I’m a beer writer – and I’m sick of sexism in alcohol marketing

I hate to tell you, but beer is for everyone. There’s no such thing as a ‘girly’ drink, so it’s high time that we stop trying to assign drinks to genders

Thankfully, women are starting to come to the forefront of brewing (Getty)

For the first time ever, on my 29th birthday this year, I received a beer-themed birthday card. I actually laughed in shock when I opened it. As a beer drinker, I was elated (and rather curious) as I read the card’s slogan: “Beer is not the question, beer is the answer.”

The card was brown, red and blue, with a bold and brash typeface, brutishly encircling a pint. Truthfully, it was pretty blokey. I loved it.

I’d only ever seen these types of cards in the off-limits “for him” section of Card Factory, alongside cards brandishing racing cars, boating, golf balls, footballs and dartboards.

As I set it down with my other birthday cards, my amusement turned to something similar to disappointment as I realised that to my one, rare beer card, I had four feminine, pink and glittery, cocktail-themed others. They were beautiful cards, don’t get me wrong, but very, very girly.

I’d been receiving them since I was 18; cards gilded with glitter and sequins, slogans decorating the card with various types of “o’clocks”. Cards decorated with popping bottles of “fizz”, or gin cocktails in various hues of pink – the drinks seemingly assigned to my gender.

It was as if to drink as a woman, you had to be feminine and fancy, with glamorous, rosemary-adorned cocktails; squealing and dancing with well-dressed friends to the noise of champagne corks popping. Beer was loutish and masculine, enjoyed in heavy brown bottles or sturdy pint glasses made for big hands. Beer was to be enjoyed with sports, or down at the pub with the lads, away from the giddy, chittering wives.

Usually the only association women have with beer in this situation is that they’re often the ones behind the bar pouring it.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a cocktail (as does my husband), but I’m really sick of being handed the cocktail menu and told it’s happy hour until 7pm while my husband gets directed to the chalked-up taplist. I’m sick of the constant table switcharounds as a male companion gets my chosen pint plonked in front of them, while I receive their delicate stemmed cocktail, or glass of wine.

I’m sick of the bewildered looks I get from (often male) bar staff; smirking if I order anything that isn’t pink and fruity – something “girly”, in other words. Or if I order the pink and fruity saison or sour, I’m sick of being asked with raised eyebrows: “Are you sure, love?” as if I have no idea what it is.

Well, quite frankly, I do. As a beer writer and Instagrammer, beer judge and member of the British Guild of Beer Writers, I find the blatant sexism around beer incredibly patronising. And pretty boring.

I hate to tell you, but beer is for everyone. There’s no such thing as a “girly” drink, so it’s high time that we stop trying to assign drinks to genders.

Sadly, the very idea is entrenched into our society. Gin, cocktails or wine are often packaged in pink; decorated with slender, long-necked birds, fruits or kitsch memorabilia. Beer is cobalt blue, red and grey, decorated with bears, wolves or dogs.

Beer is associated with beer bellies and toxic masculinity, so to drink it as a woman would be shameful or embarrassing, right? It’s that, or we’re sexualised for being beer drinkers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been leered at for wearing lipstick and brandishing a pint at beer festivals – as if I’m there on show. Female friends in the beer world have even told me that if they leave beer events without being sexually harassed, then it’s a gem.

And it goes both ways, too. I’ve heard homophobic slurs banded around loudly in bars if a man orders a cocktail. It’s shameful.

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Thankfully, women are starting to come to the forefront of brewing. Last year, beer sommelier and head brewer Jaega Wise of Wild Card Brewery, London, was broadcast to the nation alongside James Blunt to host the televised homebrewing competition Beer Masters. In 2018, Wise was the guild’s brewer of the year and in 2020 picked up best beer broadcaster for her work on BBC’s The Food Programme. Things are slowly but surely getting better.

I’m hopeful. Beers are no longer made by men, for men. They’re made by all, for all. Initiatives have been born to tackle discrimination and harassment in the industry after news of gender-based bullying and sexism from craft beer’s former heavyweights recently made global headlines.

Women have had enough. I’ve had enough. It’s why, as a beer writer, I fiercely fight for women’s rights and to raise the profile of women in beer. I even found my face alongside some notable women in the industry on a bright blue can after teaming up with Sussex-based brewery Merakai, and US-based brewing initiative Brave Noise to help campaign for a harassment-free brewing world.

I long for the day where no one questions me on, or is amazed by, my understanding of beer terms ABV, DDH and Dipa and leaves me to sip a pint in peace. I want to be surrounded by women leaving lipstick stains on pints of imperial stouts while their husbands indulge in two-for-one pornstar martinis.

Hopefully my 30th birthday next year will see me surrounded by beer-themed cards, from the card shop’s “for all” section. Surely that’s not too much to ask for?