Beer lovers know that the history of brewing goes way back — some 7,000 years ago, according to the Smithsonian. And for more than half that time, women were the primary brewers, according to The National Women’s History Museum. Even when the craft of brewing made its way to Colonial America, women were in charge.
However, that all changed during the late-18th century, when for whatever reasons, the number of women brewers declined as the industry became male-dominated.
Now, as the Richmond craft beer industry is finding its sustainable footing after the initial explosion began just over a decade ago (Hardwood Park Craft Brewery launched in 2011), the people making the beer, especially here in Richmond, are slowly transitioning to include women.
- Scott Elmquist
- Savannah Roberts, Sandra Nazz, Hollis Smith, Tasha Dixon.
The local brewery scene is still mostly male-owned and run, but in brewhouses like Väsen, Triple Crossing and Ardent, women brewers are making the decisions as to what beers, especially what new styles, to brew.
The growing movement of lady brewers comes, in part, thanks to the nonprofit Pink Boots Society. Launched in 2007, Pink Boots held its first chapter meeting in San Diego, California with nearly two dozen members and the goal of education and networking for women working at breweries in any capacity. Since then, it has grown to include 86 chapters with over 2,800 members in nine countries, including Japan, Israel and India; this organization also includes non-binary individuals.
In Richmond, the membership number is around 30, including those working in the front and back of brewery houses. But Style Weekly learned that it’s that important pink thread that keeps all four brewers we spoke with connected locally and nationally to other women in brewing.
Tasha Dixon, Brewer (Ardent Craft Ales)
Dixon might be a familiar face to Richmond beer lovers. In 2014, she was a bartender at Triple Crossing Beer then became tasting manager. When the business expanded to its Fulton location, she became operations manager.
“The brew house was right behind me. I could see them making beer. It’s like, ‘Wow, this is so cool,’” she says. “That’s what really led me to being a brewer, just seeing it and wanting to do it.”
Dixon left to work at a friend’s vineyard. In the middle of the pandemic, she had a craving to get back into beer and saw a posting at Ardent Craft Ales. Pretty soon, she was brewing beers on her own. “I’ve been here for three years. I feel like I’m still learning,” Dixon says.
When she started out, Dixon didn’t see a lot of women working behind the scenes. “I didn’t see that anywhere in Richmond,” she says. “I had no one. I just had all the boys, which was fine. But I was like, ‘Girls, we can do this too.’”
The industry has its challenges—mostly around stereotypes, Dixon says.
“The one thing that I would get most of the time: ‘What’s your girly beer?” she recalls. “I would say, ‘Well, I’m a girl, and I drink this double IPA, or this Russian Imperial Stout.’ And they’re like, ‘You know what I mean? Like a fruity beer.’ It was a lot of that.”
In 2015, Dixon and some other female brewers started a Pink Boots chapter, but it didn’t go well.
“Nobody showed up. From that, I thought that a lot of people thought that you had to be brewing to be a part of Pink Boots, which is not the case at all,” she explains. “We just want women in beer. If you’re serving beer, if you’re selling beer, whatever you’re doing, we want you.”
Dixon says membership has grown to about 30 people. Because of Pink Boots, she’s been able to travel to seminars, receive two scholarships and learn from others. Still she hopes to see the trend of more women in brewing continue, but with higher aspirations.
“More women in leadership positions. Because, yes, it’s a male-dominated industry. But I think we’re moving in the right direction to make it more inclusive,” Dixon says. “Because we are great brewers. We’re great leaders. We’re great managers. We can do it all. I just would like to see more of that.”
Hollis Smith, Brewer (Väsen Brewing Company)
Before Väsen Brewing Company, Hollis Smith ran the gamut of working in both large and small breweries around Richmond.
“I was at Stone Brewing Company in Richmond for about four-and-a-half years,” Smith says. “Before that, I was at Hardywood for about a year and a half. So, I’ve been brewing for a while. This is the longest I’ve done anything.”
With a home brewing background, the Brooklyn, New York transplant decided to try to get a job in the field, landing first as a volunteer at Ardent Craft Ales, followed by another volunteer stint at Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, which led to a permanent job.
“They gave me a job cleaning and filling kegs, which was totally fine,” Smith says. “Within a year, I was running their centrifuge, and I was also brewing.”
When Stone Brewing came to town, she got a job and learned everything about large-scale brewing. Smith was only one of two women brewers there. “I felt like an engineer. The learning curve is very steep,” Smith says. “I was incredibly intimidated.”
But after four years, she needed a change and decided to check in with the owners of Väsen, who she had kept in touch with. “They needed someone that could hit the ground running,” she says. “I learned how to run that brew house and was brewing on my own within a month.”
