A craft brewery in Timmins is celebrating International Women’s Day the best way it knows how.
Women from the community are stopping by Full Beard Brewing today helping prepare the first batch of Hopbreaker, a dry hop lager with juniper berries. The initiative is also the company's first time taking part in the International Women's Collaborative Brew Day.
The lager recipe came about when Full Beard brewer Kirby Breeze sat down with a bunch of ladies from town.
“They came in and we had them drink some beer, they were good troopers about it, and we just started talking and we decided we’d do a light beer,” she said.
While some of the women aren’t big beer drinkers, Breeze said it was almost unanimous that everybody liked gin and tonic, which is where the juniper berries stem from.
“It will be highly carbonated so it’s going to be a really nice summer drink,” she said.
Throughout the day, women who were at the brainstorming table are stopping by to help out the Full Beard team.
First thing this morning, Breeze said there were ladies helping with the process, trying their hand at the canning machine, and sampling the products.
With the batch in the tank, she said it will take four weeks for it to ferment. When it’s done, there will be a launch party to celebrate.
Full Beard isn’t alone in brewing something special for International Women’s Day, Breeze noted a lot of breweries in the United States do it.
Having women take part in the process also helps generate interest in women getting into brewing.
“There’s not a lot of women in the industry and I’d really like to see more women,” she said.
Breeze’s career as a brewer started as a hop grower.
The crop is grown just outside of Matheson at Brambled Bines Hop Farm.
“I contacted Jon saying ‘I’m growing hops, would you be interested in something local?’ He said yes, he found out that I brewed beer, came and drank some of my beer and asked me if I wanted to come on as a brewer,” she said. “Here I am over a year later.”
Looking ahead, she hopes to grow the women's day event.
“It would be great to do it every year and every year make it bigger and have more women be able to come in and try it out,” she said.
