TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Once a male-dominated industry, more and more women are now getting involved with brewing specialty beers, changing the face of the industry.
WTXL ABC 27's Ashley Richmond was live from Proof Brewing in Tallahassee with more:
At Proof, their beers have pretty innocent names like "Mango Wit" and "EightFive-0", but it's not that case everywhere.
This week, the Brewer's Association, a trade group representing America's small and independent craft brewers, announced that breweries using sexist or offensive beer labels or name won't be able to win their awards.
This so-called "cleaning up" of the craft beer industry's image comes as "All About Beer" magazine said it won't report on beers with names that fall into "poor taste".
Even Atlanta, Georgia's Sweetwater Brewing Company made headlines after their "Happy Ending" Imperial Stout was listed as one of Thrillist.com's "13 Most Sexist Names and Labels in Craft Beer."
Mandy Durmaz, General Manager of 7th Hill Taproom, sees a lot of different beers and she says, despite this recent bad press, she thinks the craft beer industry is pretty welcoming to women.
"I think the beer industry tends to be a little tongue in cheek," said Durmaz. "Labels that are being pinned down as sexist are also just styles of beer and not necessarily names of beer. Like blonde, amber, you'll see that often and I think from outside the beer community, they're wondering why it's called a blonde but it's been called a blonde for hundreds of years."
Angela Burroughs and her husband founded Proof Brewing Company. Burroughs says she's definitely seen some beer labels that cross the line.
"I think that sex sells alcohol," said Burroughs. "I think that is the foundation of where all those labels come from. A lot of breweries have personal jokes but I do think that the origination of all of this is that sex sells alcohol."
