A Helping Hand

When I get to Scarlet Lane Brewing, two employees are folding boxes close to the front, and I can see Eilise in the back of the warehouse on top of the brewing equipment talking to a couple of guys who are there to fix the boiler.

Eilise describes herself as, “Head brewer, primary owner, lead janitor.”

“I graduated from Butler with a Business and Marketing degree and a minor in Science, ’cause I was going to be a pharmacist.”

“I was completely miserable. I worked in a corporate job where I was a project manager that implemented IT solutions to remove, um — excessive jobs.”

She falters a little, and it’s clear to me that this was a tough part in her life. She explains to me that her job was essentially to find out where a computer could to a person’s job, and then that person would be fired.

“Everyone hated me. No one wanted to see me. I was the Grim Reaper.”

“I started home brewing in that time. My parents saw a picture of me home brewing, and they were like ‘hey, this is the first time I’ve seen you smile.’”

This was her start into brewing. It was something that she loved doing, but it wasn’t until a final push from her loved ones did she leave her corporate life behind.

“I just started asking friends if I could crash their brew days, and then I went back to school in fermentation sciences in Vermont.”

On top of her schooling, she also did apprenticeships and worked at a few breweries in Oregon, and then eventually came back to Indiana.

Her face starts to light up while talking about how joining the beer industry allowed her to do something she loved and while describing all the close relationships she formed in the process. Many of those people, she says, have been really supportive of her throughout her journey.

“I love asking for help because I don’t know everything.”

“A lot of this always goes back to Oregon. Oregon gave me a change in my life. A change in my spirit. When we would meet people out there they don’t ask you what you job is or what you do. They ask you what you’re into. It was just a total change. I loved that you didn’t have to have a house with 2.5 children and a picket fence. You could just hang out and be you. It was just an amazing community.”

“And so we were like, ‘What if we could build small communities like that?’”

She really focuses on how community building isn’t just about working with people who do the same exact thing as you do — it’s about working with people who balance you out, and helping each other be successful. And not only that, but she explains how important it is to her to work within the neighborhood, getting ingredients from nearby farms, doing events with local business.

“You become a family. You think about each other and take care of each other.”

“Women started brewing beer so that they could help their family live because water isn’t always great, but it created an immediate communications for those women. And it was the first way to tell stories. And that’s what we can do here, too. We can tell a story with our beer, and everyone else can tell theirs. And I love it.”

“Indiana has a newer community in craft beer. It’s still shaky ground out here. We’re not quite to that established place yet.”

“Our patrons are looking for us to be more honest about how we are, and not telling them who they should be. You don’t want to walk into a room and have someone say ‘Oh! She has a vagina! She loves fruit beers!’ I don’t tend to like super fruity beers!” She laughs.

“I’ve been at a bar before and ordered my own stout — first beer is always somebody else's, second beer is mine. Quality testing. I ordered one of my stouts and this guy next to me goes, ‘Oh honey, it’s real dark, I don’t know if you’ll like that.’”

“Women are growing. But it’s one dude with a beard hanging out with another dude with a beard, and they decide to make beard beers together. But that’s cool! They were the ones who helped kick out the craft.”

She goes back to talking about how important it is to work together.

“Indiana just needs to be a little more open. But I think it’s getting a lot better, we’re communicating a lot more.”

“A lot of people will shy away from it and say ‘it’s not that bad, just tough it out.’ In the corporate world, I had to know when to come in with the conviction that I do know what I’m talking about. There was one time where it was my first day on a job in Philly, where a guy said to me, ‘Hey skirt.' [she whistles] 'Come here. I need a cup of coffee.’ At the end of it, though, he bought me a cup of coffee, and brought it to me.”

“I don’t know everything, but I know enough to have a conversation. I walk into a room and I don’t drop my femininity at the door. I’m a woman. I paint my nails, I like lipstick. That is still who I am, but I also know how to fix sludge pumps and I brew beer. Knowing enough to feel confident is something, but you’re going to need somebody you can talk to, and I’ve been lucky.”

“I have a group of women that I’m very close to. And it started ’cause we were like, ‘let’s not go to a beer event, let’s dress up and get spritzers’ or something stupid, you know? Just get away from that moment in life. Not feel competition, and just be open and honest.”

She says it’s in these moments that they are able to talk about what challenges they’re facing with and how that are dealing with them. It’s important to here to be able to feel like she has a voice, and to make sure other people’s voices are heard.

Going back to an earlier point she made, she know she’s a woman, but she doesn’t want that to be the selling point of her beer.

“I hate selling sexuality. That’s not me, but everyone can make their own choice and sell as they want to.”

“You’re always going to run into people who aren’t going to respect you.”

We talk a little back and forth about what it can be like being woman in the beer industry.

“I’ve had some really wretched experiences. One time, I was doing a talk on opening a small business. I had on black slacks, a Scarlet Lane shirt, and a blazer. This guy stands up and he says to me, ‘Well, if you want people to really think that you’re a woman, and that women run that place, then maybe you should dress more feminine.’ I was dumbstruck. It took me several seconds to finally say, ‘I will promise you, under the black, I have a vagina and two breasts. I am a woman, I identify that way, and I’ve already started my business.’”

And it isn't just she who has dealt with these issues.

“I had a guy lean over the counter here and grab a female bartenders ass, and he said ‘Ah, honey, you were leaning over and asking for it.’ So we have a strong policy that if you talk down to ANY of our staff, you touch anyone, you’re out. You’re done. That’s not the culture. That’s not who we are.”

“The only people that are not welcome here are hateful people. And I’ve asked people to leave and never come back. And I’m fine with that.”

How do you think this culture can take the next step to get people in? I ask.

“Honestly, I think it’s people in the industry needing to put their necks out more.”

If people already in the craft beer industry actively do more to look for opportunities to show people that craft beer can be for anyone, she argues. She will sometimes buy people certain beers to try to help them expand their palettes. For her, it starts with relating beers to things that people already drink and enjoy.

“You can find a way to make everything accessible.”

“It's education: Educating people around you, and not being a dick about it.”