By Caroline Parnin, Co-chapter Leader of the Raleigh, NC Pink Boots Chapter; East Coast Technical Manager, Lallemand Brewing/Siebel Institute of Technology

Origins:

Bière de Femme is a festival designed to showcase the women of NC beer, while also raising money for women to pursue their beer career dreams through education. During our May 2016 meeting I challenged the members of the Raleigh, North Carolina chapter with a specific question: Rather than working hard on many small events and spreading ourselves thin, what were some events/projects that could combine our efforts to raise significant amounts of money? In November 2016 chapter members Jordan Boinest and Anita Riley brought forward a festival idea at a meeting and Bière de Femme was born. We decided at that November meeting that we would donate 100% of our proceeds to Pink Boots Society. Our 1st Bière de Femme Festival took place four months later, on March 11, 2017 in Shelby, NC .

In our planning stage we set goals for what we wanted to achieve and they included:

• Raise money for Scholarships
• Showcase the badass women in NC beer (with each brewery serving a beer made by women employees specifically for the festival)
• Provide a tasting and educational experience like no other around (this includes guest learning experiences like a test sensory skills both, a history of women in beer educational wall and also local guild representation, educational programs and ingredient manufacturers providing fun learning experiences on site)

Last year we raised almost $11,000! We hope to hit $18,000 this year. On a side note, co-chapter leader Anita Riley wrote Brewing Ambition: Recipes & Stories From the Women of North Carolina Craft Beer. In addition to being a great read full of homebrew recipes, it’s a great gift. All proceeds go to Pink Boots.

Bière de Femme 2018

The 2nd annual Bière de Femme happens March 3, 2018 in Raleigh, NC. Organization is definitely a task that has brought our team together!  We utilized some great programs for communication, delegated tasks, and kept very open lines of communication throughout the process to be successful. The app Asana for delegation/communication helps us see who is working on what, and progress made. We created a to-do list/timeline and have tried to follow it as best we can. We have bi-weekly check-ins with everyone available.

Each chapter member brings a certain skill set that is extremely helpful in organization – for example Anita Riley (our other Raleigh Chapter Leader) is a writer- so she is our media communications manager.  Katie Smith (Asheville Chapter Co-Leader) is a social media whiz- she handles our posts and also organizes our volunteers. Natalie Anderson (Raleigh Chapter member) who runs a brewery has managed people her entire adult life. She helped us organize the task list and heads brewery communications for the event. Each person’s ownership of certain responsibilities allows us to not stretch ourselves too thin and ensures we move forward.

Helpful Tips for Producing An Event:

If I could offer a few helpful tips to plan successful fundraising events to other PBS chapters they would be the following:

• Don’t try to do it alone, work as a team or the tasks will be impossible. Delegate tasks to your chapter members; each has skills or contacts that will prove very useful.  Life happens, so have a backup plan in place if someone has to step away from their duties.
• Contact the board for help, there are many resources available if you need them.
• Create a timeline with tasks and deadlines and stick to it
• Delegate tasks – using the app Asana has been our savior for this
• Don’t be afraid to ask for sponsorship money. You never know unless you ask  In-kind sponsorships are great too, we have received them for glassware/t-shirts/media promotion.
• Designate one person in charge of money, so things done get confusing.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I must say I am honored to be a part of such a dynamic group of women breaking molds and providing support to one another. North Carolina has come a long way in 4 years with the progression of women in our beloved industry. I hope you’ll be able to join us at Bière de Femme this year!

Cheers to women in beer!

About Caroline Parnin: 

In the spring of 2007 I took a RV cross country road trip with some girlfriends that changed the course my life forever. Instead of LSATs and law school I decided I would pursue my dream of making beer for a living.

I immediately began volunteering at a local brewery in Raleigh on their bottling line on an as needed basis.  They paid me in hi/low fill beer. After a couple years of volunteering, I took an (unpaid) assistant brewer position at a new brewpub in town. Three years later I was sidelined by a kickball accident.

During my recovery I decided that in order to move forward in the industry I would get a formal brewing education. After registering for the full Advanced Brewing Theory course through Siebel Institute of Technology in 2014, I reached out to PBS to see what financial aid resources were available. Founder Teri Fahrendorf replied to my email for help quickly, with some pointers and a wish of good luck. Unfortunately, PBS simply did not have funds to help with that size of a scholarship.

I’ll never forget Teri’s encouragement and support; it was very welcomed. I was the only women working on the production side of a brewery that I knew of in my city. I did not know many women in the industry at all, and I was only one of two women in the Seibel program. As they say, all’s well that ends well. Soon I will become Product Manager for sensory kits and also will take on a larger marketing/business development rolle within Lallemand Brewing/Siebel Institute of Technology.

