Tara Nurin (A Woman’s Place Is in the Brewhouse) discusses the contributions and influence of female brewers and explores the forces that have erased them from the brewing world, with Libby Roether, innovation brewmaster at Devils Backbone Brewing Co. Roether will also lead a short tasting of four beers, featured in the March 2022 Bounce Box.
Watch the video from this event:
Bounce Box is a small-batch brewing initiative from Devils Backbone Brewing Co., offering limited-run beers brewed monthly and available for shipping within Virginia. To order your 2022 Festival Bounce Box, which will include four unique beers and your own copy of A Woman’s Place Is in the Brewhouse, please click below to place your order by February 28. Orders may still be placed after that date, but delivery in time for this event cannot be guaranteed. To learn more about how Bounce Box works, click here.
Thanks to our bookseller for this event, Fountain Bookstore. Attendees and supporters of the Festival are eligible for a 20% discount on the speaker’s title linked above until Thursday, March 31, 2022, using coupon code: YAYVABOOK22
Dismiss the stereotype of the bearded brewer. It’s women, not men, who’ve brewed beer throughout most of human history. Their role as family and village brewer lasted for hundreds of thousands of years. It’s a history that’s simultaneously inspiring and demeaning. Wherever and whenever the cottage brewing industry has grown profitable, politics, religion, and capitalism have grown greedy. On a macro scale, men have repeatedly seized control and forced women out of the business. But there are more breweries now than at any time in American history and today women serve as founder, CEO, or head brewer at more than one thousand of them.
“Nurin has written one of the more novel and, indeed, necessary beer books of the past few decades. It was an eye-opener to learn about a segment of the brewing past that’s often overlooked or simply outright ignored. I highly recommend this read to anyone serious, or even just curious, about beer.”—Tom Acitelli, author of The Audacity of Hops: The History of America’s Craft Beer Revolution
“A timely, fascinating, and incisive reminder of what has always been true but too often ignored: women are every bit as core to the beer industry as their male counterparts. Nurin’s deeply reported and lovingly told tale underscores that a woman’s place isn’t only in the brewhouse but across every inch of the beer industry.”—Josh Noel, author of Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out
“Nurin shines a much-needed spotlight on the ‘herstory’ of beer during a time of reckoning and self-reflection in our industry. From Mesopotamian women with cauldrons to modern-day brewery owners like myself, Tara effortlessly captures the evolution and importance of women in beer over thousands of years on the pages of this captivating read!”—Natalie Cilurzo, co-owner and president, Russian River Brewing Company
“A very insightful book highlighting the relevance of women in the brewing industry in Africa and around the world.”—Peace Onwuchekwa, brewer, Bature Brewery, Nigeria
Sponsors
W. Tucker Lemon, VH Board member and advocate for Reading Under the Influence
Virginia Festival of the Book staff, volunteers, partners, and attendees appreciate all of our sponsors. It is their crucial support, along with individual donors, that allows us to present the 2022 Virginia Festival of the Book almost completely free of charge. We appreciate the generous commitment from our Premier Sponsor, The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and these major sponsors: Michelle and David Baldacci, Dominion Energy, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
