Finger on the Beery Pulse

Regular readers might be a bit confused by this one as it’s a vegetarian recipe AND doesn’t have a beer in the picture either – don’t panic, normal service will resume shortly.

But before I get to the recipe, I just wanted to say how delighted I am to see beer (and more specifically women in beer) being covered by the BBC Magazine today – what a tremendous recognition of the amazing contributions that female brewers are making to what is traditionally considered ‘a man’s world’…

It’s a tragedy how badly women have been disenfranchised from the world of beer – not just on a professional level either.

It’s utter lunacy, for example, that there are still people who will say things like: “drinking pints isn’t ‘feminine’” or is “unattractive”.

Beer is the most egalitarian of drinks, it’s the finest social lubricant around and the fact that big brands have marketed it in a way that is solely aimed at men, and so badly dumbed down their products in the process, has prevented whole swathes of women (and men) from discovering the amazing array of flavour experiences great beer can offer.

It has also, sadly, painted the picture that beer is a boy’s club and put a lot of women off from thinking about the beer world as a career path.

I’m not going to say there isn’t an issue with sexism and misogyny in the beer world because I’d be lying.

However, I don’t think it’s any proportionally worse than the rest of society and, if anything, has such strong female role models these days that sexism is probably disappearing faster in beer and brewing than in a lot of other areas of industry.

But here is my fear for the future: because alcohol is rapidly becoming the new tobacco, I’m concerned no one is ever told about brewing as a possible career.

So, if by chance, there are any educators reading this I’d really like you to think about the last paragraph of the BBC article:

“Alcohol is currently so demonised but I’d like to get to the point where brewing is pushed in schools as a career choice to young girls who are interested in science,” says Cole.

Maybe I’m aiming high, but I see no reason why young adults of any gender shouldn’t be told that the brewing industry could be a great career path for them – it’s a wonderful, nurturing, fun and rewarding place to work.

Right, rant over and onto the what I had for brunch the other day!

It was really rather yummy and follows a theme of being a bit healthier (not just for January but going forward) and being a bit more mindful of food waste.

This was made with leftover lentils from a rather lovely roast chicken dish the night before (see, didn’t take long to get back to the meat of the matter did it?) but is easily made like this.