Nearly 20 professional women, all members of the Okanagan craft brew industry, joined forces Sunday afternoon at Slackwater Brewing to make a statement.
And a beer.
That it all happened on International Women's Day was quite deliberate.
Running the show was 20-year beer industry veteran Lundy Dale of Penticton. Dale happens to work at Slackwater, a position she grabbed when she moved here from the lower mainland five years ago. But it was her other role that most qualified her as Sunday's spokesperson.
Seven years ago, Dale founded the regional chapter of the Pink Boots Society, an international organization she says fights for womens' rights in the beer industry and organizes scholarships to help them advance.
"It's a male-dominated industry," she said yesterday. "Only eight percent of the industry is women. And that eight percent struggles to be in it."
Sunday was the culmination of Dale's recent efforts. With ample assistance from the assembled group, including reps from facilities like Tin Whistle Brewing, Highway 97 Brewery, Cannery Brewing, the soon to be opened Lakesider Brewing in West Kelowna, and of course Slackwater, a new, female-brewed collaborative beer was born.
It's called "New Boots, Who Dis?" and part-proceeds from its sale will go to Pink Boots.
Later, Dale explained how the Society, launched 12 years ago, helps right intrinsic wrongs.
"It was started by a woman who'd decided she'd had enough," she said. "She was a brewmaster, and she started traveling around the US and meeting women with similar experiences."
"She met women all around the country, in the corners, in the dark. And she said 'I need to start a society. I need to get these women to come to the front, get them educated so they're not treated like crap, and get scholarship money out.'"
"Now, any woman who seriously wants to be in the industry can apply for scholarship funds to help them on their way."
Fortunately, said Kim Lawton of Cannery Brewing, who was also on hand in dual roles, Penticton's quite a bit more enlightened than a lot of locales. One look around Slackwater Sunday afternoon was proof of that.
"We've had two very strong women from a very early stage here in Penticton," said Lawton. "Lorraine Nagy from Tin Whistle and Patt Dyck from Cannery. They're both co-owners of their breweries, and they've both been in the industry for over 20 years. So we've had two incredible trailblazers here."
Moreover, said Lawton, New Boots, Who Dis? wasn't the only fresh local brew to mark International Women's Day and support the Pink Boots project. The other is a solo product from Cannery Brewing. It's lusciously named Ceres Mango Milkshake IPA, and it's available right now.
"All the women at Cannery Brewing brewed a batch of beer a few weeks ago," said Lawton. "It's named after Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, fertility and motherhood. So our beautiful label pays tribute to her."
You can currently find four-packs of Ceres Mango Milkshake IPA at Cannery's taproom, or alternately wait a few days for it to arrive at select craft beer-focused liquor stores in BC.
New Boots, Who Dis? will be canned April 8 and available thereafter at the Slackwater taproom and select stores across the Okanagan.
And if Lundy Dale has her way, there'll be many more female-led collaborations on the horizon.
"I want to have more efforts just like this one, hopefully a couple a year, going forward. It's time."
