Women of Brussels Beer // Volume #2

The world of Brussels brewing is, for the most part, male and pale (if not quite stale). A 2021 survey conducted by Céric Dautinger, co-founder of the Beer.be beer news website, revealed the data behind what was already anecdotally obvious to anyone who has spent time drinking in the city’s tap rooms and bars. 

Of the 21 Brussels breweries Dautinger surveyed (and the 20 that replied), women made up 16% of brewery owners, with eight female co-owners out of 49 in total. 28% of full-time employees were women, in a city where 51.1% of the population is female. The rapid increase in the number of breweries in Brussels - from two in 2010 to somewhere between 20 and 30 (depending on how you define them) in 2023 - has changed the brewing landscape in the city, ushering in a period of variety Brussels’ hasn’t experienced in decades. 

But that diversity stops at the tap handle. As Dautinger wrote when launching the survey results, the presence of women in Brussels’ beer scene lags behind, for example, the USA, where 24% of brewery owners in 2021 were women. There are no equivalent figures for either of Belgium’s other regions - Flanders and Wallonia - nor at the national level. But even a cursory visit to a Belgian beer festival, a trawl through the country’s online beer communities, a visit to any of its beer warehouses, or a conversation with any number of women regularly subject to misogynistic abuse and denigration of their qualifications because of their gender, will tell you that Belgium’s beer community has yet to reckon with its gender equality problem.

Bad as the stats are, they don’t tell the whole story. Women may still be outnumbered by men in the C-suite and on the brewhouse floor, but there are still many women making waves in Brussels’ beer scene. And their numbers are growing. Three years ago, just as Covid-19 hit, Brussels Beer City featured six of their stories. You can read them here. With the worst of the pandemic (hopefully) behind us, with the city’s beer community slowly and with some difficulty reaching an even keel, and with new businesses and breweries emerging in the interim three years, it seemed like a good idea to repeat the exercise.

For the month of March, then, Brussels Beer City is celebrating and amplifying the voices of women working in beer in Brussels. From brewery owners to brewers, tour guides, and educators there will be an article each week will focus on the stories, views, and experiences of four women working in the city’s close-knit beer community:

You can already read the first profile - of Morane Le Hiress, co-founder and brewer at Janine Boulangerie-Brasserie - here.

Eoghan Walshwomen in beer