“Lady-beers” an insult to the women of craft beer

I absolutely see your points and pretty much agree, but linked article aside, I can also understand the cynical reaction to the USA Today article (it's actually a whole marketing effort in a bunch of newspapers/media outlets, if you search around; kinda suspicious on its own for any new brewery). High Heel is an improvement on the last time this idea was trotted out, but there's also this line:

"There’s plenty of women out there who would say (a women-owned brewery) is an overdue idea," says High Heel's McGuire

Unless there's more context to that line, it's pretty insulting to some women in the brewing industry. For example, Lost Coast was founded by two women in 1990 with one of them as the brewmaster. And it's not a small brewery. They're selling several hundred thousand barrels of beer every year, sold in 21 states and 11 countries. On the other hand, High Heel will be contract brewing at a place that also contracts for a beer company marketed to golfers - GolfBeer - and is run by a former marketing exec from AB (she does have a degree in brewing).

So, while I'm not defending the growlermag article exactly, I can understand people not loving High Heel's marketing pitch as far as it paints them as some sort of innovator in beer. I do agree that we shouldn't judge reactions to the actual product, label, etc. Perhaps, it's just a shame that pioneers like Lost Coast don't get the same recognition.

Also, a lot of the cynicism might come from Chick Beer's initial launch, and at least that company seems to deserve the criticism. By all reports, it's just a shitty lager made by a big shitty contract brewer (Minhas) who makes lots of beers that are basically the same. They're merely a brand management company (probably hoping to be bought out by Pabst or something) and have nothing to do with the larger craft beer scene, as far as I can tell. I'd be pretty surprised if they got anyone to branch out in their beer taste.

Carlsberg's attempt was a little rough, as well.

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