Today, Miller Lite is announcing Bad $#!T to Good $#!T, an initiative creating fertilizer made from old sexist beer advertising that will be used to grow hops for female brewers. The beer brand is teaming up with producer, comedian, actor, and undeniable arbiter of good $#!T, Ilana Glazer, to help amend the industry’s sexist history of beer marketing and rectify the past. They’re turning the age-old, objectifying beer ads (aka bad $#!T) into good $#!T – literally.

Miller Lite is donating $60K to Pink Boots Society and giving members the opportunity to brew with the hop blend they grow by sending them to up to 200 Pink Boots Members (no cost to participate)! Learn more from their press release here and take a look at the announcement in Forbes!

View Organization brews opportunity for women, nonbinary adults segment on Good Morning America

How to Access the Online Community via the Mobile App

1. Click one of the download buttons below
2. Download the Connected Community app
3. Type the Pink Boots community domain: community.pinkbootssociety.org
4. Tap Next
5. Enter your account username and password–the same username and password you use to log into the Pink Boots website.
6. Tap Login
7. Start engaging with your community

The Pink Boots scholarship program has some VERY EXCITING news to share with you! Unfortunately, the 2021 Yakima Chief Hops: Hops and Brew School will be virtual due to COVID-19, so they are offering to fly five Pink Boots members out to Yakima for this incredible experiential trip! The dates are August 23-27, 2021. Please see below for details.

Yakima Chief Hops is excited to offer an exclusive opportunity for five (5) Pink Boots Society members to travel to Yakima Valley for a three (3) day visit hosted by their very own Kelly Lohrmeyer. This trip includes a $500 airline stipend to offset travel costs, three (3) nights of lodging, three (3) lunches, Hops Swag, transportation, and Meet & Greet Happy Hour/Dinner at Bale Breaker Brewing Company. Plus, tours of the Brewing, R and D, and Pellet Plant in Yakima as well as tours of the farm and of the new YCR Research Facility. But wait, there’s more! The five recipients will also experience sensory and PBS Hop Rub and brew a Fresh Hop Beer with Single Hill Brewing!!

Specifics:

• $500 Airline stipend
• Monday-Wednesday lodging with the option to help with Thursday lodging, if needed
• Lunch Tuesday-Thursday
• Meet and Greet Happy Hour/Dinner at Bale Breaker on Tuesday
• Transportation each day
• Tours of the Brewing, R and D and Pellet Plant in Yakima
• Sensory and PBS Hop Rub
• Brew a Fresh Hop Beer with Single Hill
• Hop Swag

How awesome is that?! Due to the unique opportunity and quick turnaround, this scholarship is separate than the typical quarterly scholarships. The application window opens June 8 and closes July 1. You can apply here.

Please reach out to scholarship@pinkbootssociety.org if you have any questions or need help with anything!

Please join the entire Pink Boots Board of Directors in welcoming two new members of the board! Debbie Cerda and Georgina Solis have both served as chapter leaders and volunteered on other crucial Pink Boots committees for several years, demonstrating their dedication to the Mission and Vision of our organization. Thank you, Georgina and Debbie, for your continued commitment and for sharing your path within Pink Boots.

Georgina Solis

Hi! My name is Georgina, but most folks call me Georgie. My story is similar to most in that I didn’t find craft beer: it found me. I used to be a police officer in Arlington, TX. It was one of my beat partners who introduced me to the world that is craft beer. I was volunteering at a local brewery on my days off; two months later they offered me a job in distribution. I drove a truck dropping off kegs at bars and restaurants for about a year and a half before finally making the move to production. In summer of 2018 I left the Dallas beer scene to take on a project in a small town in Hungary. I spent my summer there helping their crew adopt American styles of brewing. By fall I found myself back in Texas in a small city called Houston. I started as a brewer at Eureka Heights Brew Co. and this year will be my third calling it my home away from home.

Throughout all of my beer adventures, Pink Boots has been a constant companion. I was the chapter leader of the North Texas Chapter and was able to organize an awesome turnout for our first PBS Collaboration Brew Day. When I arrived in Houston, I immediately joined the chapter and got the group involved in the Collab Brew Day for the first time! Since then, I have been a part of the organization by joining the Chapter and Education Task Force and, more recently, the Board of Directors. I really wanted to join the Board ever since I saw how vital education and networking is to Pink Boots. When I won a scholarship in 2019 it was one of the most fulfilling feelings I had experienced in a while, and that feeling is what compelled me to run for a seat on the Board. I want to maintain the strong relationships we have with all of our scholarship partners while seeking out more to encompass all fermentables. We have a lot of work to do and I am looking forward to serving the membership for the next two years.

