Ginger Johnson of Women Enjoying Beer is embarking on a three-month tour of the United States to connect with breweries and to continue gathering information about women and their interest in beer.
Having sold their house in Ames, IA, Ginger, her husband, and their 2 labrador dogs, Belle and Hops, will hit the road on 21 September. Their first destination is the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CO where Ginger will ply the festival floor interviewing and talking to women in attendance. After Denver, her tour itinerary leads to the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, all the way to Florida, and up the east coast before arriving back in the Midwest around Christmas. The route and other details of the trip can be found at WomenEnjoyingBeer.com.
Ginger will hold focus groups and private events in many of the places she visits. One of the drivers for the trip is to learn what women in different areas of the country think about beer. To date her research has been in the Midwest from Minneapolis to Des Moines and Kansas City.
She will also use what she is learning to work with various breweries. Standing Stone Brewing Co. in Ashland, Oregon and Buckbean Brewing Co. in Reno, Nevada are two breweries that have contracted with Ginger for various programs surrounding women and beer. “Alex of Standing Stone and I met at the Craft Brewers Conference. This trip is a good opportunity for us to collaborate on site at their brewery,” says Johnson.
Created in early 2009, Women Enjoying Beer grew out of a presentation Ginger gave at the Craft Brewers Conference this past April in Boston. As a consumer herself who slowly grew to love beer, Ginger realized that breweries have a large market share to be gained by developing and serving half of the population that is often neglected. She also learned that a lot of women are definitely interested in beer if they have a good educational introduction to it. “A lot of beer marketing has always been geared towards men. A myth is also pervasive that women don’t like beer. In reality, women enjoy the vast flavors that beer offers. I help bring women and breweries together,” says Johnson.
