This collab beer funded eight scholarships in Tijuana for women in brewing

This was too cool to contain in our beer news roundup this week. SouthNorte Beer Co. believes that life’s richest moments happen at the crossroads of cultures, and this is exemplified through the Dos Californias Brewsters (DCB) project that the company helped found in 2018. DCB was founded in partnership with the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana and seeks to bring together women in the beer industry from both sides of the U.S./Mexico border.

“We saw an opportunity to connect women in San Diego and Baja together through beer,” says Melody Crisp, VP Marketing, SouthNorte Beer Co. “SouthNorte has long-established relationships in Mexico, but we hadn’t seen a cross-border women’s brew, so we changed that.”

The DCB project is simple—women from both sides of the border come together to brew a collaboration beer, with proceeds from the brew going to fund scholarships for women at the Institute of Technology in Tijuana (ITT). This year, the collaboration was a hoppy pale ale brewed at Telefonica with the help of SouthNorte’s Brewmaster, Ryan Brooks. The brew day took place in February, with the beer debuting at the Ensenada Beer Festival in March. Supported by generous donations from Yakima Chief Hops, yeast from White Labs, and a malt grant from the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, the beer raised more than $2000 USD to support scholarship efforts.

This past week, representatives from Dos Californias Brewsters (DCB) and the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana were onsite at ITT to award eight scholarships to women pursuing an education in brewing sciences.

“We are so honored to be able to help support the next generation of women in the beer industry,” says Crisp. “We have a great relationship with ITT and the Galgo beer club in the engineering school, and many of this year’s scholarship recipients helped participate in the brewing of this beer.”

In its inaugural year, DCB helped fund four partial scholarships. This year, in addition to the eight full-year scholarships, DCB is also able to purchase equipment for the classroom, benefiting all students in the program.

The DCB group will begin planning its third cross-border collaboration in early 2020.