MUMBAI: This year, skip the usual and celebrate International Women’s Day with a bold pour of Hazy Passion. It’s the flavour of 2025 for the Women Brewers Collective (WBC).
Each year, the members create a new concoction, which they launch on March 8, International Women’s Day. This year, 16 women put their heads together and came up with Hazy Passion, a brew that uses hazy NEIPA and pineapple passion yeast. “We are dedicating this brew to women who are new to the industry and are hazy about taking up brewing professionally,” smiles Lynette Pires, adding that the brew will launch at the Bira91 Taproom in Mumbai.
Pires, a master brewer at 46 Ounces Brewgarden, a microbrewery in Bengaluru, founded the collective in 2021 to create a space where women in the beer industry could connect with each other. “When I started out ten years ago, there weren’t many people to talk to,” she recollects, determined to change that. The collective, launched with five women, is now a community of 26, and its numbers are growing.
Pires has a background in pharmaceuticals but made the move to brewing because she grew up seeing wine and feni being made, and the fascination never quite faded. Now, as a brewer, she wants to encourage more women to enter the field.
Bold, talented and unafraid to shake things up, the women in this collective are taking on a male-dominated domain. Swati Shinde, WBC member and a brewer at the Mumbai-based Gateway Brewing Co, says the number of women brewers in India is gradually rising. “Not just women with a background in beer or wine, but even those who have studied biotechnology or chemistry are showing an interest. We help them the best we can,” says Shinde, whose father was a part of the wine industry and was encouraged by him to take on brewing as a career. That was 16 years ago.
Bold new flavours
Now is a great time to become a brewer, since there is a rising interest in craft beer across India. “Fuelled in large part by the pub culture, there’s a young demographic eager to try new flavours and concoctions,” says Kajal Manchanda, a Mumbai-based WBC member and innovation brewer at Bira91. Manchanda studied microbiology in college, where she learnt about fermentation and brewing processes. This triggered an interest in beer making and she signed up for a Master’s degree in Wine Brewing and Alcohol Technology from Pune’s Vasantdada Sugar Institute. That was more than eight years ago.
Artisanal and craft beer have grown in popularity in the last decade. “When I started out ten years ago, there were hardly any breweries,” recalls Pires. “But I had great mentors, and people who were willing to hear me out.” With WBC, Pires is creating that same comforting experience for young women entering the field today.
And it’s working. WBC member Kirti Suryawanshi, the youngest head brewer in the country, is all of 26. Working at Mumbai-based Rolling Mills, she earned the same degree as Manchanda did. Suryawanshi grew interested in brewing while in college, after she accompanied a friend who was interning at Kingfisher. “I saw a woman brewer there and it ignited a spark in me to know more,” she recalls. Still a student then, Suryawanshi started home brewing, and craft beer emerged as the answer.
Local ingredients
Shinde says the collective is going all out to promote beer in the state. They’re using local ingredients like zini rice, great millet and pearl millet, and coming up with some bold new concoctions. “First, we choose a grain. Then, depending on the season and what’s available locally, we might decide to add certain ingredients. For instance, during summer, mint or lemon find their way into the brew. The brewer also combs through the vast variety of foods and spices India has to offer, to find things that might sync with their vision for the beer,” she explains.
Recalling her own eureka moment, Manchanda says she recently created a stout inspired by Goa’s favourite dessert, bebinca. “We tried to replicate it, adding ingredients like nutmeg, coconut and cinnamon to the beer.”
Pires says her travels to Uttarakhand inspired a whole new recipe. “I saw rhododendron, those bright red lowers, everywhere. They’re using them in everything. Even our welcome drink was made with them. I like to innovate and experiment, so finding ingredients like that is important.”
WBC gives women brewers a safe space to share ideas and innovate. While members of the collective meet once a year, they connect via a WhatsApp group and support and uplift each other. Pires says the collective is ready to take a leap forward and launch learning sessions, where the women brewers can learn and grow together. Internships for younger members are also on the cards.