Dea Latis

Calling all beer-loving women in Scotland!

Dea Latis, the forum for women who enjoy beer, is popping up in Scotland later this month.  We’ve hosted many a jolly beer tasting in London, as well as other English cities, but this is our first time North of the Border and we’re hoping Scotland’s beer lovers will come along to celebrate with us.

Date:               Wednesday, 28 September

Time:              6.30 – 9.00 pm

Venue:            Caledonian Brewery, 42 Slateford Rd, Edinburgh EH11 1PH

We’ll be working our way through a selection of Scotland’s finest beers, including brews from: Caledonian Brewery, Innis & Gunn, Edinburgh Beer Factory and Stewart Brewing, matched to an equally impressive spread of Scottish fare. Experts will be on hand to tell us about their beers, so by the end of the evening you’ll have not only discovered some new beers, but hopefully learned something about our national drink, as well as meeting other beer-loving women in a sociable setting.

Tickets to join us for our Scottish debut, including at least five beers with matching food and expert tuition, cost £20.

Click on our Eventbrite page here to purchase tickets.

Tickets are still available for the Dea Latis Brewsters’ Brunch, taking part on Saturday 23 July as part of the Birmingham Beer Bash.

Michelle Kelsall from Offbeat Brewery in Cheshire, Gwen Sanchirico a native New Yorker now brewing at Sacre Brew in Wolverhampton and Sarah John from Swansea’s Boss Brewing will be providing beers and sharing their experiences as women in the male dominated brewing industry.

Hosted by one of the UK’s first female beer sommeliers and one of the Dea Latis founding members, Annabel Smith, the Brewsters’ Brunch is not a women-only event but the aim is to encourage women to go along from 10am to midday to enjoy the tasting of six beers brewed by women. The accompanying brunch will be provided by Peel & Stone, Birmingham’s top independent bakery based in the Jewellery Quarter.

The beers being sampled have been confirmed as:

• Offbeat Brewery’s Steampunk’d Amarillo IPA
• Offbeat Brewery’s Unhinged Ginger
• Boss Brewery’s  Black (stout)
• Boss Brewery’s  Brave (an American IPA)
• Sacre Brew’s  Sirenia (a Lemongrass Wheat beer)
• Sacre Brew’s Man On The Oss (a Rye Saison)

For a preview of the Birmingham Beer Bash,  read this article in the Birmingham Mail.

To buy tickets, go to Eventbrite:

Just as the food, drink and music festival season arrives, here’s a guide to ten beers to take along by beer writer and Dea Latis supporter Liz Dodd (who kindly mentions us too).

Ten brilliant beers article – The Guardian, 1st June 2016

Liz writes about beer, travel, and ideally beer and travel and for The Guardian, The Independent, Independent on Sunday and the i. She also writes a regular blog called It Comes in Pints.

Beer and women forum Dea Latis has unveiled the findings of a new survey into the relationship between women and our national drink. The results were delivered to an audience at the new Brewing Equipment & Technology exhibition at the NEC.

The online survey, which received 600 responses, asked for respondents’ perceptions about women’s consumption of beer and what would make them more likely to buy beer in the on and off trade.  Both men and women completed the survey.

The majority (73%) of respondents felt that brewers’ approach to women had improved over the last 10 years, but that there was ‘still a way to go’. A similar number (74%) think that more women are now more likely to include beer within their drinks repertoire, while 17% believe more women are choosing it as their main drink.  On both questions, responses from men were slightly more optimistic than from women.

Asked to rank a number of techniques to encourage more women to drink beer, respondents gave their highest score to beer lists and taste descriptions, in both on and off trade (33%).  Offering free samples of beer was also viewed as effective across pubs and supermarkets (27%), while there was also support for a wider selection of beers in the off trade (31%).

Staff recommendation was a strong ‘middle’ choice for many respondents (21% voted it 2nd and 3rd most important), indicating a need to equip bar and store staff with beer knowledge.  Beer and food matching received a similar rating (25% of respondents put it in 3rd place), though women felt it would be more effective than men.

A wider selection of beer glassware was seen as only moderately motivating, while providing more information on beers calorie content or health benefits received low scores from both sexes, across on and off trade.

Ros Shiel of Dea Latis, said “We’re delighted that 600 people took the time to complete our survey, a response that we think makes our findings relatively robust.  We weren’t surprised that tasting notes and sampling scored highly, but would have expected a higher ranking for beer and food matching.

“Factors such as glassware shouldn’t be considered as unimportant though – just that these respondents rated them as less effective than others in persuading women to try beer.”

Dea Latis – named after the Celtic goddess of beer – was launched in 2010 as a forum where women working in breweries, pubs or related jobs could share insights and experience.

The group now holds a number of beer and food tastings during the year and regularly communicates with around 260 women including brewers, licensees, quality managers, trainers, writers, bloggers and a growing number of interested beer drinkers.

The next Dea Latis event will be a Brewsters Brunch at the Birmingham Beer Bash, taking place on Saturday 23 July from 10 – 11.00 am.

Cathy Price has been named as the “Beer Drinker of the Year” by the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group Chairman, Andrew Griffiths, MP for Burton on Trent.  The presentation was made at the Beer Group’s Annual Awards Dinner in Westminster which attracted over 200 MPs, Peers and senior industry figures.

Presenting the award Andrew said “In 2011, when Cathy learned that the Red Lion is the most popular pub name in the country, she set herself the challenge of visiting every single one of them.   This was no small task as there are 656 of them spread across the length and breadth of the country; from Penzance in Cornwall to Fochabers by the River Spey in the North of Scotland.”

“She completed her challenge last September and used every opportunity during her quest to highlight the pivotal role that pubs play in our communities; in interviews with newspapers, radio and TV.  She has published a book, the Red Lioness*, describing the pubs she visited in vivid detail.”

“Cathy enjoyed a half-pint in every Red Lion that she visited which by my calculation adds up to 328 pints of beer, making her perfectly qualified to be our Beer Drinker of the Year.”

Photo shows Cathy Price receiving the 2016 Beer Drinker of the Year award from Andrew Griffiths MP, Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group.

Cathy’s book, *The Red Lioness: One Woman. Four Years. 90,000 Miles. 650 Plus Pubs (2015) is available from Amazon and CAMRA £10.99.