New Girly Craft Beers Aim to Appeal to Ladies. Is That Really Necessary?
A lady drinking beer that may or may not have been craft brewed. (Photo: Getty)
Listen up, ladies! There’s a revolutionary new product that’s coming our way, made exclusively for us women folk: Beer!
Maybe you’ve heard of it?
Though women already account for the consumption of about 32 percent of craft beer (with nearly half of those between the ages of 21 and 34), the industry would apparently like to increase that number by introducing more alcoholic bevies that specifically cater to a more feminine audience. And that means more beers named after shoes and fuzzy baby animals that have loopy logos and lots of pink.
USA Today spoke with Kristi McGuire, the brewer behind High Heel Brewing — a new, highly gendered operation. Its first two beers, Slingback Perry Ale and Too Hop’d to Handle India Pale Ale, will debut later this month in Florida. The IPA’s ingredients include Belgian candy sugar to lessen “that little bit of malt linger that stays on your tongue,” McGuire explained, adding, “I think women will appreciate that.”
Another brand, ChickBeer — which brews a light lager beer, is also currently seeking financial support for a national launch in 2017.
“It occurred to me there really hadn’t been anything out there specifically for women,“ said Shazz Lewis, who created ChickBeer with her husband. The flavor is that of "a light beer on the maltier, softer side that women preferred. We didn’t want to dummy it down, it needed to be a stand-up beer … not fruity flavored (and) as full-bodied as a light beer could be.”
This new uptick of lady-friendly brewskies comes around the same time as America’s burgeoning “Blaze Pink” bills, which aim to attract more women to the sport of hunting by allowing hunters to wear hot pink clothing. Though that’s hardly the first product to be made-over to appeal aesthetically to different genders: Face wash, hair dye, razors, and even gender-specific candy bars are regular sights in convenience stores, never mind the prevalence of pink-ified items meant to specifically appeal to women.
True, it’s no secret that beer has traditionally been marketed towards men — that Coors Light “and twins” commercial immediately comes to mind — but craft beers are hardly marketed at all, anyway. So what gives? Are women really steering clear of micro-brews because they think they’re too masculine? Or because, after spending all their excess cash on tampon taxes, they can only afford to drink PBRs? Kidding.
Sort of.
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