Meet Milwaukee's female craft brewers — both of them

Samantha Willis was slinging drinks at Company Brewing in the Riverwest neighborhood. But what the 26-year-old home brewer really wanted to do was make her own beer. 

Two years ago, Willis realized her dream, becoming a full-time brewer at the restaurant and pub. Until three months ago, she was Milwaukee's only female craft brewer.  

Ashlyn Gulvas, also 26, joined the brewer ranks at Milwaukee Brewing in October, making her just the second female brewer among the metro area's 31 craft breweries. 

The two brewers are in the sweet spot of craft beer enthusiasts. In 2016, the Brewers Association, a trade organization, concluded that millennials account for the majority of craft beer drinkers — 57% drink craft beer weekly, as opposed to 24% of those considered in the Gen X group and 17% of baby boomers.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

But Willis and Gulvas are still very much in the minority among those who brew the beer.

"It's kind of crazy," Willis said about being a female brewer. "There's a label put on you. People look at you differently and talk to you differently."

Sometimes they challenge her knowledge and authority on beer with rapid-fire questions to make sure she knows her stuff.

She does.

The beer business, like others, is under fire for not being inclusive enough. A recent story in Good Beer Hunting, a beer-related blog, questioned the industry's boys-only behavior, lack of cultural diversity, and use of offensive and crass beer names. This is an industry, after all, that includes beers named Thong Remover (New Jersey's Village Idiot Brewing) and Raging Bitch (Flying Dog Brewery), and until recently offered Panty Dropper (Ohio’s Paradigm Shift Brewing). Last year, Flying Dog Brewery actually gave up its membership in the Brewers Association to protest new rules on “sexually explicit, lewd, or demeaning brand names, language, text, graphics, photos, video, or other images.”

In Milwaukee, Willis has gotten used to being overlooked. She talked about how she can be in the room with Company Brewing's head brewer Roscoe Bigelow and "customers talk directly to him and ask him questions" instead of speaking to her.

Willis uses that to her advantage. "Personally, I love when people underestimate me," she said. "I love to prove people wrong."

Last fall, she joined other women who work in brewing for a Fearless Girl tap takeover at the Humboldt Park Beer Garden. The event was created to show off women's brewing skills and highlight women who work in the industry. It's where Willis said she found "people to look up to." 

"That was super encouraging," said Willis, who met Ashley Kinart-Short, head brewer for Capital Brewery in Middleton, and Jamie Baertsch, head brewer at Moosejaw Pizza and Dells Brewing Co., in the Wisconsin Dells. 

Baertsch brewed with Teri Fahrendorf, a Wisconsin native whose countrywide tour in 2007 led to creating the Pink Boots Society, a nonprofit group for women who work in brewing.

Getting an up-to-date, accurate number for female brewers is difficult, said representatives from Pink Boots, the Brewers Association and the Wisconsin Brewers Guild. 

In addition to Kinart-Short and Baertsch, Erica DeAnda is head brewer at Minocqua Brewing. Kim Dorfner is co-founder of Westallion Brewing in West Allis. Tami Plourde is co-owner of Pearl Street Brewery in La Crosse. Erika Gonzalez is a brewer at Stone Arch in Appleton. Allyson Rolph went from brewing at Thirsty Pagan in Superior to the new Earth Rider Brewing there. Rochelle Francois is a brewer at New Glarus Brewing, which was founded by Deb Carey.

There are a few more, but that's out of nearly 160 breweries in the state.

Even macro-producer MillerCoors is largely male-dominated. MillerCoors employs three female staff brewers, and maybe a dozen women as production leads in the brewery, said Martin Maloney, media relations manager. 

From the ground up

There are a couple of ways to break into brewing — brewing school is one — but Willis and Gulvas started out on the ground floor in departments that were, well, brewing-adjacent.

Willis worked behind the bar before she moved to the brewhouse, where she cleaned equipment and still shovels grain.

"I have no problem with manual labor," Willis said. She worked her way through college by painting walls and rooms, and she signed up to do the same for Company Brewing, 735 E. Center St., before it opened in 2015 in return for the promise of a job.

"I was very persistent," she said. "I just wanted an in. I just wanted to be part of this industry so badly." 

Gulvas was a sports science major who was on her way to becoming a nutritionist when a friend asked her to help on the bottling line at Back Pocket Brewing in Coralville, Iowa. Gulvas watched and listened, brewed at home, and built a résumé that includes stints with Karl Strauss Brewing in San Diego, Jolly Pumpkin Brewing in Ann Arbor and now Milwaukee Brewing. 

Gulvas does cellar work, which means she cleans tanks, fills kegs and assists with brewing at Milwaukee Brewing. She's one of four brewers at the company's brewery at 613 S. 2nd St. 

"I like how physical it is, and I don't have to do my hair every day or my makeup," Gulvas said. 

Her job interview at Milwaukee Brewing was 3½ hours long, she said, and included a tour of the company's new destination brewery in the former Pabst distribution center at 1131 N. 8th St. "I'm counting down the days to the new brewery," she said. 

The Michigan native said she will get a chance soon to brew her own beer for Milwaukee Brewing. Her recipe is true to her Midwestern roots: She's considering a Bloody Mary beer brewed with stewed tomatoes. 

Willis, the brewer at Company Brewing, was an art history major at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee when she began home brewing. After graduation, she worked in a couple of art galleries but couldn't stop thinking about home brewing.

"I loved it," said Willis. "It was the same as analyzing art — picking it apart and putting it all back together like a piece of art. That's how I was looking at it."

She and Company Brewing owner George Bregar became friends through a home brewing club, and Willis worked as a server until a brewing job opened two years ago. She represents Company Brewing in the Milwaukee Craft Brewery League, an organization of Milwaukee-area brewers and breweries.

Now that she's brewing, Willis is sure she made the right choice to leave art. 

"To be able to buy my own six-pack and give it to family and friends — there's no better feeling," Willis said.