The Gender Pint Gap Revisited FINAL - Flipbook - Page 53
THE GENDER PINT GAP: REVISITED/OPINIONS, PREFERENCES AND BELIEFS
Commentary and Opportunities
Lager is the preferred choice of beer style for both men and
women: it’s accessible, it’s easy drinking and widely available.
During the Covid 19 pandemic the trend for lager accelerated, with
lager’s market share increasing to above 80%, because of associated
on-trade closures and restrictions, and ‘real’ ale being unavailable
in the off-trade. According to the BBPA Statistical Handbook 2023,
by the end of 2022, lager accounted for 78.1%, ale 16.7% and stout
grew its market share to 5.2% of total beer sales (across all genders).
Semantics comes into play with one category: bitter. We
reported in the Beer A-Gender that many women associate
negative connotations with the word ‘bitter’, and it could be
argued that this is the case here. 11% of men chose ‘bitter’ as their
preferred style versus 3% of women. Rename this a ‘pale ale’ or
‘India pale ale’ (both substyles of bitter) and female engagement
is far higher.
“I think the industry should
focus on education. Building bar
staff’s ‘beer confidence’ — when
it comes to tasting, describing,
and recommending beers — will
help them engage with beercurious women in a way that
invites them in, by moving away
from stereotypes and without
judgment.”
Natalya Watson, Beer
Sommelier and Advanced
Cicerone®
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What IS your preferred style?
We included a free text box with this question: if the respondents
preferred style didn’t appear in the list of options provided, they
were asked to type their favourite style into a free text box.
Out of the 200 respondents who picked ‘Other’ as their favourite
style of beer, forty-four respondents filled in the free text box.
20% of this group named ‘cider’ as their favourite beer style,
suggesting there was some confusion about what beer is.
11% named ‘gluten-free beer’ as their favourite style,
suggesting they thought gluten free beer was a style rather
than a subcategory of the beer styles we had listed.
9% named Guinness as their favourite style of beer, suggesting
they see the brand as a stand-alone style without knowing the
beer is classed as a ‘stout or porter’.
It’s just beer, isn’t it?
The Opportunity
28% of women didn’t know
what their preferred style of
beer was (compared to only
9% of men).
Confusion over
terminology isn’t just an
issue for women, it’s a
broader issue.
It could be argued that these
women view all beer as the
same, without variances in
colour, aroma and flavour.
Perhaps the industry
should focus on colours,
aromas and flavours ahead
of ‘style’ to make entry into
the category more
accessible?
