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Join The Beers With(out) Beards 2020 Digital Beer Fest, Empowered By Bumble
Three years ago, the Hop Culture team hired a fantastic employee named Grace Weitz. A native of Duluth, Minnesota, Grace worked in beer sales in Chicago before making her way to New York City, where she entered graduate school at New York University. For her thesis project, Grace drew on her experience as a beer professional to develop a week-long series of events around New York City that promoted equity, inclusivity, and justice for women in the beer industry. That thesis project became Beers With(out) Beards, the world’s largest celebration of women in the industry.
This year, Grace led planning for our third annual Beers With(out) Beards celebration at The Bronx Brewery in New York, New York. And while coronavirus forced us to cancel the event, Grace kept fighting.
Over the last several months, the Hop Culture team converted Beers With(out) Beards 2020 to a digital format, which will take place on YouTube from 10/8/20 to 10/10/20. For those living in OH, OR, PA, VA, ND, NE, NV, NH, OR D.C., we’ll also be able to ship a box of fresh beer directly to your door.
Tickets for our first-ever DIGITAL Beards With(out) Beards are currently on sale.
What Is Beers With(out) Beards?
Hosted by Hop Culture Magazine, Beers With(out) Beards is the world’s largest celebration of women in the craft beer industry.
Launched in 2018, the inaugural Beers With(out) Beards week saw a dozen panels, workshops, and tastings around New York City, all culminating in the Beers With(out) Beards Tasting Festival featuring beers brewed by women from around the world.
What Is The Beers With(out) Beards 2020 Digital Craft Beer Festival Empowered by Bumble?
Based on the success of previous Beers With(out) Beards events, the team planned on hosting a 2020 event at their largest venue yet. However, because of COVID-19, the team canceled the event, which was originally scheduled for June 2020.
And yet, the Hop Culture team agreed the event needed to take place in some form. The event’s mission — to celebrate and highlight a group whose work has been historically marginalized — was too important to write off for another year. After discussing the event with key stakeholders and sponsors, the team launched Beards With(out) Beards 2020 Digital Craft Beer Festival, a virtual version of the live event.
Just like the live Beers With(out) Beards experience, the Beers With(out) Beards Digital Experience will feature several workshops during the week of 10/5/20, including Bringing Beer to Life with Troegs and Craft Beer Cellar, a Sensory Workshop led by the awesome women at Two Roads Brewing, and a Cooking Class hosted by New Belgium and Queer Food Foundation. Everything will be accessed through a link that will take you to a special streaming page on YouTube. Then, on 10/10/20, we’ll have a FULL DAY of digital programming, with beer yoga, a panel on social media, a drawing class with Collective Arts Brewing, and more!
And thanks to our friends at Oozlefinch Beers and Blending, if you live in one of our target states (OH, OR, PA, VA, ND, NE, NV, NH, OR D.C.), we’ll be able to ship you a box of either six (GA Pack) or eleven beers (VIP Pack).
COVID may have interrupted a lot of plans for 2020, but you’ll still be able to make new friends, drink great beer, and celebrate the incredible accomplishments of women in the industry — now from the comfort of your living room.
What Does Bumble Have To Do With Beers With(out) Beards 2020?
In 2014, Whitney Wolfe Herd founded Bumble, “a social network that encourages its users to make meaningful connections in love, friendship, and work through promoting kindness, respect, and empowerment.”
In addition to representing these values within the app, Bumble also goes out of their way to support organizations that align with their mission of empowerment. That’s how Hop Culture and Bumble got connected.
Just like Bumble, Hop Culture’s Beers With(out) Beards 2020 programming promotes inclusivity, equity, justice, and empowerment. Their support helped us to convert Beers With(out) Beards to a digital format, and stay tuned for some exciting Hop Culture x Bumble merch coming down the line.
The Bottom Line on Beers With(out) Beards
“Normal” is very different in 2020.
We’ve had to rethink how craft beer festivals will look in the future. We weren’t content just skipping a year of Beers With(out) Beards, which without fail is one of our favorite events every year. So, we’re extremely excited for the digital version of our celebration of women in craft beer.
Beers With(out) Beards 2020 also has the benefit of reaching many more folks. We will be able to ship beer boxes to eight states and Washington, D.C. and anyone in the entire world with an internet connection can tune into the digital events. We’ll be featuring some of the most inspiring women in beer in our various panels, workshops, and conversations. And we’ll be sipping some delicious, female-brewed beer while it all happens.
We hope you’ll join us for Beers With(out) Beards 2020 empowered by Bumble and supported by all of you!
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About The Author
Kenny Gould
Currently Drinking:
Dancing Gnome Pounce
Kenny Gould graduated from Duke University with a degree in English. In 2017 -- the same year he founded Hop Culture -- he received his M.F.A. in Fiction from Chatham University. In addition to running Hop Culture, Kenny has contributed to Men's Health, Thrillist, Time Out New York, Munchies, and Bon Appetit, and currently contributes to Forbes. He recently published The Brewing Cloud, a collection of fictional short stories about the beer industry.
