This year has started strong and, above all, with great enthusiasm for new projects. When the Pink Boots Society proposed that we hold the "Pink Boots Collaboration Brew Day" in Spain, the members who appear here didn't think twice. And on January 30, we gathered at Althaia Artesana to brew a special collaboration beer.
The atmosphere was great from the start. We all worked together as a team, milling the malts, preparing the hops, making the additions, removing the spent grain... we took the opportunity to catch up on our projects and talk about future collaborations.
The beer we all brewed together was a RED IPA. The hops used were Citra, Palisade, Simcoe, Mosaic, and Falconer's Flight, an American hop that we have pioneered in using! It has an alcohol content of approximately 6.2%. It will be a reddish-rimmed beer with a creamy, substantial foam, very fruity and flavorful, with a characteristic bitterness of IPAs and lots and lots of fruit. We will do an extra dry hopping of hops to give it that extra touch of tropical flavor and aromas.
Its name is AleWife in honor of the women brewers of yesteryear. Alewife is a term that originated in England around the 12th century and was used to refer to a "woman who ran an ale-house," synonymous with the word brewster. For several centuries these words were interchangeable."
The illustration for this beer will be handled by Cristina Jiménez, thanks to our colleague Ana from El Retrogusto es mío, who will try to convey the collaborative spirit among women.
The members who collaborated in this brewing were:
María and Mayte from Cerveses Lluna
Lizy from Terránea Craftbeer
Pat from Cervecería de la Marina Alta
Toñi from el Salón de la cerveza de Villena
Mayte from Cervezas Althaia
We are all part of the Pink Boots Society, and together with other members, we form the Chapter Spain, which has 24 members. All are professionals working in the beer industry in one way or another: brewmasters, beer sommeliers, brewery owners, beer bar managers, specialized journalists, etc.
The Pink Boots Society is an international association born in the USA to help, support, encourage, educate, and inspire women working in the brewing industry. In Spain, we have our own Pink Boots Society Spain group.
The money raised from this RED IPA brew will go to the association, which once a year donates that money as a scholarship for a woman who wants to professionalize and study to obtain her brewmaster's degree.
Later, around International Women's Day during that week, various presentations will be held throughout Spain. One of them will be at Las Cervezas del Mercado, another during this year's Barcelona Beer Festival, and in many more establishments with our Pink Boots colleagues.
We also thank the sponsors Agronet for providing the Simpson malts and Lallemand for donating the yeast.
It has been a unique experience that we are more than proud of!