There are many industries that tend to be dominated by males, and brewing beer is no exception. That isn’t to say, however, that the industry is devoid of women. As craft beer rides its crescendo, there is no doubt that a larger exposure to a wider market will bring a greater interest in brewing from a wider range of people, including women.
Three Floyds Brewery, known for producing great craft beer, has just such a brewer on staff. Abby Titcomb didn’t start as a brewer, but it was something she felt she needed to do.
“It was an epiphany. I love beer,” she said. “Why am I not making beer? And that was it.”
She went back to school — a two-week brewing course at the Siebel Institute of Technology — dabbled with home-brewed concoctions and searched for brewery jobs.
Late one night at a hipster nightclub, Titcomb struck up a conversation with a “guy with gorgeous hair and face tattoos” who said he might have a line at a job bottling beer at Three Floyds.
“I was like yeah right,” Titcomb said. “It’s late at a bar and he wanted my number. … Whatever, I gave it to him. He actually followed through.”
Her first job was putting together boxes. She did a lot of that.
Good talent in small companies rarely goes unnoticed, and before long she was called up through the ranks to brew beer.
“It’s pretty cool to have a woman brewing. It’s like seeing a black unicorn … and we caught her right in our net,” Three Floyds head brewer Chris Boggess once joyfully declared
Boggess knew the brewery was on the verge of expanding to keep up with growing demand. He was looking for an eager young brewer to mentor. Brewery founder Nick Floyd, also a Siebel brewing school alumnus, and vice president Barnaby Struve promoted Titcomb to brewer last year. Since then Three Floyds has hired two more brewers — both men. This month construction crews are putting finishing touches on renovations to the brewery, which last year increased production by 40 percent.
“Why not have a diverse workforce. We didn’t want to be a vanilla boys club like it has always been,” Struve said. “She put herself through brewing school and that doesn’t guarantee you a job anywhere. We knew Abby had a passion for it.”
I’m in full support of women following there dreams, especially if that dream is to brew beer!!
Source: http://www.suntimes.com/
