it’s a funny old world. as a woman (although that makes me sound much more grown up than i feel) who likes a more than an occasional pint of beer, you’d think that i’d be well behind current initiatives to get more women into the wonderful world of beer drinking. even more so because my better half is a craft brewer/brewery owner, so any increase in trade has to be good financially. but, hand on heart, i can’t say that i am. and it’s not just because i like to jealously guard all the beer for myself. although that may be part of it.
it’s definitely not that i think women shouldn’t drink beer, or that they shouldn’t drink pints. i guess what i object to is the exclusivity and overly patronising tone of many current initiatives [i’m trying to resist linking to some of them - i don’t want to single them out or make this personal, and i’m sure that most of them mean very well. except possibly for the ones trying to make a name/reputation/fortune for themselves
]. and i also flinch at the way that it’s all too easy to play on the role of woman-as-weaker-sex-and-therefore-needing-special-attention-and-approval-and-validation-of-other-women-rather-than-making-decisions-for-themselves. don’t get me wrong, i’m as easily distracted by chocolate and shiny things as the next girl and while i rarely cry at films, i’m not *especially* butch.
however, i started drinking pints of beer when i was 16. and over the intervening (*cough*) 18 years (*cough*) i’ve noticed attitudes change. comments along the lines of “big pint for a little girl like you?” or “you do realise that’s beer, don’t you love?” are less common now than they were back then. they haven’t disappeared completely, and i doubt they ever will (no more than the howls of cackling that will ever cease to meet a man who admits going to yoga classes. or similar). neither do i think they should disappear – but the point surely isn’t to shy away from them, or to retreat into women-only drinking sessions (or, erm, men-only yoga sessions), or to go back to the days when women would be given a lady’s glass for a beer. surely the point should be to debate, to challenge, to laugh along at what are generally non-hostile comments and ultimately to (*gasp*) educate people about drinking beer? even my poor old gran eventually got over the shame of having a pint-loving beer-swigging granddaughter (and as she was fond of telling me, she had *never* been drunk. except for that one time she fell in a gutter.).
so where are my problems with women-only tasting sessions, or glasses designed specifically for women? to begin with, setting up real ale tasting sessions that exclude men present me with a couple of problems. the first one is the exclusivity of it. there are plenty of people out there who have never tried real ale – or maybe they tried it once, found it unpalatable, and never went back. i was lucky enough to love it from the outset, but i know that’s fairly uncommon. we’ve worked several beer festivals and you can always spot a few stragglers behind a group, looking desperately for something they can recognise. with enough encouragement, many of them will sidle up to the bar and ask something along the lines of “have you got any lager?” or (my own personal favourite) “have you got anything that doesn’t taste like beer?”. sometimes they’re women, but from my experience they’re as likely to be men. and by just taking a few minutes out of the day to talk to them, find out what (if anything) they don’t think they like about beer, what kind of tastes they usually go for, and giving them a few little tasters, the vast majority of the time you can find something to suit them. and they walk away happy. a few minutes of your time, and a bit of understanding. i don’t doubt that there are women out there who think that they need a women only group. but how many of them will then feel confident away from the group-hug approachhow many of them will remember the beer rather than the self-congratulatory exclusive experience in a separate area? and how many of them would be pleasantly surprised to know that there are plenty of men out there who struggle with the same doubts and uncertainties, and need the same sort of advice after all?
the glasses thing is a slightly different issue. by starting to discuss the ‘problems’ with traditional pint glasses for women, by extension you start to suggest that there’s something abnormal about women who find pint glasses ok as they are, thank you very much. i’m happy to be abnormal but personally, i don’t want to be asked if i want a lady’s glass when i order a pint or – even worse – to be given one automatically. i don’t want to step back to the time when it was ok or accepted for women to drink one sort of drink, not others; or where it’s ok for them to wear certain sorts of trousers, not others. i know there are women out there who stray away from pints because they don’t find the glasses appealing – and you know what? that’s *their* choice, and i’d find it patronising if someone was trying to force a different drink or a different measure onto me. again, surely it’s more valuable long term to challenge the notion that traditional pints = not suitable for girls, but also to accept that: a) if you’re happier with a half, then go for it; and b) that if you want to try a pint, it really doesn’t matter if it feels a bit blokey to start with – you’ll get used to it, and so will whoever’s opinion you’re worried about. and if they don’t get used to it, they’re probably not that worth worrying about anyway.
equally, surely it’s more important that a glass suits the beer that’s served in it – that it enhances the experience of drinking, tasting, smelling the beer? a pint for me is something to be savoured (unless i’m late for a train) and the traditional pint glass does that very nicely. belgian beers on the other hand come with a range of fancy pants glasses depending on style/brand, ranging from the almost-phallic to the chalice to the cut crystal vase. and you don’t find blokes asking for something a bit more masculine, do you? i was in a bar the other night when someone asked for “a pint of that strawberry beer, in a suitably girly glass, for him”. true enough, a pint of foaming pink fruli was delivered in something akin to a carnation vase and, after a bit of light taunting, everyone settled back to what they were talking about before. a few of his mates even snuck a taste out of this outrageously girly drink. i’m not sure what the point of that anecdote is but you know what? i’m off for a pint. in a proper glass.
























