It’s no surprise to anyone reading this article that Austin has one of the best craft beer communities in Texas. What may come as a surprise to you is how many women are active members of our beer community. Last year I highlighted a few of The Women Behind Craft Beer in Austin focusing on the people that bring you great craft beer. This series will shine the spotlight on the various women’s beer organizations in town: Austin Girls Pint Out, Beer Necessities Austin, The Austin Women’s Beer League and the Pink Boots Society of Central Texas.
These groups are coming together this Sunday for a new free event – The Ladies Craft Beer Community – an open forum designed for women to experience, learn about, and enjoy craft beer. This weekend’s event will feature The Beer Museum and a Craft Beer Panel hosted by the Pink Boots Society of Central Texas.
Elizabeth Wiggins and Katie Simon are the founders of Austin Girls Pint Out. I sat down with Katie to find out more about the organization.
What is the mission of Austin Girls Pint Out?
Austin Girls Pint Out is just one chapter out of almost one hundred of a national craft beer non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Our mission is, “to build a community of women who love craft beer and who are an active, contributing part of the greater craft beer community.” Elizabeth and I started this group on February 29th, 2016, and held our first event at 4th Tap Brewing Co-op on April 10th.
In your own words, describe the group and what it means to be part of it.
Basically, we want to provide educational and entertaining craft beer events and meetups for women, so that they can not only become more informed about craft beer, but also about our local craft beer producers in and around Austin. Being a part of this group means meeting other fun, beer-loving gals in a safe and accepting environment to do what we love: socialize and drink great craft beer. We want to make our events accessible to everyone — for those who are new to this world and to those who have been on the scene for awhile and know a lot about it.
What makes this group unique?
What makes us unique is that we try to do a variety of events from month to month, like private tours and pairing dinners, happy hours with trivia, ‘painting and bottle share’ nights, and even more active events, like women’s’ self-defense classes in a tap room (with beer consumed afterward, of course). We also like to do events benefiting local charities, especially ones involving women, kids, and furry friends. Any suggestions for activities are always welcome and we try to do things that will interest our members.
What type of events do you have and how often do you have them?
We try to hold at least two events per month, one free (where sometimes there are beer discounts and free tastings) and sometimes the other being a paid event (like a painting class, private tasting, etc.).
How many members do you have to date? What do beer loving ladies need to do to join?
As of now we don’t have a specific number of members. We have a number of ladies who have attended almost all of our events and we always get new gals at every event. Typically, have have 15-25 women at each event. There are no fees or dues to join us, just come along to an event! We also encourage women to come solo; we know that some finding it daunting to go to an event where they don’t know anyone and will sometimes not go for fear of going by themselves. Everyone at our events has been amazing and friendly and many of us have formed new friendships outside of the group — there’s never a worry of being left out or feeling like a wallflower even if it’s your first meetup.
Where do you see this group in one year? Five?
In a year, I hope to see this group doing more of the same fun events, but I also hope that we’ll facilitating more educational-type events to further our beer knowledge. In five years, I’d love for us to have been able to plan a big, big event, like a ‘beer prom’ benefiting some local charity or even getting to brew a beer with a local brewer.
Where can we find more information about the group and keep up with the latest goings on?
The best way to keep up with what’s going on with Austin Girls Pint Out is to keep up with our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/
