A Very Busy September

Hello all, Katie here!

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Women Drinking Beer has had a pretty busy September, at least the first half of it!  As of today we've posted 11 episodes, gained new followers on Instagram and Twitter, and have attended multiple brewery events.  We've learned so much since starting this podcast, it's amazing: about beer, about beer drinkers, about tackling social media, and about taming the editing process.  I hope that anyone that has been listening since the beginning can hear the changes we've made!  We want to keep getting better, so keep giving us feedback please!

So, I'm going to try and keep this brief since we've accomplished a lot, and mostly just unload some pictures of our AdVentCHARS both together and solo.  So, three sentences or less of each step of our September journey:

Enki Brewing (09/02/2017): A half hour drive southwest from the cities, Enki brewery is a destination worthy of the drive.  The have a patio and deck, ample parking, food truck every day, friendly staff, board games, outdoor games, and VERY TASTY BREWS.  A lot of the beers had a sweetness to them which we both enjoyed, our favorite being the small bath choko-hoot rich with chocolate flavor in a sparkling yet creamy ale.

 

Labor Day Episodes on Episodes on Episodes (Labor Day Weekend 2017): Because Cathy is a full time teacher and now a part time grad student we wanted to get a bunch of episodes recorded to take some pressure off of her.  We recorded the Enki and Oktoberfest episodes on Saturday and the Pumpkin Ales on Monday.  So much beer was had and we recorded for the first time in my apartment rather than at Cathy's.

 

Rails and Ales (09/09/2017): This was SUPER FUN!  Cathy and I in many ways became the good friends we are today because we went to this together last year, and is probably what got us started on the road to our podcast.  We met and schmoozed with all the people, even self-proclaimed introvert Cathy chatted with friendly ladies and gents and handed out our new WDB magnet pins! Extra sentence for an EXTRA day: We had so many tasty beers and were even kind of a small celebrity feature at Tin Whiskers with people actually asking us if we were the "Women Drinking Beer" and it was awesome!

Beer Choir! (09/16/2017): This was a solo KJ AdVentCHAR! Basically you show up, sing beer songs led by the guys who run the beer choir, and drink beer while you're doing it!  This was held at Summit Brewing in St. Paul and had special guest Jeremy Messersmith (who was THE MOST AWESOME) and afterward a performance from local group Lady Date (who were quite amazing.)

 

"Dark Glasses" Premier Reading and Book Signing by Author Dan Hendrickson at Sisyphus Brewing (09/18/2017): A friend of the family and former o-worker wrote a third book of poems which he self-published.  Dan has a dry, self-deprecating with peppered heavily with Dad-humor.  Sisyphus is just down the road for me and I enjoyed both a stout and a centennial, and both were excellent selections.  

Lift Bridge Brewing Stillwater, MN (09/21/2017): A short trip outside the ities, this time almost due east by about 25 minutes.  Again, I wanted to make sure one of us had first hand experiense of the brewery whih was homey, like stepping into a well lit abin.  The beers were sessionable in flavor and weight, all around another solid Minnesota brewery worth the small trip!

 

A very busy September indeed!  Thanks for everyone's support on Faebook, Instagram, Twitter, and of ourse to old friends and new!

Launch Day!

Well, Katie and Cathy finally did it.  Launched Women Drinking Beer.  It was a lot more technical than either of us was expecting, and there were a lot more "Oh shit"s involved than anyone wants to udder while working on a project they love.  Don't worry, none of it shows.  But we are super happy that before we even had a chance to update the website with our new podcast sites, someone had downloaded episode 2 off of Soundcloud!  How exciting!  That excitement was then tempered by the realization that Episode 2 was downloaded because Episode 1 didn't make it to soundcloud.  Hmmm.... But we figured it out. 

One of the things we got to do for the first time tonight was listen to our podcast together.  Most of the editing has been done in our separate homes, and tonight, Cathy played Episode 3 for Katie.  If you're wondering if our jokes still crack us up a week or so later, the answer is YES!  Both of us were laughing in unison, with ourselves.  We just hope that you have as much fun listening to our podcast as we have making it.

Katie hard at work at our mini launch party/ work party.

Katie hard at work at our mini launch party/ work party.

A Night Out at Surly

Research at Surly tonight!  We loved our experience and definitely practiced our taste testing and how we say things. We aren't going to go into detail again about what beers we tried and what we loved (there was a lot of love and the winner of the night was Spice Boyz) so that we can do an episode or two about Surly.  The food was good too.  We really liked Surly.

But here is what we learned about the process today:

  1. Show up with a full phone battery

  2. A lot more phone staring than a normal night out. #millennials

  3. Always have water when taste testing to counteract different beer flavors

  4. When Katie takes the pictures and Cathy does the website, that puts the pics not in the same place as where they’re needed.

  5. Tell everyone and anyone about the podcast. Katie is better about that than Cathy.

  6. This is going to be awesome.

Our first meeting

This is so exciting!  Last night, we met for our first major planning meeting.  There was an agenda and everything.  So many ideas, so many things we had to do to get our podcast off the ground.  We met outside (because that is what you do in Minnesota in summer) and sipped a brew from Insight called "A Visit From My Crazy Aunt".  Its a gin and tonic style ale.  I am not going to put too many details here about it, in case we feature it on an episode, but here are some gems that we used to describe it "Yep, that's a gin and tonic" (Cathy) "What is happening in my mouth?" (Katie). 

We are super excited to get this podcast going.  Can't wait for you to join us outside on the porch, with a beer in your hand too.