Breweries in Thunder Bay, Ont., toast International Women's Day with special beer created by women

Women at breweries in Thunder Bay, Ont., are toasting International Women's Day today with their own specially created beer, while helping local charities. 

Lakehead Beer Company, Dawson Trail Craft Brewery, Sleeping Giant Brewing Company were involved with Canada Malting, which provided the malt for the creation of the pomegranate rye pale brew, called Better Together.

The Thunder Bay initiative is just one of many around the world focusing on women and the brewing industry, part of International Women's Collaboration Brew Day, which was founded in 2014 and is held in conjunction with International Women's Day. 

In Thunder Bay, the Better Together beer will be available on tap at Lakehead Beer Company and Dawson Trail Craft Brewery, with proceeds from sales going to charities.

Ashley Watt, head brewer at Dawson Trail Craft Brewery, said other breweries around the world started brews in late February to release them Wednesday.

"Some people are brewing them on March 8. So in the next month or two, there's gonna be hopefully a lot of beers released for it all throughout Canada, the U.S., internationally. So it's really cool," said Watt.

"There's a map on their website, and it'll show you everyone who's participating. So you'll see how widespread it is. It's really cool that Thunder Bay is included on the map this year. So that's exciting." 

Alyssa Kwasny, a logistics co-ordinator at Canada Malting, said she and Watt wanted a get-together to create a brew as the opportunity wasn't there during the COVID-19 pandemic..

"We thought it'd be fun to get just like women from the brewing industry in Thunder Bay together just to brew something and hopefully get it in time for International Women's Day," said Kwasny.

Kwasny also commented on the lack of women in the brewing industry, especially on the production side.

According to a 2019 employee report by the American-based Brewers Association, about 7.5 per cent of reporting breweries had employed a female in the brewer role, while 37 per cent of women were in "non-production" staff roles.

Kwasny, however, said things are starting to change.

"I feel like Thunder Bay was a little bit behind in that. Now we actually have a bunch of women that are on the production side. We still have a long way to go and especially with having more diversity in beer, that tends to lack often," said Kwasny, also noting a lack of members of the LGBTQ2+ community and people of colour in the industry.

The day the Better Together beer was brewed served as an opportunity for women from different companies to meet each other and mingle, while showing people interested in brewing how it's done.