Sophie Atherton: The female pound is worth the same as anyone else’s money

There’s no doubt that being the first woman in the UK to be accredited as a beer​ sommelier has given my work a boost, but the interest in my achievement, my gender and my drink of choice shows that the idea of women drinking beer is still considered a novelty.

It also prompts people to ask me about women and beer. It’s a subject some never tire of discussing but others shy away from. Let’s be clear on the matter now. If you run a pub, you can’t afford to ignore it.

The value of a pound in a woman’s pocket is the same as a pound in a man’s so it’s in your interests that she chooses to spend her money, on beer, with you.

Don’t worry, I’m not about to lecture you. I want to share something with you. A beer-loving marketing expert from the US, called Ginger Johnson, has written a book designed to help (she doesn’t want to lecture you either). She runs something called Women Enjoying Beer and wants to enable you to have a business where women can do just that.

Her book is about marketing beer to everyone, not just women. I guess that’s one of her main points. Women are everyone (or half of everyone if you like). Johnson indicates the first step to marketing beer to women is offering what she refers to as beer education.

This is something that echoes data I included in this year’s Cask Report​. Research for the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) found 92% of consumers want to know more about beer styles and two thirds want to know more about what beer is made from. On top of this, 60% feel there aren’t sufficient beer tasting notes in pubs (and other licensed premises). This is proof that customers want ‘beer education’, but how you deliver it is crucial.

“When you offer female-targeted beer education, make sure it’s about beer and people, not about gender,” says Johnson. “The key is to facilitate offering women the opportunity to taste any kind of beer.”
She also busts some myths. “It’s a long-held error that women only like certain kinds of beer. It’s also inaccurate that they dislike other kinds of beer by sheer virtue of gender.”

Simple ideas

Reading her book, much of what she is saying sounds simple to me, but genius is often about putting simple ideas into practice rather than getting bogged down by trying to be too clever. That said this is a book packed with good ideas; things that those in the brewing and beer industry can do to make their beer offering more woman-friendly.

Each chapter ends with a ‘what you can do today?’ section. One of my favourite pieces of advice is when a woman orders a beer, offer her a sample of another beer as well. Make sure it’s something fresh and in perfect condition and think about what beer it should be – something similar, a complete contrast or a beer that matches any food that’s been ordered.

Being able to make a success of doing this depends on the beer you have but offering a free sample can pay off in many ways – not least that you’ll be acknowledging women enjoy beer. Anything that moves us away from the attitude that women drinking beer is, at best, unusual and, at worst, freakish is a good thing.

Adapting the advice

This book is written primarily for a US audience, by an American author using research based on American women drinkers but we can adapt what’s in this book to British beer culture – and what’s in the book will spark ideas we can use. I’d go as far as to say it’s a case of needing to adapt to survive.

There is an appetite for beer but the number of places people can drink it – including their own homes – is ever increasing.

You only have to look at coffee shops adding beer to their menus and the vast number of internet beer shops to see businesses lining up as competition for pubs. So a book on marketing beer to the under-tapped female market has arrived right on time.

How to Market Beer to Women is available via www.womenenjoyingbeer.com​.