All female beer brewing competition won by Dea Latis member

Trumpet heralds at the ready:  DeaLatis member and confirmed beer advocate Louise Ashworth is the winner of a competition for women to create a recipe for their perfect beer. Louise’s fabulous recipe triumphed and later in Spring she will be travelling up to Grantham to brew ……. Wheat Watchers! 

Jane Peyton, Principal of the School of Booze devised the competition in collaboration with Sara Barton at Brewsters Brewing Company as a way of inspiring women to consider brewing beer.  Entrants were asked to take inspiration from one of DivineFairtrade chocolate brands and come up with a beer that they would want to drink.  The prize was for the winner to brew their own recipe with Sara at Brewsters.

Louise described her inspiration for Wheat Watcher’s “My idea is for a wheat beer with raspberries as I think that a lot of women, and men, can be put off from drinking real ale as they think that it will be too bitter. I think that wheat beer is delicious and can be more accessible for non-ale drinkers than many other styles of beer. Unfortunately it isn’t always easy to find a wheat beer in the majority of pubs. I would really like to see wheat beer more widely available and hopefully the beer that we are going to create will be onsale in a large number of pubs.”

Jane and Sara were really impressed with the quality and inventiveness of the competition entries.  Dozens of women entered (and a few men too!) and Sara judged the entries blind.  She chose these recipes as the top 3:

 1st place: Wheat beer with raspberries. By Louise Ashworth

Inspired by Divine Dark Chocolate with Raspberries.

2nd place: Stout with raspberries, cardamom and black pepper. By Orla Lambe

Inspired by Divine Dark Chocolate with Raspberries.

3rd place: Golden ale with chestnut honey and thyme (the honey is supplied by the entrant’s friend from local bees) by Hazel Paterson

Inspired by Divine’s Fruit and Nut

Sara chose Louise’s entry as the winner because she “liked the contrast between the light fruity style of the wheat beer and the dark chocolate with raspberries and felt it would really complement the flavour of the chocolate. Wheat beers are a very interesting complex product with interplay between malt, hops and yeast in particular giving a deceptively full flavoured brew. I am really looking forward to producing the winning entry and am sure it will go down well with publicans and drinkers alike.”

Another really inventive entry was by another DeaLatis member – Niki Skaife, publican of the excellent Masons Arms, Bishop Monkton, near Harrogate.  Niki received an honourable mention for her delicious sounding Mild with Sloe and Juniper.

Jane and Sara had such fun with this competition – and judging by the amazing recipes that came in, so did the women who entered.  It was obvious by all the recipes that us women love flavour! 

When Louise’s Wheat Watcher’s beer is brewed we’ll let you know – maybe you’ll find it on the bar of a pub near you…..