Get hopping, ladies!
A Ditmas Park beer bar will host a competition for the best suds brewed by a woman on March 30 — but the deadline to enter is this coming weekend!
The owner of Sycamore dreamed up the Brooklyn Women Homebrew Competition as a way to recognize local ladies during the month of March.
“It’s during Women’s History, or Herstory, Month, and I wanted to do something to celebrate women,” said Kathie Lee, who lives in Flatbush.
Her bar has a long history of celebrating amateur brewers, she said, so it made sense to continue that tradition.
“Sycamore was one of the first bars to have a homebrew competition, Brooklyn Wort in 2010. It’s part of the history of the bar,” she said.
Those who want to apply for the female fermentation festival must do so by Sunday, Feb. 17. The six-week gap before the final event will give late entrants enough to work up a brand new batch, said Lee.
Response to the contest has been strongly positive, and several regulars at the bar signed up as soon as they heard about it, said Lee.
There is no fee to enter, but each contestant must brew at least 2.5 gallons of beer, so she can serve samples to the roughly 70 people that Lee expects to show up for the contest. Details for that event are still being worked out, she said, but the competition will definitely have two prizes: a people’s choice, decided by popular vote, and a judge’s prize, determined by two professional brewers: Katarina Martinez (pictured), the co-owner of Brooklyn’s Lineup Brewing, and Mary Izett, from Fifth Hammer Brewing in Queens.
Entered beers can be any style, and Lee said that the only judging criteria will be “Does it taste good?”
“We’re being very casual about it,” she said. “It’s based on taste, but it’s really quite open.”
Brooklyn Women Homebrew Competition at Sycamore Bar and Flowershop [1118 Cortelyou Rd. between Stratford and Westminster roads in Ditmas Park, (347) 240–5850, www.sycam
