THE GENDER PINT GAP: REVISITED/BARRIERS46Insight: Looking to the futureDea Latis has always advocated gender-neutrality when it comes to beer. The following (abridged) article by Lillian Stone waspublished in November 2023 on the BBC Workspace website. It challenges some of the previous theories and beliefs that “womendon’t want a beer for women”. This article presents an argument that an innovative combination of marketing, advertising, tasteprofiles and imagery can prove successful in attracting more women to the category.Boldly displayed in the craft-beer section of a supermarket in New York City are four-packs of brightly coloured cans with geometricpatterns, inviting consumers to experience the fruit-forward beers within them. If their aesthetic comes off as "feminine", especially amid themasculine marketing of the cans beside them, that's the point.The company behind the drinks in this pastel-and-jewel-toned packaging is Talea Beer Co, a woman-owned Brooklyn-based brewery,founded in 2019 by LeAnn Darland and Tara Hankinson."Our hypothesis when founding Talea was that women like us were not being considered as customers by the existing craft beer breweries.We aim to make craft beer more inclusive, whether you are a woman, a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, a minority or just new tocraft beer."Women have always consumed beer, but they've often been an afterthought in the alcohol landscape 3 if not entirely alienated by sexistmarketing tropes. For years, major beer brands and craft breweries alike have targeted men as their primary demographic. But where UKbased brewers have made more moves to pivot from sexist marketing, US brands are playing catch up.Kate Bernot, a beverage-alcohol reporter who has written extensively on demographic shifts for Good Beer Hunting's Sightlines, callsinclusive marketing an "economic imperative". She says, "The cool cultural norms today are not heteronormative, gendered cultural normsanymore. I think women 3 and many men 3 are thrilled to see a smarter, fresher take. It requires companies to work a little harder."All these factors are propelling the beer industry well past the sexist culture of the 90s and early 2000s. "Craft brewers 3 especially in theearly phases of the craft beer movement in America 3 had this very rebellious attitude," says Bernot. This mindset led to what Bernot calls a"very aggressive kind of marketing" 3 for example, Stone Brewing's Arrogant Bastard Ale, a so-called celebration of "liquid arrogance" with atagline that proclaims: 'You're not worthy.' Bernot argues that brutish marketing might dissuade potential consumers who already feelexcluded from the industry."That attitude is very off-putting for women 3 it's kind of off-putting for everyone," she says. "You're literally being told, 'This isn't for you'.''
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