The Beer

Stand Strong is a double IPA, one of many beers brewed specifically for International Women’s Day. It pours a lovely yellow-orange, with a slight haze. Raise it to your nose and you’ll take in some very strong tropical fruits - definitely mango and peach - and a little stone-fruit, apricot. It’s less fruity on the tongue, though, which is where you’ll find the 70 IBUs that result from a dose of 53 pounds of the Pink Boots Hop Blend. That hop blend, from Yakima Chief Hops (the same place that BrewDog gets the majority of its hops) is delicious: Loral, Mosaic, Simcoe, Glacier, and Sabro. Lots of citrus in there, along with some berry, piney, minty, and grassy notes. Even though Stand Strong clocks in at 8.7% ABV, you won’t get much alcohol warming out of it, which makes it eminently drinkable.

To celebrate International Women’s Day at BrewDog, we tapped this collaboration beer, along with Midheaven, a farmhouse ale from Grimm Artisanal Ales in Brooklyn, and the Wolf’s Ridge breakfast stout Ladies Who Lunch (both of which we had only a sixtel of and are thus - rightly! - already gone from our draft list, only 4 days after International Women’s Day.)

Boy did the women represent at our house on March 8th. Ladies Who Brunch is insanely delicious: chocolate, maple syrup, and coffee - a ton of flavor, but somehow all perfectly balanced. I’ve been wanting to try some of Lauren Grimm’s beer for years but had never seen it on tap - until it appeared at the very bar that I tend, perfectly timed. A dose of sour apricot to die for, aged half in stainless, half in red-wine barrels. Just like Ladies Who Lunch, the simultaneous ambition and balance of Midheaven is something to aspire to.

The Brewing

On February 15, Combustion Brewing invited women from 11 breweries to participate in their collaboration brew for Women’s Day. From BrewDog, I went with our brewer Gia and our keeper of geeks, Kayla. We brewed on Combustion’s 10-barrel kit.

Our malt bill was 92% Pilsner malt and 8% Vienna. We mashed for 60 minutes and boiled for 90. During that boil, a number of us added hops at the beginning, 75 minutes in, and 85 minutes in. While all this was going on, about 20 women in craft beer were hanging out in Combustion’s taproom enjoying donuts, pizza, Combustion’s awesome beers, and each other’s company.

Up until the practice brew that I did the week before my Cicerone exam, I hadn’t been involved in an actual brew since I dated a pretty skilled home-brewer back in grad school. Back then, I thought it was a little tedious: all hydrometers and StarSan and waiting. Getting back into brewing with a new knowledge of craft beer has reinvigorated me. My brother and I bottled our batch last week and it tasted, much to my surprise, pretty delicious, even before we bottled it. It all reminds me what a community enterprise beer is: be it in your kitchen or in a brewery - and especially afterwards, as you get to share the final product.