GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — In an effort to celebrate International Women's Day, a group of woman who own Grand Rapids breweries came together to prove that the beer industry is not in fact dominated by men.
"Basically we want to break the stereotypes that craft beer is just a men and men dominated," said Carley Morrison, the manager of Beer and Whine. "So we brought together different female brewery owners (and) brewers to celebrate that and to just kind of show what woman can do here in the beer industry."
Morrison was one of a few female brewers who met at Horrocks Market Tavern to celebrate the holiday. This is the second year the tavern have had a Women's Day for females working in the craft beer industry.
"We have a 'girls pint out', which is a female ran beer group in Grand Rapids and they do fun events all the time, so we brought them in," Morrison said.\
Hannah Lee, a co-owner of Brewer Waypost, would like to see more individuals of hger gender represented in tghe craft beer industry.
"I think we need more diversity in the craft beverage industry," Lee said. "You can look on the shelves and you see so many different variations of a stout or a Pilsner or an IPA, but you look at who’s making the product and who’s making the decisions and who’s working the breweries, it’s kind of homogenous, so it’s a bit of end anomaly."
Morrison agreed with the sentiments addressed by Lee, saying how women need to be celebrated more for the impact they have made with their respective bars, taverns and breweries.
"I hope that they just see what amazing things that women can do," Morrison said. "Women are just as awesome as everybody else they should be celebrated."
