OUR Beer expertS
Female members of several brewing and developmental teams to come down
and hang out with us for the day. There will be a bunch of beers to try and a chance
to discuss women in the brewing industry.
and hang out with us for the day. There will be a bunch of beers to try and a chance
to discuss women in the brewing industry.
LAUDERALE BREWERY
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CHRISTIE MERANDINO | PINK BOOTS SOCIETY MEMBER
Christie Merandino - Started the movement of having powerful women in LauderAle Brewery. While the brewery was mainly run by men, Christie came on and changed the game. I started as a beertender, moved up to the tap room manager and eventually became the Brewery Manager. My passion for perfection, great cold craft beer, the care of our customers, and a bit of New Jersey edge made it easy for me to find my way into the Florida Craft Beer scene and LauderAle Brewery. It all started as a day at the bar describing the beers in a flight to a friend of mine. The bartender overheard me and asked me if I just loved beer or worked in beer. When I told him both, he asked me where I worked and at the time I had just moved to Florida from New Jersey 2 days prior so I did not have a job yet. He got me an interview with the manager who hired me on the spot. I never would in a million years think that I would be able to get a life changing career when drinking, but beer is mysteriously awesome and has always been such a big part of my life. I firmly believe in research and the love of beer, last year alone I visited over 54 different breweries and learned something new from each and every one of them and brought that knowledge back to LauderAle. When I moved to Ft. Lauderdale, I knew no one and the owner Kyle Jones and brewers Mike White and Jon Yablonski really took me under their wing and have taught me so much that I consider them more like family then co-workers. We all work together so much to bring the best beers to South Florida that I really feel like I am truly lucky to be a part of something so much bigger than me, the growth of a craft beer nation.
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CANDACE ARAMA | BEERTENDER
Candace Arama - Just entered the Florida brewery scene after 4 years in Colorado. I started my job in craft beer in the little town of Eagle, Colorado where I was a long time patron of Bonfire Brewing Company. After enough begging and pleading the brewery let me in with no beer experience. I jumped in as a beertender full force and soaked up as much knowledge I could through various study guides, tastings, cicerone classes, local beer meet-ups, festivals and obviously drinking their beer! There was a local womens beer group called Hop Flowers and the small staff always brought me along to learn new things about beer. Luckily being in Colorado, amazing craft beer wasn't hard to find and soon I was obsessed with buying and trying local beer and beer from surrounding states. Our brewery also did various collabs with other breweries and myself and some of the staff even branched out to make beer of our own. Eventually, I moved down to Colorado's beer mecca, Fort Collins, Colorado where I was brought on board at Black Bottle Brewery. The head brewer at Black Bottle was so knowledgeable and let me pick his brain on all of our beers on draft and pop into the brewery during the brewing processes whenever I wanted to learn more about the beer process or just help him make some beer. Living in Fort Collins gave me backyard access to Odell, New Belgium, Equinox, Oscar Blues, Left Hand, Ratio, FunkWerks, Breckinridge Brewery, Mockery, Weldwerks, TRVE, Great Divide, Vail Brewing and just so many other incredible breweries making great local beer and treating me like family no matter which brewery I was working for or coming from. I am so grateful for this industry and the friends and knowledge I have gained from it and I am proud to be part of the LauderAle team. Here at LauderAle they embraced my beer knowledge and employee me right away. I am starting out as a beertender here and excited to work my way up at this great company. Thank you for this opportunity to attend FemAle and be apart of a movement of women who love beer <3 CHEERS- Candace Arama (Florida Native/Colorado Transplant) |