In terms of being a women brewer, the challenges Smith faces are mostly with the equipment. “That equipment was designed by German men,” she says.” “They’re the tallest people ever. So, it didn’t really work for me.”
Overall, Smith says she’s found support from her fellow brewers, coworkers and from the Pink Boots community. “Pink Boots has been great because I’ve found mentorship through it, which that’s one of the hardest things, especially when you’re new in an industry and don’t really know where to begin,” she says.
One of the best lessons she’s learned by being a member is to value her worth. She says a feeling of ‘being lucky to be working in a brewery’ gets exacerbated when you don’t see other women in the same space.
“You have to flip that and say, ‘You’re really lucky to have me because I’m really competent. I’m really good at this,’” Smith says. “And I think [it’s] hard to get into that mindset, especially if you see yourself as being one of the only women in an industry.”
Savannah Roberts, Lead Brewer (Triple Crossing Beer)
Like Ardent Craft Ales brewer Tasha Dixon, Savannah Roberts also got her start at Triple Crossing Beer’s original N. Foushee Street location – in fact, it was Dixon who hired her.
“We didn’t get to work together closely,” says Roberts, whose first tasks at the brewery were scrubbing floors and cleaning kegs. “But I loved working with her and miss working with her. At least I get to be in Pink Boots with her.”
Besides the important grunt work of cleaning, Roberts was also serving.
“I’m very type-A, so I like to learn everything about what I’m doing,” Roberts says. “So, when I was serving beer, I was reading about the process of making beer just because I wanted to know what I was serving customers.”
The Asheville, North Carolina transplant says one of the things she likes about working at the brewery is seeing all the other female employees.
“Triple Crossing has had a lot of women in leadership roles, which I’m very thankful for and absolutely is does inspire me. So that’s really cool,” she says. “We have an eight-person team, five of which [are] women, and then one nonbinary individual as well. So, pretty rare.”
With a core group of female brewers and leaders in one location being somewhat rare in the brewing industry, Roberts says she’s happy that her bosses at Triple Crossing don’t boast about it. “I think we all appreciate it a lot, because it shouldn’t be so different,” Roberts says. “It should be normal. But it is cool. I like for people to know that, pretty much all of the beer here is brewed by women.”
Support comes from the owners, says Roberts, who adds that they encouraged her and fellow brewer Sandra Nazz to join the Pink Boots Society.
“He was like ‘You got to do this, you got to do this. This is revolutionary for you,’” says Roberts, adding that he told her about all the education and scholarship opportunities. “He pushed us to join, and our bosses paid for our membership.”
Working in a mostly male-dominated industry can be hard to make friends, says Roberts, but once she joined Pink Boots that all changed.
“Having shared a shared profession with these women was really cool for us,” Roberts says. “We’ve made some of our best friends through Pink Boots.”
Sandra Nazz, Barrel Program Manager (Triple Crossing Beer)
Sandra Nazz has been working in the beer industry since 2012, when she was working at Revolution Brewing in Chicago as a hostess, and then a server, which helped expand her palate due to regular quizzes from managers on new beer styles.
Once she relocated to Richmond she took the Beer Brewer Certificate Program at the University of Richmond, then landed a job at Triple Crossing.
“When Savannah [Roberts] and I started out, we were the first two women in the back,” she says. “It made other women feel welcome. And like they can do the job as well. Because we all started out cleaning kegs.”
Her taste in beer styles kept growing the more she learned, she says.
“I became really interested in the mixed fermentation program,” says Nazz. “It’s very experimental. And you can really play around with flavors and pretty much do whatever you want, like use different ingredients sourced fruit from local vendors. I feel like with my palate, I just really wanted to focus on that.”
Being part of a women-led brewery is exciting for Nazz, who says people are still surprised when she tells them what she does.
“When I told my husband’s parents that I was brewing, they were just shocked,” she recalls. “They’re like, ‘What do you mean? How?’ They were so stoked and super supportive. But it is a rare job, I guess. Still, weirdly enough.”
Being a member of the Pink Boots Society holds a special spot in her heart because she got to meet other women working in the industry. “To meet Hollis, we can all nerd out about how our day went and how much we love it,” says Nazz.
Society meetings are also nice, she adds, because they get to share the good, the bad, and the sometimes-ugly part of working in brewery.
“I feel like we all go through similar things,” she says. “We deal with truck drivers a lot. And I guess they don’t think that we work in the brewery. Not all of them. But there have been instances where, they’re like, ‘Oh, can I get your manager? Or can I get a brewer?’ And it’s like, I am right here. What can I help you with? They don’t think that we can use the forklift and stuff like that.”
Fellow Triple Crossing Brewer Savannah Roberts, who was sitting next to Nazz during the interview, adds: “We’re like, just mind your own business, man. I got it.”
