All-Female BC Brewery to release Women’s Day Brew
Coming soon: a beer from Quesnel’s Barkerville Brewing for International Women’s Day
By Barkerville Brewing
Our 3rd annual collaboration brew day in honour of International Women’s Day will be held on February 21st, 2020 at Barkerville Brewing Co. in Quesnel, BC. We have invited industry partners, colleagues from the northern craft brewery scene and anyone interested in learning more about small-batch, craft brewing to join us for a fun day in the brewhouse.
This year we will be brewing a special recipe that our head brewer Erin has been working on for a while: a gruit with a noble purpose in mind… to ease the symptoms of PMS (premenstrual syndrome)! Taking an herbal approach, this brew will include rosehip, chamomile, yarrow and juniper branches. These plants were selected for their combined ability to reduce inflammation, cramping and bloating, improve circulation, relieve stress and anxiety, and regulating hormones. Honestly, these are ailments that often plague men and women alike! We have served a couple of different test batches of this recipe to patrons at various beer events over the past couple of years to wild praise, so we feel it’s time to bring this brew to market.
The gruit, titled Aunt Florence, will be packaged in 650 mL bottles and available to our local market (Prince George, Quesnel and Williams Lake) in time for International Women’s Day, March 8th, 2020. We haven’t ruled out distributing more widely depending on interest.
General Manager Justine Pelletier commented, “We managed to track down the descendants of a local pioneer named Florence Wilson, and got their approval to name the beer after an amazing woman who took Barkerville by storm in 1864.”
Each year, Barkerville raises money for the Movember campaign (a natural fit given our logo) in support of men’s health, so this year we decided to also raise money for women’s health, and really lean into it! In years past we have donated part proceeds from our IWD collaboration brews to the Pink Boots Society, but this year part proceeds from the sale of this beer will be donated to Ovarian Cancer Research.
Given the historical connection between the modern witch and female brewers, it was only a matter of time before BC’s only all female-run brewery started brewing potions… for what ‘ales’ you!