By: Jess Baker, Editor-in-Chief at CraftBeer.com

After 10 years chasing tornadoes – both in person and from the newsroom – as a TV producer and then digital/social senior editor at The Weather Channel, you reach a point where you can’t let Mother Nature call the shots anymore. Only Mother Nature knows when it’ll trigger an earthquake that sets off a nearly world-wide tsunami, or exactly when she’s going to unleash more than 300 reported tornadoes in a 3-day timespan across a 3200-mile path.

It was a job that fascinated me and humbled me. It was a job that inspired me and gave me purpose because there were truly days when you’re saving lives through information or helping families cope with a loss by telling their story. It was a job where storm victims would hug you and thank you because you were wearing the brand’s logo on your rain jacket.

But it was also a job full of the unexpected. Even when forecasts are accurate, there’s still no telling exactly what the full impacts would be and where they would the worst and how many people would have their lives turned upside down. Ten years of preparing for the unexpected can drain your energy. But what could I do that still inspired me, that gave me purpose and help people?

I remember the moment when my fascination with craft brewers and their beer started: I vividly remember walking into the 2010 East Atlanta Beer Festival in Atlanta’s tree-covered Brownwood Park and seeing rows of breweries I’d never heard of before in my life. I turned to my pal, a West Coast implant in Atlanta who already had witnessed the beginnings of the beer revolution on his coast, and said, “This is beer? I didn’t know this is what beer was now!”

When I fall for something – like the Beatles at age 16 and Springsteen when I was 28 – I fall hard. As I met brewers and realized so many of them had walked away from their big corporate jobs or found that running a brewery helped them connect with their communities, I was inspired. These women and men were small business owners who happened to be running beer businesses –and a new obsession began. I started a second Twitter account (@craftcurious) devoted to beer, not wanting to confuse all the people who followed me for weather updates on the other Twitter account. During a beercation, that Twitter account helped me get noticed by a Colorado-based craft beer blog that needed a Southeast Editor. I took the job, knowing it was unpaid, because I needed to write about these brewers who fascinated and inspired me.

I knew someday I wanted to take what I loved doing – storytelling and social media – and do it for an independent brewery. I had no idea someday would come a lot sooner than I planned. When the Brewers Association posted a job looking for an Editor-in-Chief of its beer-lover facing website CraftBeer.com, I applied thinking it was a longshot. But I got the job, and since May 2016, I’ve been working with writers and video producers across the U.S. to tell the stories about the people who are the heartbeat of American craft brewing, as well as the cities and businesses that support them.

For us at CraftBeer.com, it’s not about the beer – it’s about the people. My colleague Andy Sparhawk said it best in a recent article: “Don’t just taste your beer, believe in it.” And for us, that’s believing in the people behind it. Cheers to America’s small and independent brewers and the beer lovers who make it all possible.

Are you an L.A. Pink Boots Member?  Are you anywhere near Inglewood?  Be sure to check out Three Weavers Brewing Company from 4-9 on Monday June 22nd for L.A. Beer Week!  A great line up of brewster brews will be tapped and all proceeds will go directly to our Pink Boots Society Scholarship Fund!!  Three cheers for Three Weavers!!!

“For Pink Boots’ L.A. Chapter’s L.A. Beer Week event, Three Weavers is handing over its Inglewood tasting room for a mini charity beer fest featuring beers from some of the best breweries in Southern California, all of which happen to have lots of cool women involved in their operations. Golden Road, Eagle Rock, Monkish, Noble and more are all sending kegs, and with 100 percent of proceeds going directly into the Pink Boots Scholarship Fund, you can feel good about giving back, too.”

Read full article HERE

Tickets available HERE

Another great article on the roots of our boots!  Thanks for empowering women in the craft beer industry, Teri!  Education and communication are catapulting us through that glass ceiling.

“While Teri knew that women worked at breweries across the country, the women she met didn’t realize that other female brewers actually existed. As a result, they all asked Teri the same question: how many of us are out there? Teri had no idea so she started tracking the women brewers she met along her trip. Her initial list of 60 women became the inspiration behind the Pink Boots Society.  In 2007, Teri founded the Pink Boots Society, an international non-profit organization that empowers women beer professionals to advance their careers in the beer industry through education. The organization’s name was inspired by Teri’s pink boots she wore throughout her trip.  In 2008, she invited the women she met on her trip to participate in their first meeting at the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego. They brainstormed and discussed the challenges they faced as women in the beer industry. As a result, they realized the industry needed a stronger female voice.”

“We never had a meeting with all estrogen in the room. We wanted to create an organization just for women. If we didn’t stand for something, then we didn’t stand for anything. It was important to differentiate ourselves in the industry.”

Read full article HERE.