By: Austin Webb
First-Year Brewmaster Student
An interview with Jasmine Makinga, on her experience being the lead Brewer on Blindman Brewing’s International Women's day brew, Sister’s before Misters DIPA.
It seems like almost every brewery is brewing and releasing a beer for International Women’s Day. For the most part, these brews are to raise awareness and interest about the women working in the brewing industry. Yakima Chief Hops, the largest grower-owner network of hop producers in the United States, has been releasing a Pink Boots hop blend annually since 2018. The mixture supports the Pink Boots Society, an international organization supporting women in brewing. In 2019, 438 breweries ordered the custom blend. Overall, fourteen countries participated in a brew using the YCH Pink Boots blend. At this point, there is no denying that this is a growing initiative
To get some behind the scenes insight into how one of these International Women's Day brews go down, I reach out to my classmate, Jasmine Makinga. Initially, I did not know Jasmine was in charge of the women's day brew at Blindman Brewing in Lacombe, AB. It was a social media post I saw, in which the can had her signature as Lead Brewer. I immediately called her and requested she bring a 4 pack once it was released. After drinking the beer, I thought it would be interesting to give some insight into the process, so I reached out to her to request an interview. Just a couple days later I was lucky enough to sit down and chat with Jasmine about Sister’s Before Misters, Blindman Brewing’s Double IPA for International Women’s day.
"Blindman asked me to take the lead on the International Women's Day brew. It was a bit of an undertaking considering I have never made a commercial recipe before. All the women in the group sat down to take a look at the Pink Boots hop blend, and we decided we wanted to make a big, strong, Double IPA. This would be the best way to showcase the fruity, floral and light citrus flavours of the hop blend. The ladies wanted it to be 10-12%, but decided to keep it below 10%.”
“Once we decided we were going with a DIPA, I sat down with one of the other brewers, Brendan, and looked at other DIPA recipes. We talked about what would and would not work.”
“The staff at Blindman ultimately decided on the name and can design. Other than that I was in charge of the recipe and brew day. All the women showed up at 8 am and stayed until we finished that afternoon. While waiting in between each step, I would explain to the group what we had just completed, and how the next step would go down. All the women in the group were excited to learn and eager to help out."
When the beer was finished fermenting the group of women were invited back for the canning day. Many were not able to attend due to commitments in their regular day jobs.
In total, 2600 litres were packaged. Two full pallets of cans were filled and labelled, while the rest of the beer went into kegs. The beer was initially released at a mini pub crawl in Lacombe. Sisters Before Misters will be distributed throughout Central Alberta in cans and kegs.
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| Sisters Before Misters DIPA cans |
"Within Rimbey and Lacombe, I have a lot of support from people in the community. We are getting some good feedback in the taproom."
I asked Jasmine what International Women’s Day means to her.
"It's complicated. It's nice to have a day where you are recognized as being equal - however, sometimes it feels like 'oh here, have a day where women are allowed to do their thing and oh, my gosh, we need this day of empowerment.' Here at Blindman 1/3 of the staff are women, so it was never that I needed a day to be worthy of working there, or that I could do things as well as everyone else. Ultimately this is just supposed to be a fun day for us at the brewery.”
I decided to ask Jasmine what her advice would be for other new brewers who are tasked with releasing a beer at their place of employment.
“Use the people around you to your advantage. I had several people around me helping to guide and assist, which was a huge help. At the end of the day, don't let anyone railroad you into making a beer you don't want to make. If you are going to put your name on it, it should be from you, but that doesn't mean you can't get help along the way.”
Jasmine's thoughts on drawing more women into drinking beer and entering the industry.
“A lot of people in rural areas associate men and beer. So, I think a lot of women just aren't interested. I hope those who are interested pursue it, and that it becomes more popular. I don't think a lot go people realize it is an opportunity. It would be nice to draw in more women, to help them realize this doesn't need to be a man's drink. If this beer can get out to women who don't necessarily drink beer - it's a great start.”
"I've always had jobs in male-dominated industries. At this point – it’s just Jasmine, doing Jasmine."
Austin Webb is a first-year brewmaster student in the 6th cohort, currently working at Undercurrent Brewing in Sylvan Lake, AB. Austin also runs the podcast Beachhouse Brewing. Check it out at beachhousebrewing.beer