The Love of Beer, a report from the field
I am happy to announce the first guest blogger post to The Brewstorian. Not surprisingly, it's about brewing beer. But not just beer, Pacific Northwest women brewing beer.
When I saw that there was a screening of "The Love of Beer" movie, a meet the brewer, and a Q&A with Tonya Cornett in Bend at the end of November I cursed the mountains and wintery weather... But I quickly recovered and asked Sara Thompson to go in my stead. She said yes and once again all was right with the world! But not only did she go, she wrote a post and took some pictures! My thanks go out to Sara for a fun and informative post.
On a chilly Thursday night in Bend, about 100 women with beer in hand filled up the couches and comfy chairs of the McMenamin's Old St. Francis theater for a movie screening about … women and beer, of course. The Central Oregon Beer Angels hosted the event, featuring the documentary The Love of Beer with a Q&A from one of the local featured brewers.
The Beer Angels are coming up on their second anniversary and in that short amount of time the club has already grown to over 300 members. Each month since their beginning in January 2012 has been packed with events such as beer tastings, speakers, brewing lessons, and even moonlight canoe tours.
The documentary featured many familiar faces for the Beer Angels. Ginger Johnson of Women Enjoying Beer led a breakfast focus group with members in August, and Lisa Morrison (aka the Beer Goddess) signed her latest book and spoke about beer glasses in February. The audience laughed and cheered along with the triumphs of the women in the film, but the warmest welcome was saved for the special guest, Tonya Cornett of 10 Barrel Brewing.
During the Q&A period, Beer Angels could call out by name Tonya's past beers from both Bend Brewing Company and 10 Barrel. When asked about the possibility of starting her own brewery, Cornett answered that she loves the brewing process itself and doesn't want to be one of those owners who has to push around paperwork while others get to brew. So for the time being, she is happy doing what she does: "I'm not a painter, I'm not a writer, but I can make you a beer."
Sara Thompson is the OSU-Cascades librarian in Bend and one of the Central Oregon beer correspondents for the OHBA. Her favorite beers are very dark, rather strong, and probably aged in barrels, cellars, or both.