Salud, Georgie

Debbie Cerda

Debbie Cerda has been involved in beer for over thirty years and has a wealth of knowledge and experience to share from her journey. A pivotal moment in her employment was working at a historic British-style pub in Houston, Texas, in the late eighties, where she engaged with the likes of Michael “The Beer Hunter” Jackson, Belgian (and later Texan) brewer Pierre Celis, and three generations of the Young dynasty–Young’s Ram Rod ESB was a favorite! Since then, she’s volunteered and worked for several breweries and brewpubs in Austin, Texas, including one of the first ever brewpubs to open in Texas in 1994.

Debbie joined Pink Boots Society in 2011, and after attending PBS meetings at national events she returned home to form the Austin chapter. Her proudest accomplishment is witnessing the success of younger craft beer industry professionals who she introduced and mentored during their career–many of them came from her volunteer pool from community events that were non-beer related!

Debbie has a “portfolio” career, balancing her time between sales and business development for a Postgres consulting firm during the week, while supporting several functions including marketing and social media, charitable efforts, and community outreach and engagement for Jester King Brewery. She’s also responsible for fundraising for an impoverished village school in Kyanuna, Uganda.

She is committed to empowering others to create a vibrant and resilient community of female professionals across multiple sectors in the fermented beverage industries for now and the future.

In her free time, she enjoys a nice single malt Scotch whiskey or a glass of Cabernet Franc while playing online RPGs and relaxing with her pup, Maris Otter, and kitty, Vienna–yes, they are named after her favorite malts!

Pink Boots Society and D.G. Yuengling & Son, Inc. are excited to announce the 2020 Diversity in Brewing Scholarship recipient, Victoria Rooney! This scholarship was created to support individuals from underrepresented groups who are passionate about the brewing/fermentation industry and looking to further their education, technical skills and knowledge, and leadership skills. The educational offerings that were included in this scholarship are: PA College of Technology Brewing & Fermentation Science Program, University of South Florida Brewing Arts Program, HACC Brewing Sciences Certificate Program, Philadelphia University of the Sciences Brewing Science Certificate, Siebel Institute WBA Concise Course in Brewing Technology, and the eCornell University Women in Leadership Certificate.

Joining the Pink Boots Society has opened Victoria Rooney’s eyes to a whole new world of opportunities, especially during her first Pink Boots Collaboration Brew Day®, where she met more women brewers and brewery owners than she ever could have imagined. Victoria holds several roles at Wolf Branch Brewery, including taproom manager, cellar woman, social media and events coordinator, and bartender. In 2019, she earned the “Best Bartender” award, along with Wolf Branch Brewing as the Best Craft Brewery from Lake and Sumter County Best of the Best. Victoria aspires to become a head brewer and dreams of one day opening her own brewery. She believes that this course will provide her with the professional knowledge and confidence required to make the transition to brewery operations and to be well-rounded in the craft brewing Industry. She is passionate about helping women to have a strong and respectable presence and looks forward to sharing what she learned with other members of Pink Boots Society.

D.G. Yuengling & Son, Inc. is America’s Oldest Brewery and is family owned and operated still today. In its 5th and 6th generations of continuous family ownership, Yuengling’s mission is to thrive as an iconic American company that is committed to its employees, produce exceptional products for consumers to enjoy, and for their distributor partners to champion. Yuengling’s strong culture is driven by its family and employees — and by its shared values of pride, integrity and simplicity. Yuengling respects tradition and hard work and is proud to provide superior products and service to its customers.

We have two amazing members of the Board of Directors wrapping up their term with Pink Boots Society! I wanted to make sure to give them the proper shout-out they so deserve. Both of these Directors have played significant roles in helping to shape and grow the organization. Pink Boots Society will forever be indebted to them for their time and dedication.

