It could be argued that Cassie Tencate has beer in her bloodline.
“My uncle was a craft brewer before I was born,” she says. “I grew up in the kitchen helping him bottle and brew.”
Tencate used her early experience to help forge a career combining her two favorite things: beer and science. A microbiologist, Tencate works as a lab technician at Gigayeast, a San Jose-based company that grows yeast for about 300 craft breweries worldwide and supplies homebrewers as well.
She’ll impart her wisdom about working with one of beer’s main ingredients, as well as helping other women to appreciate the end result, as part of a Jan. 28 panel discussion. Dubbed “An Evening of Curious Friendship,” the Sunday evening panel at City Lights Theater Company will also include female brewers, taproom managers, brand managers and beer distributors. The event, part of an occasional “Inside the Brewers Studio” series, is a benefit for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte.
“For me it was important not to have just female brewers but people from other parts of the industry” on the panel, TenCate says. “If you love beer, there’s a place for you in the industry.”
Panelist Joanna Dunham, taproom manager for the soon-to-open Camino Brewing Company in downtown San Jose, says she’s seen the number of women working in the craft beer industry increase in the five years she’s been part of it.
“I hesitate to say we’re being given more opportunities, but I think more women are finding they want to work in beer,” she adds. “It’s less that we’re women in beer and more that we’re people in beer.”
While Dunham grew up in the South Bay, Tencate is a recent transplant. She moved in 2015 from her native South Dakota, where she started that state’s first Girls Pint Out chapter. The group’s mission is to build “a community of women who love craft beer,” and Tencate started building her new community six months before she arrived in the South Bay. In her tenure as San Jose chapter head, the local Girls Pint Out group has grown from 15 Facebook followers to 250.
“I just wanted to get together and hang out with people who like beer,” she says. “I’ve met so many cool people who have led a really different life from mine.”
Dunham says the panelists’ different backgrounds and perspectives have made for some lively pre-event chats about what should be included in the evening’s discussion.
“We all gelled so well,” she adds. “There were some topics we didn’t agree on, but it was still a respectful and engaging conversation.”
For Tencate, these kinds of conversations around the beer industry are what she hopes to achieve with Girls Pint Out.
“To many young women, craft beer can be intimidating,” she says. “They don’t want to just walk into a bar and start trying things.”
Turning a tasting into a social event “makes craft beer more inclusive,” she adds.
It also presents an opportunity for women to learn more about craft beer. “I like to add educational opportunities,” Tencate says. “We try to do events that give back to the community, especially to women in the community.”
The Planned Parenthood fundraiser, she adds, is “another great way to help women in the community. Everyone needs health care.”
The event has also been a good way for Tencate to bond with other women in her industry.
“The beer industry is so different here than it was at home,” she says of San Jose. “In the South Dakota Brewers Guild, we could all fit in one room.
“There were very few craft beers when I started working in the industry in South Dakota,” Tencate says, adding that since she left her home state, that number has grown from three to 21.
When Camino Brewing opens in March, it will be the sixth taproom and/or brewery along a one-mile stretch of South First Street.
Dunham says she’s happy that Camino will extend the reach of local brew hubs in the downtown area, and adds that the taproom will be family-friendly.
“I’m really looking forward to the new neighborhood,” she says.
Besides getting the skinny on local brewing, attendees of Sunday’s benefit will also be able to taste the end result of these efforts. The beer will be accompanied by food from Waffle Amore, and works by four local women artists will be on view.
“An Evening of Curious Friendship” starts at 6 p.m. at City Lights Theater Company, 529 S. Second St., San Jose. Tickets are $50 at cltc.org/concerts-special-events.
