The Pink Boots Society is not just a national organization that honors the women of the present involved in craft beer across the country, it also honors all those who came before them.

It was that theme that inspired the New Mexico Chapter’s annual collaboration beer, The Fermentress Session IPA, which will debut today (Friday) at breweries around the state.

I caught up with La Cumbre staff members Allison Duffus and Dayjah Mendoza this week to talk about this new beer. La Cumbre was the host brewery, and both called it an honor to help take the lead, along with their colleagues, Elizabeth Agosto and Avery Acosta.

La Cumbre will host a release party today from 3 to 6 p.m., featuring a vendor market of women-owned pop-ups. The Fermentress will be available in cans and on draft, and a second release party will follow at the Westside Taproom on Saturday from 3 to 6 p.m.

Getting back to the beer itself, the participants drew on the past to create a brew for the present.

“Let’s see, as far as like the inspiration goes I think the big takeaway is just being from a long line of women in beer and fermentation in this industry,” said Duffus, who manages social media and marketing for La Cumbre. “When you boil it down, the lineage does go way back with these recipes and these techniques.

“We wanted to just highlight that women have been in beer for a long time. And although, you know, the industry can be tough sometimes, we have experienced a lot of support especially recently at Le Cumbre. Jeff was like, yeah, let’s do this, you all take this ball and run with it. I want you to show us what you got, that sort of thing. So he gave us the the free will, and basically his blessing, and from there we put our heads together. And also, all of our men, our allies, our boys in the back said, whatever you want, just let us know.”

The beer was brewed back in February, with about 25 to 30 women from around the industry present, plus another 15 or more allies from around the beer scene. Participants came from near and far.

“Nurvis Purvis came all the way from Carlsbad, and we were able to meet those gals and collaborate with them,” Duffus said. “So it connects us all here and gives us the opportunity to see each other’s faces and work together. Because even though we are spread out a little bit with our breweries, it’s so nice to get together and do something that we all put our hearts into, and then at the end of the day, it’s for that mission of who this is going to benefit in the future.”

The collaboration helps fund scholarships for women in the brewing industry to help further their education and careers.

“We had some college students drop in from CNM and UNM,” said Mendoza, who holds a variety roles in the brewery from cellar woman to packaging line to brewer. “They pretty much had fun that day. But, they were asking a lot of good questions. One of them wasn’t even for brewing, they were actually majoring in something to do in chemistry.”

As for the recipe construction, Mendoza said it leans into what La Cumbre does best, namely hop-forward beers, but without an overpowering ABV.

“I think it was nice to finally have it here,” Mendoza said. “It’s been some years since I think we ever did it here.I really love that everyone came to participate, even the guys they were so excited about this project. Jeff (Erway) was really headstrong about it being here, about creating the recipe.”

“I wouldn’t say that it was hard” to come up with a recipe, Mendoza added. “I already knew what I wanted to use. A session actually gives a lot of good characteristics out of the hops, almost close to like pretty much a Dank, I would say. But, it still gives a 5.0 (percent) ABV, which is funny, because a lot of the women in Pink Boots were like we want Dank and I’m like, OK.”

On the hop portion of the recipe, Mendoza said the most recent crop of Centennial was “phenomenal,” and then they added Idaho 7, Simcoe, and the annual Pink Boots hop blend.

Duffus was among the lucky few to get to try the beer once it was done fermenting.

“I was like, that’s damn good,” she said. “And then, as everyone else was doing their little sip tests, I was just watching their faces and even (Josh) Trujillo was like, yeah, that’s good. It turned out good, so we’re happy with the result.”

Both Duffus and Mendoza gave the credit to Agosto, who was busy cultivating yeast during the interview, for leading the way.

“Elizabeth isn’t here to speak for herself, but she was the director of every single moving piece,” Duffus said.

Ultimately, though, it was a true team effort to create the beer, plan the release parties, and more.

“It gets women really excited, too, that are in the industry,” Mendoza said. “Because when we get together, we all bring together that big old bucket of beer from every pub here in town, it’s exciting. It gives you that little push that you didn’t think that you needed.”

One other part of the creative process was in designing the label on the can, which has a lot of elements involved in the artwork.

“If you look at the can the idea was to be like a tarot card,” Duffus said. “It has her as the fermenter, but it’s pulling in themes of like Rosie the Riveter. She’s in her work wear, she’s got her bicep out. She’s like, ‘we can do it,’ and then it has all of the components that you need to make beer and ferment beer, so you have your hops, your malts, your yeast.”

It truly is a work of art. Due to the limited amount of beer brewed, we were not able to do an advance tasting, so like everyone else I will just have to swing by La Cumbre for a pint and some cans to go.

A big thanks to Allison and Dayjah for squeezing the interview into their schedules right before release day. A tip of the cap to Elizabeth, as well, for keeping the local chapter of the Pink Boots Society humming along.

If you cannot make it to either of the La Cumbre release parties, check with your favorite local brewery to see if they will The Fermentress on tap this weekend.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister