For the past several years I’ve been slowwwwly making my way around New Zealand, Australia and the US to understand the gendered nature of craft beer. I recently spoke on gender representation in the industry on a panel at XX Fest 2020, an Auckland-based festival celebrating women and diversity in craft beer. I also taught a Beer Yoga class because…well, why not?
Image credit: Luke White, Beer Jerk
To be clear, “XX” refers to the way monastic brewers used to mark ale casks (and later, beer names) as a guarantee of quality. The Xs looked a bit more like crosses (ie, the crucifix!), indicating the monks’ oath that the beer would be fit to drink.
Image credit: Luke White, Beer Jerk
In addition to panel discussions, presentations, beer yoga, food and beer pairing workshops, the event also launched the first beer brewed by the women-run collab, ‘The Curator Project.’
XX Fest was co-organised by beer historian Molly Jones and craft beer specialists Beer Jerk, and held on location at Beer Jerk’s craft beer pop-up shop, Fridge & Flagon (Eden Terrace).
A percentage of the day’s proceeds (9.3%, which represents the gender wage gap in NZ in 2019!) went to the Women’s Fund, an Auckland-based organisation that works to create opportunities and support projects designed to help and empower women.
Read more about the event here, which includes some context for the research, including some of the questions and issues I’m pursuing.
Also: If you self-identify as a woman in craft beer, hit me up! I’d love to have your voice represented in the project!
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Kathleen M. Kuehn 