eventually being offered a sip then pretending to enjoy it while secretly wondering what on earth all the fuss is about.

 

Then there’s the desire to be ‘one of the lads.’ Sarah remembers the lairy lager culture she was first exposed to - necking cheap cans at house parties purely for the purpose of getting drunk wasn’t her thing and so she became even more put off the product. The mentality that that was beer stayed with her into her early twenties.

 

And that is how many boys and girls head off into the world of booze: on separate journeys, equipped with only a basic and often flawed understanding of what satisfies their palate and their persona.

 

But Sarah knows it doesn’t have to be that way.

 

For her, everything changed when she was dragged along to a BrewDog tasting event. Worried it would be full of, as she puts it, “wanky bullshit,” Sarah didn’t exactly have high hopes for converting. She definitely didn’t expect to be working for them a few years later.

 

But the session sparked a realisation in her mind. She was introduced to lots of new flavours and exciting smells - things that seemed a world away from the same drink that was being ‘downed’ on a Friday night. She knew there must be more to beer and became determined to discover what that was.

 

So Sarah set herself the truly gruelling task of sampling many different beers to train her palate to find one she really loved.

 

“Turns out there are a lot of them,” she laughs.

 

She thinks if the beer industry can bring that epiphany moment forward a few years to reach out to teenagers as they come of age, they’ll be opting for quality beers over cheap booze in no time.

 

But what is it about the craft beer industry that makes Sarah think it can achieve this?

 

Big choice, neutral marketing, she says.

 

Craft beer has massively taken off in the UK, with BrewDog often considered central to the trend. Not only is it the largest independent brewery in Scotland, it’s been named the fastest growing food and drinks company in the UK for the past three years.

 

As Sarah sees it, the more variety available, the more likely it is to end up in the hands of the next generation.

 

The next challenge is removing the stigma attached to beer.

 

Sarah works very closely with the company’s marketing team. Well aware of a male skew in its customer base, BrewDog still choses to market its beers towards one specific group - humans.

 

A lack of gendered beer names, a focus on funky branding and a bargepole distance away from pump clips with “provocative redheads brandishing melons” is how Sarah thinks the world of craft beer has managed to break down a barrier between women and beer, and sell it as a drink for everyone.

 

The next step, she says, is inviting women to actually come and try the beers - another area BrewDog has already dabbled in. The company held a women-only brewing event a few years ago which Sarah seems keen to repeat in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She does fear the damage traditional branding of beer may have done to could-have-been connoisseurs, like herself.

 

But she pushed past that and has had a busy four years translating a new found interest into a broad, beery career.

 

She's a firm believer that the problems long intertwined into the fabric of the industry are loosening.

 

That she's got to where she has in a relatively short space of time is telling of both a more progressive reaction from society towards women appreciating beer, and an ever-improving attitude from within the industry itself.

 

 

Disclaimer: Sarah kindly bought me a beer while we chatted in BrewDog’s Shoreditch bar.