Women making mark at craft breweries

When Megan Hill was a student at the College of St. Benedict, she reluctantly agreed to try her future husband's homebrew samples.

"I told him I liked it even though I didn't," Hill admits. "I was not interested in drinking beer when I met him."

Beer is now a favorite drink for Hill. And her bread and butter.

Megan Hill helps run Bemidji Brewing Co. with her husband Tom and co-owners Tina and Justin Kaney.

While the craft brewing industry has a largely male workforce, women like Megan and Tina are becoming increasingly involved.

In St. Cloud, Renee Anderle serves as Lupine Brewing Co.'s director of sales. St. Cloud State University graduate Brittany Krekelberg is president of Shakopee's Badger Hill Brewing Co. She started it with her husband Broc, a fellow alumnus, and other investors. And in St. Paul, The Urban Growler stakes the claim as Minnesota's first all woman-owned and brewed microbrewery.

"From my experiences, there's been no lack of respect being a female," said Krekelberg, whose brewery recently started canning its product. "If you are educated and know your stuff, there's no difference if you are male or female. I think I have a harder time as a woman shopping at (a hardware store) than I do as a woman selling beer."

The sentiment is felt throughout the industry.

"Really, when you look at it, there's a lot of women in the position of bartenders, general managers and bar managers," Anderle said. "There's a lot of women in those positions and they make a lot of the key decisions on what each bar will carry. Women have a big impact on the industry."

As with their male counterparts, there's a plethora of influences getting women into the craft beer scene.

Megan Hill learned about different beer styles through her husband. They opened Bemidji Brewing Co. in 2012 after raising $17,000 through a Kickstarter campaign.

She now enjoys sours and beers with lots of hops, and her favorite from the Bemidji Brewing Co.'s taproom is a seasonal sour red aged on tart raspberries.

"It's probably a good thing we don't have it on tap all the time or I would drink it all," Hill jokes.

Hill's business partner Tina Kaney was Bemidji Brewing Co.'s original assistant brewer. She previously dabbled in homebrewing and was introduced to craft beer as a college student in Madison, Wisconsin.

"I saw what the whole culture of craft beer and small breweries could be," said Tina, whose favorite Bemidji Brewing Co.-made beer comes from the limited release single-hop series. "I fell in love with the spectrum of flavors you could get."

Anderle got into beer by trying her husband's homebrews — he is the Lupine president and a co-founder.

"I was a wine snob before all this," Anderle admits. "I discovered I didn't like beer because the flavors weren't there like they are today. Now I absolutely love it."

Anderle spends her work days traveling throughout the state offering samples of Lupine's product to potential clients. Some of Lupine's unique flavors include an oatmeal cranberry stout, a chocolate cayenne stout and a tea-infused ale.

Krekelberg met her husband while they were both students at St. Cloud State. One of their first dates was to visit the Summit Brewing Co. of St. Paul.

After they graduated, they moved to the Denver area when Colorado breweries New Belgium Brewing Co. and Odell Brewing Co. started earning national recognition.

"It was this new phenomenon there in the '90s and it was exciting to be part of," said Krekelberg, who serves as Badger Hill's president.

Now she's part of the booming Minnesota craft beer scene.

Badger Hill Brewing Co. — named after Celtic words for "Broc" and "Brent," the names of two brewery co-founders — initially started contract brewing out of Minnetonka's Lucid Brewing. They moved into their current facility between Valleyfair amusement park and Canterbury Park at the end of 2014.

They're on pace to double their production in 2015. And they'll be doing it with woman leadership, a growing influence in the booming craft beer scene.

"We're really lucky to be part of this industry," said Krekelberg, whose favorite Badger Hill drink is the white IPA (India pale ale). "The more breweries there are, the more good beers there are — and that's better for us all."

Follow Jake Laxen on Twitter @jacoblaxen.