Exposed speaks to Rachel Green, one of a team of three brewers at award-winning Sheffield brewery Heist Brew Co.
Top image: Ross Jarman
How did you get into brewing?
I dabbled in homebrewing back in 2018, when I was working in pubs and learning about beer. I only became a Brewer in June last year following my move to Heist. While I was in pubs, I became fascinated by the brewing process; my degree in Chemical Engineering provides a brilliant background as the main focus was following a process from raw material to finished product. I started off drinking cask ale and real German lagers, so shoutout to Augustiner Bräu Helles for being the first lager I enjoyed and remaining a firm favourite. My desire to learn more lead to applying for a Brewery Operative job at Thornbridge; this was an invaluable experience and taught me best practices for working in a brewery. During this time, I got a taste for the craft beer scene and more experimental beers and wanted to delve further into brewing.
So, is it the creative side of things that you enjoy about the brewing process?
I enjoy both the creativity and physical aspects. I’m not one to sit still all day, so the variety of the job is definitely a plus. Building fun recipes is one of the best parts of the job. We recently released No Free Parkin’ as a collaboration with Mad Squirrel Brewery – a big, boozy Scotch Ale with treacle and ginger, and the inspiration for these flavours was my favourite cake! I love pushing the boundaries a bit. I’m working on perfecting a white stout, which is a pale beer with unexpected roasty flavour and thickness associated with a stout. I think sometimes beer is taken very seriously, but for me the beauty of craft beer is developing weird and wonderful flavours.
We recently released No Free Parkin’ as a collaboration with Mad Squirrel Brewery
– a big boozy Scotch Ale with treacle and
The Sheffield beer scene is a fairly male-dominated environment. As a woman in the industry, how do you feel your experiences have differed to your male counterparts?
Being a woman in a male-dominated field is something I always anticipated – as a child I wanted to be a plumber! I won’t say it’s easy, but I’m so grateful to the generations of women before me that broke down the door so I could walk a similar path. There have been times I have to alter the way I do things to suit my physicality, but I can still lift a 25 kg bag of grain over my shoulder! I still get looks of surprise when I’m introduced as a brewer. I still get ‘taught’ about beer by people less qualified than me. I’m lucky to have been supported through my career, and while my experiences haven’t always been positive, I feel the industry is moving in the right direction.
So, do you think the industry does enough to celebrate and promote diversity?
As far as I’m concerned, the beer industry isn’t that diverse: most of my peers are white and male. I’m a white cis woman who speaks nicely, so I’m the most palatable side of diversity. International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day was set up to celebrate women in the industry and I love this event. I see it as a time to network and find other brewers who share the same struggles as me, and a chance to show other women that the beer industry is accessible to them. There is a revolution throughout the craft beer community, and ‘the way things have always been’ is being forced to change.
Heist Brew Co’s International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day event is on 8th March. The brewery will be open to all women and non-binary folk for a brew-along starting at 12pm. The event will last into the evening with a Tasting Masterclass provided by a female Certified Beer Server, and tickets are now available online.
