Female brewers take center stage at San Jose event

News flash, everyone: Women like beer, and some of them are pretty damn good at making it, too. Don’t believe me? Check out “An Evening of Curious Friendship,” a beer-centered event at San Jose’s City Lights Theater Company on Jan. 28. It’ll feature a panel of female brewers and other women in the beer industry, along with showcasing female artists.

The panelists are Jillian Stone of Santa Rosa’s Seismic Brewing; Joanna Dunham at Camino Brewing in San Jose; Ariella Bunnell of Golden State Brewery in Santa Clara; Danielle Byres, brand manager for Berkeley’s The Rare Barrel; and Cassie TenCate, a microbiologist at Gigayeast and the head of San Jose’s chapter of Girls Pint Out.

The event is being put together, in part, by South Bay Beer Hounds, a beer enthusiasts group on Facebook with more than 2,000 members that was founded by Paul Anderson and organizes the huge Pints for Pups fundraisers. Anderson’s wife, Deb Anderson, is also a beer fan and happens to be on the board of City Lights. The combination of beer, women and City Lights seemed obvious to her.

About 40 percent of the group’s membership are women, Anderson estimated. “And some of our most vocal members are female,” she said.

The artists featured included painter Lily Hartenstein, fiber artist Katrina Car and sculptor Anna Bartosz. And there’ll be bites provided by the Waffle Amore food truck, which is owned by Judy Vandoorne. Proceeds from the evening will benefit Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, which Anderson says was excited about the partnership.

Tickets for the 7 p.m. event are available online for $50 at www.cltc. org.