Suffragette sippy

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This article was published 23/10/2021 (1443 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As a member of the temperance movement, Nellie McClung likely would not have drank a beer named in her honour. But you can bet she would have raised a tea cup to the spirit of collaboration among the women behind it.

In the spring, Kyla Dumanski, the business development manager at Winnipeg’s Torque Brewing reached out to Erica Campbell, the co-founder of Toronto’s Society Of Beer Drinking Ladies about doing a beer together. Dumanski had been admiring the Society’s work from afar, and decided to put the idea out there. “As soon as we got on the phone, I knew it was going to be fun and a great collaboration,” Dumanski says. “Right from the start, we hit it off. And we’ve been friends ever since.”

On Thursday, they launched Whoa Nellie, a new seasonal beer that, from the design and name on the can to the brew inside, is a celebration of collaboration.

The 5.5% amber ale is infused with a Manitoba rooibos tea blend from Cornelia Bean, a woman-owned Winnipeg business. “The tea really adds that extra something special to this beer,” Dumanski says. “The Manitoba rooibos itself is a unique one that they make at the store and they use all local ingredients in creating it, so it’s really a true Manitoba-made product.”

To name the new brew, the Society of Beer Drinking Ladies turned to social media and launched a beer-naming contest, which received about 100 entries. The chosen name is indeed a nod to McClung, the orator, author, politician, and suffragette whose work helped Manitoba become the first province in Canada to grant some women the right to vote in 1916, and women to be declared persons instead of property under the law in 1929. (The beer’s too-perfect tagline, “Fight For Your Right to Par-tea,” was also plucked from the entries.)

“From a marketing beer-label perspective, Whoa Nellie is a cute, kitschy name that rolls off the tongue, and everyone knows that expression,” Campbell says. “But then you do a little deep dive back into your Grade 10 Canadian History books and you remember that Nellie McClung was a powerful Canadian woman figure… she’s a real badass social activist and really fought for women’s rights, which is what Society of Beer Drinking Ladies is all about, too.”

The Society of Beer Drinking Ladies was formed in 2014 as a response to the boys club that is the craft beer industry. Campbell was working her first full-time brewery gig at the time, and was the only woman on staff. But she started meeting other women working in the business, and thought she might host some secret speakeasy-esque events in her living room where women could just hang out and drink beer.

Well, demand for the first event outstripped the size of Campbell’s living room. Now owned and operated by two of the original co-founders, Campbell and Jaime Dobbs, the Society has only grown with events and collaborations such as the one with Torque.

“It’s really morphed into much more,” says Campbell, and that growth has included an Anti-Racism Action Plan. “We definitely are all about inclusion and diversity and making sure that we create as welcoming and safe spaces as we can. Jamie and I recognize we’re both white straight women, so making sure that we’re also being active and bringing in other voices, women voices, as well. We also raise money for the Canadian Women’s Foundation on a regular basis with all of our events, most of our beer sales, lots of different components, and they do excellent work across Canada.” (Whoa Nellie is no exception; 25 cents from each can sold will go to the Canadian Women’s Foundation.)

The Art Deco era-inspired can art — which features a stylized 1920s lady reclining in a tea cup and showing off her gams — is by Winnipeg artist and graphic designer Roberta Landreth, whose work has graced everything from LP covers to gig posters to, yes, another Torque beer can (she did the art for Don’t Fret, a collaboration with the West End Cultural Centre).

“She hit it out of the ballpark on the first go around,” Dumanski says. “We couldn’t have asked for anything more. Everybody that we’ve shown it to just absolutely loves it. They think it’s stunning. And actually, some of the ladies here have even talked about getting it as a tattoo.”

Whoa Nellie will be available for a limited time in the Torque taproom, Manitoba Liquor Mart stores and Manitoba beer vendors starting next week.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @JenZoratti