Edinburgh recently hosted the first edition of the Women In Beer Festival, created by the local ‘women only’ beer group Beers Without Beards.
Based off the festival’s success, coordinators have already announced they will be back for a second edition in 2020. The four-day festival celebrated women in the beer industry by running a series of panels and events, each hosted by beery women from across the UK.
The events helped raise money for Scotland Women’s Aid, with Beers Without Beards declaring they have raised more than £300 for their charity partner.
On Saturday afternoon, a ‘Women Who Beer’ meet-up took place at The Stockbridge Tap rallying female beer drinkers and workers from all around the UK.
The festival also held a workshop on Sexual Harassment, which was co-hosted by Beers Without Beards and Women on Tap – the Harrogate based festival. The workshop, made up of women and men from the beer industry, aimed to find solutions to sexual harassment that could be implemented in pubs and bars.
The workshop concluded that industry workers needed to be trained on what behaviours are not acceptable and how to deal with them.
Rachel Auty, founder of Women on Tap said: ‘There has been lots of great work done already. We feel that existing initiatives such as Shout Out in Newcastle and the more recent Everyone Welcome campaign should be in some way drawn together for maximum impact and rolled out as one core centralised national scheme.’
Amélie Tassin, founder of Beers without Beards added: ‘We need to make sure that drinking industry folks are trained and know how to react when facing a problem of sexual harassment.’
The two organisations will team up to create a committee to approach lobbies, unions, and pubs groups, to work on the creation of a ‘Sexual Harassment Free’ label that would be delivered to venues who have trained their staff on the existing initiatives.
The Beers Without Beards group is a group of women who like beer and enjoy drinking and learning about it.
A spokesman said: ‘It’s not about excluding men but creating a safe space for women to experiment and learn about craft beer.
‘Through the group our members can discover pubs or taprooms, learn about craft beer and also meet some inspiring women from the brewing industry.
‘In reality, we don’t have anything against beards! Although this is a women only group, there are plenty of our events that are opened to everyone (including those with beards!).’
Find out more at www.beerswobeards.com or join Beers Without Beards on Facebook HERE
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