In Nottingham, Castle Rock Brewery teamed up with the Sheffield-based Thornbridge Brewery for their International Women’s Collab Brew Day.
Jessica Collins, marketing manager at Castle Rock, said: “We were lucky enough this year to be joined by Thornbridge Brewery for our International Women’s Collab Brew Day this year.
“As we don’t have any female brewers currently on the team, IWCBD has become a way for us to showcase others in the industry. We also open the brewery up to local women interested in learning more about beer/brewing – this year we had over 25 women join us to help brew the beer.”
Dark coffee mild
The resulting product was named “Are We There Yet” a 4.0% Coffee Mild. “Brewers Alice and Laura from Thornbridge chose to brew a dark coffee mild and we named it “Are We There Yet?” – inspired by this year’s IWD Theme: ‘Accelerate Action’,” Jessica said.
“Rebecca Painter from Thornbridge designed the beautiful pump clip and 10p from every pint goes to Nottingham Women’s Centre.”
Elsewhere in the sector, Top 50 Cocktail’s bar alumni Stray brought together some of Manchester’s leading operators to celebrate the day.
The bar, which was female founded, used the event to showcase women from across the Manchester hospitality scene, including Hawksmoor, Schofield’s, Erst, Red Light, Ego Death, Blinker, 10 Tib Lane and Osma.
A curated martini menu created by female bartenders from across the city was served up by the Stray team. In addition, Chef Patron of Osma, Danielle Heron created a delicious menu of snacks to accompany the martini list, while spinning the perfect soundtrack for the night was renowned Manchester DJ Mix-Stress.
Incredibly talented females
Stray founder Fran Cruse explained: “We operate in a city and industry full of incredibly talented females who we’ve been lucky enough to become friends with; getting them all in one room and on one menu for International Women’s Day felt like the perfect way to mark the occasion and showcase their talent and passion.”
Down south, a number of Laine Pub Company pubs were organising their own events across Brighton and beyond.
The Fountainhead, Brighton, hosted Hammer & Tongue, an afternoon of all female spoken word poetry, featuring some of the cities brightest stars, alongside an open mic session for aspiring poets. The event also saw the pub fundraise for Brighton’s Women Centre.
Down the road, sister site Dead Wax Social was hosting am all day event from 1pm to 3am, featuring an impressive roster of all-female and non-binary DJs, while another Laine site, The Oculist in Boyce Street hosted a takeover from the Sex Lady Massive - described as the baddest female-only rave collective.