Campaign for females is needed to bridge the gender pint gap
ANEW report commissioned by Dea Latis, a group set up to inform and educate women about beer, has found the UK has the lowest percentage of female beer drinkers in the world, despite the craft beer boom writes Neville Grundy.
The “Gender Pint Gap” report also concluded that outdated sexist marketing, misunderstanding about the calorie content of beer and negative perceptions about flavours in beer all contributed to British women avoiding drinking it.
The research is the first carried out about female attitudes to beer in almost a decade.
Dea Latis wanted to discover if the UK’s brewing boom in the last decade had inspired more women to drink beer. The findings include: Only 17% of women drink beer at least once a week – compared with 53% of men.
Male-oriented advertising is one of the three main barriers for more than a quarter (27%) of women drinking beer – almost half (48%) for 18 to 24-year-old women.
A fifth of women (20%) say that high calorie content is a significant barrier.
Seventeen per cent of women feel that “being judged by others” is another.
Thirty-two per cent of women would now drink beer at home with friends, compared with just 3% in a survey in 2009.
Taste is the great divide: of the women who drink beer, 56% do so because they like the taste; of the women who never drink beer, 83% don’t like the taste.
The report’s authors say the findings raise an important question: why is the beer industry not tapping into this female market with an image overhaul?
Women make up 51% of the UK population: a big potential market that isn’t being tapped.
Dea Latis director Annabel Smith said: “Overtly masculine advertising and promotion of beer has been largely absent from media channels for a number of years but there is a lot of history to unravel.
“Women still perceive beer branding is targeted at men.”
Camra recently issued a statement condemning not just sexist, but all discriminatory marketing of beer and all discriminatory behaviour by members.
Is there more the industry could do to entice women drinkers?
There are six beer festivals in the West Lancs and Preston area on May 24-28.
Space prevents me listing them, so please go to: tinyurl. com/alefests.
Southport and West Lancs Camra website: www.southport.camra.org.uk.
For previous Camra articles, go to: tinyurl.com/vis-pubs.