Welcome and I hope you are ready to learn about the history and breadth of adventures that make up the Charlotte Beer Babes’ existence!

The Charlotte Beer Babes group was started in December 2011 by Tracie Guild, and she had a vision:

• Promote Women drinking Craft Beer in the city of Charlotte.
• Provide a comfortable environment for women to learn about and try craft beer, whether they are novices or experts in the craft beer field.
• Present an opportunity for craft beer loving women to meet and share their love of craft beer.

To follow this vision, Tracie started a monthly education class, and this series will continue as long as we can make it happen. She also had quarterly one-off events at various local spots in the beer community, and even did a homebrew collaboration with local brewery Noda Brewing in November 2013.

In December 2013, Bethany (that’s me) took over The Charlotte Beer Babes, after much soul-searching, debate and consideration by Tracie. And no, there was no coup d’état, just a “Bethany, will you please consider taking over and doing right by the CBBs, since I can’t keep up with the time this deserves?” Of course, I couldn’t say no. I love the Beer Babes, have been a member from the start, and love doing event planning of all kinds. Plus I love craft beer. So now we have extended the vision path: increase the events and exposure for the Charlotte Beer Babes.

In 2014, we had our inaugural Homebrewing 101 event, where NoDa Brewing hosted us at their OG location, while local Carolina Brewmaster Lisa Johnson organized a two-part event for the Beer Babes! Part 1 is a Homebrewing 101 class, where Lisa walked through the basics of homebrewing, from the ingredients, the equipment, and the entire process. Part 2 is a mentor-led homebrewing event at NoDa Brewing, for groups of 2-4 Beer Babes to learn and practice homebrewing on a mentor’s system! Lisa gathers various women in brewing to provide mentorship and equipment for the day, and then everyone has a blast brewing their very own beers together! In addition, the group gathers again once the beers are ready, and does a mini-competition and sampling session. The favorite beer of the year, chosen by Lisa and Suzie (co-owner of NoDa Brewing and our event host), then gets brewed as a NoDable beer!

In 2014, we also started providing the volunteers for the Raffle and T-Shirt Sales for the local beer festival, Queen City Brewers’ Festival benefitting ACEing Autism. QCBF is a local favorite around town, as well as a much-loved favorite event of the Beer Babes. As the sole purpose of the event is to raise money for ACEing Autism, the two sessions’ raffle event is a huge draw. Every year roughly 20 Beer Babes volunteer throughout the day to help make the event, and the fundraising especially, a huge success for everyone! This turned into a huge interest in helping with other beer festivals, like Charlotte Oktoberfest, SouthEnd Hops Festival, Moo & Brew Fest, NC Brewers and Music Festival (Rural Hill), and Bière de Femme!

In March 2020, with the global COVID pandemic causing a world-wide shutdown, we stopped doing in-person events, and switched to occasional virtual events only, through May 2022. Because some of our members moved away during COVID, and some were not comfortable back in-person initially with so many variants popping back up, we continued a limited amount of virtual events for 2020-2022, and then have not ramped back up to the 30+ events in a given year due to many people leaving Charlotte, quitting alcohol, or various personal reasons.

In 2021, I was able to obtain the TradeMark of “Beer Babes” for our group! Super exciting! We are still a not-for-profit group, we just now own the TM for our name, which is nerdily awesome.

In 2022, I was finally able to reveal our new logo, at the August 6th Anniversary Party event at NoDa Brewing, where their head brewer/co-owner Chad Henderson & I also did a beer release for our ‘Belated 10th Anniversary Beer’, the “10th Saison des Babes”. As the first “brew a beer together” brewery we worked with way back in 2013, as well as our annual (barring COVID) Homebrew Ladies Brew Day host site for mentored homebrewing – NoDa Brewing has a special place in our hearts for making beers together – which made them perfect for this Anniversary Beer Collab! Chad & Bethany came up with the beer together, and we hope you loved it!

