The battles of a beer sommelier

Jane Peyton is a beer historian and the Beer Academy's Beer Sommelier of the Year. She's the author of two beer bibles, Beer O'Clock and School of Booze. She's also Principal of the beer knowlegde website School of Booze website.

Jane Peyton

Credit: James Goureley/Rex Shutterstock

“As a woman in beer, one has to prove that you know as much, if not more, about beer than [men] do.”

 

Jane Peyton has a string of beer-related titles to her name, regularly talks about beer on TV and radio, and actually quite likes the stuff herself.

 

Yet Jane tells me she was once asked whether she was the stripper at one of her own events and is frequently questioned over her knowledge, purely based on the fact she is a woman.

 

“I turned up to an event with a younger male assistant who had been dealing with the client and the client ignored me and directed all the comments to my assistant. Then when I was introduced as the beer expert, said ‘ohh I thought you were just someone’s mother.’

 

“This from a man who was much older than me. And bald.”

 

Sadly, this wasn’t the only example she shared with me. From having her order of a

porter queried because of its strength to being outright asked ‘what do you know about

beer, you’re a woman,’ it is safe to say that Jane has, and continues, to experience sexist

attitudes of varying degrees which try to get in the way of her doing what she loves.

 

But Jane knows just how to shut them down.

 

“I talk about beer being a gift from nature, a drink for everyone regardless of gender.

 

“I always talk about how daft it is that beer has been given a ‘gender’ – male – because

no other alcoholic drink or food stuff is labelled as male or female.

 

“I remind people that women were the original brewers of beer and for thousands of

years were the primary brewers of beer.

 

“And that of all alcoholic drinks, beer has more female connections than any other.”

 

So what are they?

 

There’s hops - the flowers of the hop plant have the second highest source of phyto-oestrogen, the female hormone, than any other plant except soya.

 

There’s also yeast - naturally produced by the female body.

 

Then there’s deities - one of the oldest recorded writings in existence is a hymn to Ninkasi, the ancient goddess of brewing.

 

Three connections that send into confusion the prominent idea that beer should be a masculine drink.

 

“Just try changing the word ‘beer’ to another drink such as ‘tea’ and repeating some of the comments I have had and the preposterous notion of beer being assigned a male gender is apparent.”

 

She’s right - ‘What do you know about tea - you’re a woman’ and ‘I ought to be ashamed of myself, a woman knowing more about tea than I do’ just sound odd.

 

It's what you say AND how you say it

 

While Jane was happy to talk to me on the topic, she admits it’s silly that women who brew or drink beer are something worth commenting on. The understanding that they are unusual is ingrained into our semantics.

 

“When a woman brews beer she is referred to as a ‘female brewer.’

 

“Men who brew beer are not referred to as ‘male brewers’ - they are just called brewers.”

 

Like many others, Jane credits the craft beer world for its “enlightened view of beer drinkers” which she feels has helped open up beer's image away from just featuring older men.

 

However, “society as a whole is still in another century when it comes to attitudes towards women and beer,” she adds.

 

Jane acknowledges that sexism in general is alive and well and knows that by maintaining a narrow focus on beer sexism, there are bound to be critics who are dismissive of the issue.

 

“I would say that people who are dismissive of beer sexism do not realise or care that it is bad for business.

 

“Brewers, beer marketers and pubs that purposefully alienate 51 per cent of the population by indulging in sexism towards women who might want to drink beer but don’t because of cave-man attitudes, are missing out on a great deal of potential business.”

 

But, of course, sexism doesn’t just affect women.

 

“I know many men who hate sexist attitudes in beer and they refuse to buy the beer of brands that are sexist.

 

“Sexism [also] takes the form of infantilising men, or treating them as witless blokey lads.”

 

The perfect drinking companions

 

If Jane could go back in time, she’d sit and put the world to rights over beer prejudices with some esteemed novelists.

 

“Jane Austen was witty and good company. She knew how to brew beer and make wine, and she was an accomplished pianist.

 

“We could drink her home-brew spruce beer and have a sing-song in the pub with her on the piano."

 

Joining them would also be E. F. Benson, who wrote the Mapp & Lucia series in the 1930s - Jane's personal fave.

 

“Benson was a brilliantly funny writer and judging by his writing style, a waspish personality who would have something to say about sexist attitudes in beer.”