as making their awful products even more awful by producing a “lite” version or, more recently, adding “lime” to make their awful products taste more like the dumpster behind Taco Bell.
This all comes after years and years of beer advertisements trading on the brilliant concept of putting scantily clad ladies next to a pool or beach or very cold train and then telling them to seem interested in the schlubs who are nearby chugging very cold dumpster juice.
My dad always got a kick out of those commercials. “If they keep drinking beer, those ladies won’t look like that for long,” he’d say. Zing!
Add it all up and it was one heck of a sales pitch for attracting female consumers: “Degradation! Lime-flavoured industrial waste! Trains! All served ice cold.”
Now we have the whole craft beer thing in B.C. and it seems like the riddle is finally being solved. The craft beer revolution that is happening now in B.C. actually started back in 1982 in Horseshoe Bay when John Mitchell opened the province’s first micro brewery. Jump ahead a few decades and the industry really started to take off when it was cleverly re-branded “craft beer” to piggyback on the raging popularity of other buy-local, artisanal movements. Sustainable quilts! Seven-grain candles! Hand-woven beeeer!
In my experience, however, the start of the boom was still mostly a male thing. I remember taking in Vancouver Craft Beer Week signature events three or four years ago when the industry was just heating up, and those affairs were still dominated by the bearded and bellied set on both sides of the bar. It was an interesting time to be into the scene. There was elbowroom inside the modestly sized festival halls to meet the brewers, chat about beers and drink lots of samples while making insightful comments.
“Mmmmm,” he scratches his beard. “Hoppy.”
Last weekend at the PNE there wasn’t much time or space for chatting, particularly at the booths featuring rock star breweries like Persephone and Four Winds that had 15-minute lineups almost all day to fill an adorably tiny little mug. The best brewmasters weren’t even there — they were in Toronto cleaning house at the Canadian Brewing Awards held in Niagara Falls, with Delta-based Four Winds leading the charge, winning Brewery of the Year honours.
That’s the other thing — the beer is great, and getting better. The Beer Week festival was hopping, and it was a blast. There were lots of things to draw people in — lawn games, haircuts, lumberjacks, pinball, blue skies, street meat — but at its heart it was still just a bunch of people standing around drinking good beer. And the women were loving it.
It’s not just festivals either. The craft breweries — a new one opens on the Lower Mainland approximately every 90 minutes — seem to have really nailed it with their delivery system of tasting rooms and growler fills. All of a sudden talking about, acquiring, and drinking beer is a cool, social thing to do. At my office there are several hip ladies who love to talk beer, and on any trip to a craft brewery tasting room you’ll no doubt see many women drinking in the vibe and the beer.
You may even see the odd piece of fruit or two, but that’s OK. For years we’ve sat back while the big breweries poured lime into our wounds. I trust these brewers to do something much sweeter.
• • •
It may be impossible to fully eliminate any of my subconscious North Shore bias but I can honestly say that the White IPA from North Vancouver’s Bridge Brewery was my favourite beer that I tasted at the Beer Week finale. It came highly recommended as well.
“How’s the White IPA?” we asked our server.
“It’s F—ing delicious!” she replied. She was right.
Andy Prest is the sports editor for the North Shore News and writes a biweekly humour/lifestyle column. He can be reached via email at [email protected].
What are your thoughts? Send us a letter via email by clicking here or post a comment below.
