Women’s beer guild, more popular than ever!

You cannot get our reporter stressed out easily. He has spoken to many beer connoisseurs, and performing a speech to groups is no problem. But tonight is different. He stays in the bathroom just a little longer and at dinner he didn’t get a bite down his throat. Tonight a really tough job awaits him. He is the only man present with 40 (!) ladies of the women’s beer guild; For the love of beer!

Once arrived at bar d’r Neffe in Roosendaal we are welcomed by the ladies who organized this theme evening. “Welcome, do you want a beer?” With this greeting, the reporter calmed down. Time for the interview.

Why a women’s beer guild?

There are plenty of men’s beer guilds and of course ladies are very welcome there. “Together with Linda van Hooijdonk and Birgit Danen we had the idea that having a beer guild for women would be even more fun than joining an existing one,” says Maaike. “We have only just started tasting beers and the existing beer guild was much further in terms of knowledge and tasting experience. We wanted to do it at our own pace and get more knowledge of beer ourselves. With our beer guild we want to be a group where it’s a pleasure to be among other beerlovers. However, it does have a serious note, we want to increase our knowledge of and interest in beer. Once we started and picked the name of our guild we had to go out and find us some members.

Linda: “What happened then was really crazy, in no time we had 30 members and it didn’t stop there. Registrations kept coming in. We are on 43 members including the board for now, but there are also 36 ladies on the waiting list. Why stop at 43? That is very practical. We want to go on a bus every year as an outing and that means a limit due to the capacity of a bus. And of course we need to be able to hear each other during the tastings.”

Time to taste

Then we are urged to silence. The serious work can begin and a powerpoint presentation is even started with the theme: Sweet and Sour. Lucie van Oers takes us into the world of geuze and tells the group everything about the first beer, the Faro Boon. While the ladies are seriously tasting, I ask Lucie who decides which theme and which beers are on the program. “At the annual members’ meeting, all ideas are collected and asked who wants to take on what. We are often with 3 people who organize it. In order to prepare we did some tasting in advance, somebody has to do it haha. ”

The difference with a men’s beer guild

In the meantime, the chairwoman is pouring me the Duchesse de Bourgogne, a classic that will look great on this evening. “I don’t like this beer myself, but it fits well with the theme.” While enjoying the beer, I ask Linda what the biggest difference is with a men’s beer guild. “Actually there are 2 things. An important difference is that members sometimes take 9 months off because they are not allowed to drink, if you know what I mean. This will not happen so quickly in a men’s beer guild. We can also be a bit more exuberant with regard to the themes. I am reminded of the theme of white beer. That in itself is not very exciting you would think. There is not much difference between different white beers. But in this case everyone was dressed in white, there was a DJ and Maaike even came in a wedding dress with wedding bouquet and all.

The future

As a final question, I asked the chairwoman what her wish is for the women’s beer guild: “We want a long-term right to exist and, despite the creative outbursts, we want to be a serious beer guild and also radiate this. Going out more by, for example, also organizing events in Roosendaal such as a beerfestival or whatever comes to mind. ”