Anita Riley

Let me start with Anita Riley! She is famously quoted with saying “Y’all, I just wanna make it rain!” Anita tackled our scholarships during her term, and with her help, we were able to increase our national scholarships by double in both years she was at the helm, as well as helping our chapters to offer scholarships on the local level. So in her words, she “made it rain.” With Anita’s help, we reviewed several opportunities to help streamline our process, ultimately leading to our newly launched platform. Survey Monkey Apply. She did this all while she was on a work rotation every four weeks so I know putting in the time and energy was a challenge, but so far all things are pointing to a successful launch. This program will not only benefit our membership when they apply for scholarships but also the workload our volunteers put in on the back end to execute the scholarships. The hope is it will help with volunteer burnout.

Because of Anita’s drive and ambition for seeking to spread education, she spearheaded an idea that helped fund the first annual Biere de Femme Festival (an all-female beer festival hosted in North Carolina). How did she do this, you might ask… she wrote a freaking book! The book is phenomenal and showcases women in beer all over North Carolina. The proceeds from the book were the foundation used to build the annual festival. It takes a serious badass to pull that off! It’s been a pleasure working alongside Anita and I hope she knows how much she has helped curate and round out our Scholarship Program.

Cat Wiest

Next is Cat Wiest! You may remember her from CBC in Denver as Hydra La Mar, where she dominated the arm wrestling event. I first met Cat probably when I first met Jen Jordan at our 10th Anniversary Celebration in San Diego. I then was lucky enough to award her a pair of Pink Boots as she’s a Pink Boots scholarship recipient (UC Davis Ext. Intensive Brewing Science for Practical Brewing). I knew at that time she had a passion for the organization but also for beer as well as women in beer. Cat has been a force for positive change within Pink Boots Society. It was her personal mission that we adapt our language to be more inclusive outside our cisgender verbiage. She’s been the backbone to help us change our narrative to be a voice for the voiceless as well as be aware and find ways to become better allies. With our Board being full of brewers by trade, a lot of the tasks we ask them to take on are new; this was the case with Cat. We tasked Cat with our social media and communications and although this was not her wheelhouse she jumped right in and gave it all she had and learned as she went. She did this all with vigor and grace! With her assistance, we began to have a larger focus on Instagram, which helped us to have a larger focus on our membership. The energy and zest for the brewing industry Cat has is unparalleled, and during her time on the Pink Boots Society Board she made sure she continued to drive her career and was awarded the Siebel/WBA scholarship through the Glen Hay Falconer Foundation!

Both of these ladies have left permanent positive marks within the organization as well as on me. I’m lucky to have learned, laughed, and grown with you ladies and wouldn’t have had it any other way!

MJ Anderson

We also had a board member MJ “That Damn Mary” Anderson, who served one year with us. MJ’s exuberance for Pink Boots Society as well as her exuberance for life is infectious. She’s so freaking positive that it makes others around her smile and feel like we can tackle any challenges we face. She’s helped me to DREAM BIG when it came to my aspirations for the organization. She has helped to develop the beginning process of our Philanthropy plan that will guide the organization’s sustainability. Due to unforeseen circumstances out of her control, her focus needs to be elsewhere at this time. Sue Rigler, Collaboration Brew Day extraordinaire, will fill MJ’s remaining one-year board term. We’re lucky we have dedicated volunteers who have a deep understanding of how the organization runs to easily bring in Sue. Her time on Collaboration Brew Day has been invaluable and has helped grow it to where it is today.

Sue Rigler

Thank you to all of these amazing, talented women for continuing to shape and drive our mission. Without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today! Let’s all raise a glass and give them all a giant CHEERS!

-Laura Ulrich

The Pink Boots Society and D.G. Yuengling & Son, Inc. are excited to introduce the 2020 recipients of the Yuengling Women in Brewing Scholarships! Both scholarship recipients will receive up to $12,500 to further their education through one of these four programs: the University of the Sciences Brewing Science Certificate, the Cincinnati State A.A.S. in Brewing Science (with optional Sales & Marketing certificate), the Siebel Institute Concise Course in Brewing Technology, and eCornell University’s Women in Leadership Certificate. Each of these programs work to build on technical and leadership skills, as well as brewing education.

Lauren Stone, of Left Hand Brewing Company in Colorado, has been in the brewing industry for four years. She began as an intern on a ten-barrel system developing comprehensive knowledge of the brewhouse and cellar. After her internship, she moved to a thirty-barrel brewhouse with a three-barrel pilot system. During Lauren’s two-and-a-half year period at this brewhouse, she worked her way from assistant brewer to head brewer. While she was in this role, a number of her recipes took home state awards! When Lauren moved to Left Hand Brewing Company, she was one of the quickest team members to make it through the company’s brewer certification program. 

