2008: The year of the (beer) woman?

I read a lot of blogs. (Most of the blogs about beer and related topics that I read are listed over there in our “beerroll”.) I probably read too many. I’m a voracious reader, what can I say?

One upside of reading so many different sources is that I can often recognize trends. Or, at least, if not trends, current fads.

While catching up this morning, I read Lew Bryson’s piece on Portfolio.com about how beer is under-marketed to women.

Beer marketing reeks of testosterone. The staples include sports, cowboys, rappers—male rappers—big powerful animals, physical labor, and frat-boy humor. When women appear, they’re either carrying a tray of beers or standing around looking beautiful.

Yep. I happen to be a big NFL fan and try to watch as many games as I can. (With two young children it can be a challenge.) Now, I don’t know if I’m just becoming more mature or the ads more peurile, but I often can’t stand to stay in the room (or on the channel) when the game breaks for commercials. (And that can be quite often, as you know.)

(I would like to get my girls interested in football, but the marketers are so locked in that the only people watching football are males 18-29 years old, they show some wholely inappropriate commercials in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. Enough with the “Saw III” (and other horror films) commercials! Who do I have to write to to get them to knock it off?)

My wife likes beer, and she likes good beer. That’s my influence, though. If she went by the way beer is mass marketed, she wouldn’t touch the stuff.

Anyway, not ten minutes after reading Lew’s piece, I happened across a recap by Wilson of Brewvana about his experiment of having six women, spanning six decades, sample and rate six different craft beers.

First off, it was a whole lot of fun. I provided a little background on the brewing process, as well as the ingredients involved. We talked about aromas, flavors, mouthfeels. We talked about their drinking experiences and preferences (which ranged from beer to mixed drinks to wine to margaritas to straight up tequila). And we talked about macro-advertising’s failure to engage them.

There was more than just the tasting, of course. Part of his article includes opinions from the women on how beer could be better marketed to them.

“Point blank, breweries could do a better job explaining their different beers in their commercials.”

“Women (buy based on) labels, cool names. Education (would help).”

“They could start by not focusing on men.”

“Show women enjoying beer.”

Hear, hear! Wilson concludes with a number of sites where beer and women intersect. (I am proud to say that of the blogs he listed, I already read all of them.)

So, is 2008 when brewers, large and small, start marketing to women in a serious way? Where else have you seen beer and women intersect in a positive (non-exploitive) way?

Update: Stan Hieronymus has apparently noticed the same thing and cites some more examples.