BLB eBook Tour - Guest post by Liz Crowe of Brewing Passions

Welcome back to Sugarbeat’s Books! Today we are going to hear from Liz Crowe – the author of the Brewing Passions series that I reviewed yesterday. She is on tour to promote her books. For more stops on the tour and the chance to win a copy of one of her books, click HERE. All three of the books of Liz’s that I read were set in the beer industry and she is also part of that industry. I asked Liz where she gets her inspiration. Here’s what she had to say!

Brewing Up Some Inspiration

Why Beer? Why Not?
I’ll admit that five years ago in May I would probably not have darkened the door of a “beer bar”. My personal tastes went more towards bourbon, or red wine. But when I was approached by Matt and Trevor, the two gentlemen who founded Wolverine State Brewing Company that was my question…I’d spent several years making a very good living as successful Realtor, the years before living overseas following my spouse around to three different countries, dragging the spawn, waiting up at night a lot for him to come home from yet more travel (a whole ‘nother story I assure you).

So…why beer?

Craft beer is a hot commodity. Its market share grows annually, and while it’s nowhere near The Big Boys (macro-brewing is something like 90% of the market—those are the Budweisers, Millers and Coors none of which are owned by American companies anymore just as a useful aside). It possesses a “cool factor” that I found when doing my research, and one that was fairly short on females. Taking our company to the next level required professional marketing. I’m a professional market, never afraid to try something new (and fun). The Boys taught me all I needed to know about beer.

Why not indeed?

I am living proof that there is no better advocate than a convert. I spent hours (hours) with Matt, the prez (or “The Man” as I call him in my role as “The Wench”) who has brewed beer for years at home but takes time out to be a big shot VP at a finance company and with our new head brewer Oliver as they patiently taught me the Big Differences (between an ale and a lager) and the more subtle ones (why you can’t call it “bock beer” unless you used “bock yeast” to ferment it) and everything in between. Why, I have even brewed two, 10 barrel batches of my namesake beer for our Tap Room: The Wench’s Westside Wheat. A barrel of beer is 30 gallons so we are talking about no small amount of malty goodness.

As The Wench I blog, I talk, and give interviews and am in constant promotions and marketing mode. Writing is a passion that allows me to sink down into the warm blankets of my imagination and fire up some stories that feature this hot new industry and the slightly strange position that women have in it. Women were the FIRST brewers of beer. We kept the hearth and brewing beer was part of making food. Men, as they do, took over at some point, handed us a collective comso and told us to take a hike.

Men still make up the majority of beer drinkers although that is also changing. I am on the forefront of a movement to bring more women into the craft beer drinking fold by holding Women only events in my Tap Room, speaking at beer appreciation societies advocating for women in the biz and have just been asked to be on a national board: Women Executives in the Beverage Industry as the sole beer industry representative.

Yeah, it’s exhausting but I love taking my experiences and parlaying them into hot, steamy fiction. The “What if?” factor of my daily life working in and among men, who have learned that I’m no delicate blossom and cuss and talk to me like one of the boys, lends itself to some seriously hot mental scenes.

Enjoy The Brewing Passion series, and remember The Tap Room, the “choose your romance” interactive novella which is the Whole Story of Erin and her business partners, brewer and crazy complicated life will be released from Breathless Press in fall 2011 in print and ebook format!

Cheers and enjoy American Craft Beer Week (cool coincidence, no?)
Feel free to check the Wench’s blog too—she has quite the fan club and is always looking for ways to educate and titillate.