Lotte Peplow (pictured), the Brewers Association’s American craft beer ambassador for Europe, digs into the latest research into women’s attitudes towards beer on both sides of the Atlantic.
A new UK report looking at women’s attitudes and behaviours towards beer — The Gender Pint Gap: Revisited — has recently been published by Dea Latis, a collective of women working in the beer industry. It follows on from an original report published in 2018.
Britain has one of the lowest percentages of female beer drinkers in the world, so it’s good to see research being undertaken in this subject. But the latest findings make for grim reading because only 14% of women drink beer at least once a week (compared to 50% of men), down from 17% since the 2018 survey, and 70% of women perceive beer to be highly calorific and link its consumption with negative health benefits.
Other key challenges include the way beer is advertised to women — it is perceived as a barrier with women being under-represented in marketing campaigns. Beer is thought to be complicated for the occasional drinker, with glassware and presentation still problematic, and for women lager is still the default choice.
While other beverage sectors have focused on premiumisation since the pandemic, beer has remained static and women are under-represented in managerial and brewing roles, with only 3% of women being brewers.
Personally, these latest findings make me very disheartened. As a beer-loving woman I find it almost implausible that other women are not enjoying the amazing flavour spectrum of beer as much as me.
Photographs: Brewers Association
I believe more gender-neutral advertising, combined with more sampling, trial, and better education, both among bar staff and the public, is necessary for women to understand and appreciate beer. Today’s new juicy/hazy IPAs, for example, entice new drinkers into the sector with their fruit-forward flavours, soft mouthfeel, and restrained bitterness, that are less of a challenge for palates unaccustomed to drinking beer than other styles.
There are many American craft beers available in the UK with just such flavour characteristics, and I have converted many a non-beer drinking female friend with a few sips of a tropical, hop-forward, lush, juicy American IPA.
“What makes American craft beer different?” I hear you ask. In America, brewers have easy access to some of the best hop-growing regions in the world, in Yakima, Washington, and Idaho, and are able to hand-select the hops they require, giving them first dibs on the newest, freshest, and most innovative flavour varieties available. Brewers can touch, feel, and smell the hops due to their proximity to the hop fields, giving them a distinct advantage over the rest of the world. This use of high-quality raw materials, combined with technical expertise and never-ending innovation, produces incredible-tasting beers that women should potentially enjoy as much as men.
And while on the subject of America, you may be interested to know that our friends across the pond do not have the same gender disparity as the UK. Consumer research from a Harris Poll commissioned by the Brewers Association, the trade association representing small and independent American craft brewers, in 2022, revealed that females are increasingly interested in craft beer, rising from 29% in 2015 to 35% in 2021. Crisp was the unanimously favoured style by both male and female, but fruity and juicy/hazy styles were more popular with women.
In this survey from Scarborough, USA, commissioned by the Brewers Association, note how the gender index for craft beer in America has stayed relatively stable from 2012 to 2021.
The UK remains an important export market for American craft beer with 7.9% of all exports, the biggest market in Europe and third largest individual market behind Canada and the Caribbean. In the UK, American craft beer is available from on-line retailers such as Athletic Brewing, Sierra Nevada shop, Brew Export, Beer Merchants, Beers of America, selected bottle shops, off-licences, online subscription services, supermarkets, and selected pubs and bars.
So let’s all drink more American craft beer, responsibly of course, and enjoy the broad diversity of styles and ground-breaking flavours whether you’re male or female, but especially if you’re female!
The Brewers Association publishes a wealth of resources to understand and enjoy craft beer, downloadable free of charge here.
