SheBrew Beer Festival: Celebrating Diversity in Brewing

For 10 years, the SheBrew Beer Festival has celebrated the ways women and nonbinary people uniquely contribute to the craft beer scene. Family-friendly as a beer and cider festival can be, SheBrew celebrates both homebrewers and the industry’s major players through limited-edition releases benefiting charities such as the Human Rights Campaign and Oregon Brew Crew. Kicking off on Saturday, March 8, to commemorate International Women’s Day, SheBrew’s crowning attractions include crowds as diverse as the brewers drawing them to the festival in the first place.

SheBrew’s main attractions aren’t purely liquid. Three women-owned food trucks and an array of vendors selling handcrafted goods will also set up shop. Outdoor beer games, a raffle, a photo booth and a kid-friendly arts and craft booth will keep the festival’s programming fresh.

“It creates this really beautiful space that you can’t find,” says Jenn McPoland, a founding SheBrew organizer. “It is the least ‘bro’ thing you will ever go to. It is more women at a beer festival than you will ever see in your life.”

McPoland, who possesses 20 years of homebrew experience, explains that two of SheBrew’s four founders, Jamie Koty and Stef-Anie Wells Koty, combined their passions and expertise to forge relationships the festival enjoys today with two of its biggest supporters. Koty brought in the Oregon Brew Crew when she was a board member—former OBC president Lee Hedgmon also brought on members of the independent homebrewers’ scene for the festival’s annual homebrew competition—while Wells Koty’s work with the HRC ultimately benefited both groups, as festival admission comes with a yearlong membership to the LGBTQ+ rights organization. McPoland says both women have since decamped to Colorado, but that they visit the festival whenever they can. McPoland also credited Margaret Lut as a co-founder during the festival’s early days.

The first SheBrew launched in 2013 out of the Q Center on North Mississippi Avenue, attracting a modest 50 attendees, 10 homebrewers and two professional breweries. Over the ensuing decade, SheBrew grew to host 1,500 lovers of women and beer. SheBrew was one of Portland’s last surviving pre-pandemic festivals, and backed by female resilience, it was one of the first festivals to return in 2022. McPoland says SheBrew’s programming is shifting toward a more personal tone.

“We try to make it less like a beer festival and more like a celebration of the brewers,” McPoland says. “There is a slideshow where you get to see every brewer. And you’re not just seeing on a sign what the beer is and what the brewery is, you know who brewed that beer, and that is something you don’t get to see at other festivals.”

This year will be the festival’s first time at Leftbank Annex after moving to different locations around town roughly every two years. After starting at the Q Center, SheBrew set up shop at Buckman Coffee Company, Castaway and most recently, The Redd. The constant venue hopping is another example of SheBrew’s ever-growing influence.

“After that third or fourth year, I didn’t have to reach out to breweries that just supported equality,” McPoland says. “I had enough women in the industry brewing and making cider that it was all women. That was back when we had 20; now we have 50 [participants].”

As great as robust crowds are, overcrowding has been a constant challenge for SheBrew’s all-volunteer crew. A two-time-slot format debuted in 2024 to accommodate attendees’ interest. General admission tickets sold for $35 grant either a noon–3 pm or 4–7 pm block of time. VIP tickets, available for $65, authorize early and extended access from 11 am to 7 pm. Tickets will renew a lapsed HRC membership and include beer tasting tickets and a homebrew tasting card.

“Homebrewing is the most exciting part and the biggest draw,” McPoland says, noting that SheBrew’s homebrew kegs are usually the first ones drained. “The caliber of homebrewing is incredible.”

SheBrew doesn’t celebrate women’s and nonbinary people’s brewing contributions just to party. Organizers want to bring their achievements to the forefront of the brewing industry so that their labels will be just as widely known as major male-owned brands. Sara Szymanski, part owner of Threshold Brewing & Blending, says it presented her an opportunity and inspiration to figuratively get her feet wet in the brewhouse. Threshold returns for its fourth SheBrew, and although she is not a payrolled brewer, Szymanski gets to try it out each year for the festival.

“Every year, I learn more and more,” she says. “At this point, it is very fun to be in the back and also to connect with other female brewers in town. This year, we have something really special; we’re doing a mushroom Gose named Pixie Rocker.”

Szymanski notes that men frequently get their start on the brew deck in the same way.

“You start in one position, but have enough of an interest that you’re seeking out those types of opportunities, so I think for women it’s just considering, ‘Maybe I would be interested in that—maybe I could,’” she says. “Seeing other women doing it professionally, being head brewers and lugging around big grain sacks showing everyone it is possible.”

TRY IT: SheBrew Beer Festival at Leftbank Annex, 101 N Weidler St., 503-937-1069, shebrew.beer. 11 am–3 pm and 4–7 pm Saturday, March 8. $35–$65.