We have four series that we are doing regularly as a group:
1) Monthly Education & Tasting: this series was originally hosted by World of Beer, then The Beer Growler-Charlotte, on the Second Saturdays of every month. After they closed, I decided to knock out two goals in one, and transition it to a monthly Beer Education at a local brewery instead. It runs from 6:00pm-9:00pm on a weeknight or from 1:00pm-4:00pm on a weekend, and we learn about various styles of beer that each brewery has on hand during the Beer Ed class that Bethany gives. Each Beer Ed class has a set flight picked out, and folks are encouraged to come a little early and get a half pour of their choice while we gather. Great fun, great beer, great new & old friends, and an overall great time is had each time!

2) Monthly Brewery Visits: this series includes a monthly visit to a different Charlotte-area brewery on a weeknight during the last week of the month. It runs from 6:00pm-9:00pm weeknights or 1:00pm-4:00pm on weekends, and everyone comes and grabs what they want to drink while we hang out together. Pre-COVID, each visit would include a brewery tour complete with Q&A with the brewery staff for education and compare/contrast between other breweries. As of May 2022 when we picked in-person events back up again, we are not doing brewery tours out of respect for the staffing situations. We may do occasional tours in future, so stay tuned and request if you want to see one, but at this point as of May 2026 we are still not doing them regularly!

3) One-Off Beer & Education Classes: this series takes the Charlotte Beer Babes on a tour through various extras that encompass Craft Beer. Each class is hosted at a different location around town, and will be hosted or taught by a local expert in their field who is kind enough to share their knowledge with us. Classes have included: Beer & Food Pairings, Beer Photography, Tasting Like A Cicerone, Ladies Brew/Homebrewing 101, Beer Babes Brunch, Beer Off-Flavors Class, and many others. If you have something you’re interested in, drop me an email or mention it at an event!

4) Quarterly Non-Profit Fundraising Events: this series will take us on a benevolent trip throughout Charlotte. This is something that I (Bethany) feel INCREDIBLY strongly about, and have received amazing support and feedback from both the Charlotte Beer Babes, as well as local businesses, over the last 12+ years I’ve been running the group. This will take a little longer to explain, so I am going to sum it up here, and then you can find more details on the Non-Profit Page here. 2014 was the Inaugural year for this series, and continues to adapt each year for what we find and have interests in within the group. Each quarter we do event(s) that help fund-raise and/or collect goods for a different category of charity – while still being centered around craft beer drinking. Quarter 1: Children. Quarter 2: Animals. Quarter 3: First Responders/Military. Quarter 4: Women’s Interests. These may change (category or specific non-profit we are benefitting) each year. The formats will be different and unique for each event as well. Volunteering opportunities may arise throughout the year for these categories of charities, and anyone interested need only let me know what they want to do for me to keep them in the loop. In addition, as organizations reach out looking for volunteers for beer festivals and/or beer-focused events, these opportunities will be posted on Facebook Group Events and the group’s event calendar on this website.

So that is the Charlotte Beer Babes, in a nutshell. I hope you ladies and friends are able to join us some time! Gentlemen, if you want to accompany your partners/friends, unless the event is specifically for the Beer Babes only (and I will make it clear, promise), you are welcome to come and hang out at the establishment we’re at while we do our thing. Some events (like the fundraisers) will be more for CBBs to ‘host’ and are open to anyone, while others (Beer Ed or Food Pairing classes) are typically focused on the CBBs to participate in for the specific event, due to the nature of the event. That said, we still open them up to the general public on occasion, so just look for the details in the invites!

You can also follow us on BlueSky, Spoutible, Twitter, Instagram, like our Facebook Page & join the Facebook Group, and join us on our Discord server.

Any questions, please see the FAQ page or the Ask The CBBs. For feedback or comments, which I would LOVE to have from everyone, please see the Feedback page.

Thank you so very much, and CHEERS to all! Hope to see you out there supporting the Charlotte Craft Beer scene!

Slainté, Salut, Prost & Cheers,
Bethany
President, Charlotte Beer Babes