Women move into beer brewing
Ava Nakagawa has a fondness for beer. She’s fond of the taste, fond of the smell, fond of the industry.
‘‘I am really naughty when I drink beer, and so I don’t drink it that often because I have one beer, and I’m like ‘oh my God, this is amazing’. I get really excited about the company that I’m with, and then I get really geeked out on the beer and want to try everything and smell everything.’’
So perhaps it’s not that surprising the Christchurch mum-of-three started a brewery, The Beer Baroness around the time of the quake when ‘‘craft beer really took off in Christchurch’’.
Nakagawa is one of a growing number of women working in New Zealand’s beer industry – an industry that was once dominated by males.
For 20 years Nakagawa’s mum and partner owned Christchurch pub Pomeroy’s, where she ‘‘fell in love with the people in the industry’’.
‘‘I love that there’s a really strong family and community aspect in craft beer because it is so small.’’
The number of women drinking beer has also exploded.
A Victoria University study in 2019 showed women make up around 30 per cent of all craft beer drinkers.
They also account for half of the attendees at Beervana.
Nakagawa says being a woman in the industry is now not really even a ‘thing’. More women are getting involved all the time and perceptions are shifting.
‘‘It’s irrelevant, because actually it’s just about the right person doing the job, and now I think people are accepting that women do a really great job.’’
She rattles off names of women doing great things across the New Zealand beer industry – among them Tracy Banner, who has been in the industry for 38 years and is owner and master brewer at Nelson-based brewery Sprig and Fern.
Banner worked at three large breweries in the UK before coming to New Zealand in 1994, and working at Lion, then McCashin’s as head brewer for 12 years, before and then the first female head brewer at iconic brewery, Speight’s.
She launched Sprig and Fern 12 years ago. Natasha O’Brien manages DB’s biggest beer operation in Waitemata¯ , moving from stealing ‘‘sips from my Dad when I was sitting on his knee watching the rugby’’ to combining a degree in Process Engineering from Massey University with her fondness for beer.
‘‘Massey was very social, and after I finished I thought I’m just going to combine my two loves, of beer and engineering, and proudly announced I was going to be a brewer.’’
A stint near her hometown of Geraldine in South Canterbury at Mainland Brewery has turned into a career that’s taken her around the world and led to her now having s a team of more than 80 people.
O’Brien says she’s passionate about attracting more women to work within the industry because she feels ‘‘we’re still well-underrepresented’’.
O’Brien says she loves beer’s ever-changing landscape. ‘‘I’m a curious person, and I’m a people person. The whole fascination over the craft of brewing is what got me into it.
‘‘It’s just a fun industry and a cool career.’’