As someone who has been in a leadership role already, Lauren is looking forward to the Women in Leadership certificate to build on the skills she has already begun to develop, and she’s looking forward to exploring alternative ways to approach problems she has faced in the past. Lauren spoke about her passion for the Pink Boots Society and this course saying, “I think it’s extremely important to have women in leadership positions as role models to encourage other women to be a part of the beer world. I am passionate about sharing my knowledge and experiences with others, especially if it means it will have a positive impact on other women.” Lauren’s passion and goals for women and the brewing industry as a whole, are just a small portion of why she was selected for this fantastic opportunity.  

The other recipient of the Yuengling Women in Brewing Scholarship is Caroline Wallace of the Texas Brewers Guild. Caroline has been with the guild for the past five years, making moves working up front and behind the scenes. She wears many hats, as the deputy director of a statewide organization, including social media, working conferences and festivals; all the way to legislation outreach. Caroline has worked on implementing an annual statewide beer festival, and changing state beer law for the good of the breweries! She has had the honor of representing craft beer at a state and federal level. But before she began the fight for breweries everywhere, Caroline was the co-author on two history-based beer books and an avid byline for a women-run beer blog.

Caroline is also planning to take the Women in Leadership course through eCornell University. As a previous chapter leader, Caroline knows the value of the Pink Boots “pay-it-forward” requirement and is excited to be a part of sharing the knowledge with other women in the brewing industry. Caroline discussed this in her application by saying, “I believe this scholarship, in particular, comes with an invaluable opportunity and heightened responsibility to assist, inspire, and educate fellow members.” Caroline’s due diligence when looking into this course was just a fraction of why she was considered for this scholarship.  

In addition to taking courses that make up the Women in Leadership certificate, each of the ladies will each receive a pair of pink steel-toe rubber boots when they fulfill the “Pay It Forward” requirement associated with their scholarships.

What is your role in the beer industry?

I’m the owner of Hoppy Beer Gear, Inc. in San Diego, Ca. Our focus in the craft industry is to assist with Branding, Merchandise and Marketing. We have clients throughout the country that we work closely with to increase their brand awareness and sales through Apparel, Merchandise, Promotional items and Design work. I absolutely love what I do and enjoy working with people to enhance their business and brand. I am also the merchandise and branding volunteer for Pink Boots Society. I’ve assisted in getting
new apparel and merchandise that can be purchased and proudly worn to support PBS members and women in the beer industry. I’ve also helped with designing some of the Collaboration Brew Day shirts and assisted in conferences.

How long have you been a Pink Boots Member?

I have been a member for about 4 years now and have been the Merchandise volunteer going on 3 years.

What, in your opinion, are the greatest benefits of the Pink Boots Society?

Pink Boots offers many benefits but if I were to call out a few then they would be the amazing scholarships and education support that they make available to all members. I would also say that the inspiration and support is amazing. To have what I would call a sisterhood in this day and age is so needed and helpful for us all to grow in an industry that we love.

What is your favorite thing about working in the beer industry?

The people would be my favorite thing. It is hard to explain but the friendships and quality of people that we are surrounded by is amazing. I truly feel like a part of a big family.

What was a great moment in Pink Boots / beer industry for you?

There are a lot of great moments but being at the Texas PBS convention last year was off the hook. I met so many women face to face and had so many inspiring conversations. I feel like everyone was there to share their experiences and lend a hand on resolutions. The information was very up and coming and the speakers were very knowledgeable.

Is there anything you would like to tell us about the work you do, or your involvements with Pink Boots?

My goal is to continue to volunteer with Pink Boots and lend a hand in any way that I can to continue to grow and positively affect more women in the industry. We have a lot of great things coming up and I think now more than ever we need to lift each other up and be a source of empowerment and strength. I take pride in being a part of Pink Boots.

What are you drinking right now (or later)?
I will be tapping into a fresh Double IPA- called Double Dank from Second Chance Beer Co. – delicious…

A fun fact or bit of trivia about you!
My husband and I LOVE live music and go to dozens of shows each year. Our favorite is our annual trip to Red Rocks in Colorado to see a full weekend of The String Cheese Incident. Great music, friendly people and an amazing venue!