Women tasters put pints to test

They long ago refused to make do with a Babycham or a spritzer but it now seems that women want to take over one of the last remaining areas of all-male expertise - beer tasting.

One of the world's first women-only panel of beer tasters is pointing the way to what could be a revolution in retailing: the feminisation of beer selling. With record numbers of British women switching from grape to hop, female beer-drinking is now worth more than £70 million annually and the industry is waking up to the prospect of a potentially huge new market.

As Denise van Outen and Sara Cox have turned the foaming pint into a fashion accessory, the number of women beer drinkers has more than doubled in the past five years - accounting for nearly seven per cent of the market.

Brewer Boddingtons enlisted Melanie Sykes to put some glamour into bitter, but it took a beer-drinking advertising copywriter, Rebecca Mowling, to come up with the idea of an all-women beer tasting panel.

She started supping pints at university but, when it came to shopping for beer, she found the experience lacked the feminine touch. Packaging was drab, nutritional information lacking and there was often a distinct lack of variety. She said: "You don't have to have a beard and big tummy to enjoy a really good glass of ale. But women look for different qualities in a beer than men. We want more subtle flavours, a lighter style and an attractive enticing colour.

"The macho approach to beer drinking where quantity is sometimes more important than quality holds little appeal for me. It's the ideal social drink in a pub because it's thirst-quenching and lasts much longer than a glass of wine.

"There has been a cultural change. If women can do the same jobs as men and have the same rights what's to stop them having the same drinks? For my generation there's nothing wrong with seeing a woman holding a pint of lager but my father would sooner buy me two halves."

Rebecca, 25, from Pimlico, wrote to Tesco suggesting that she and her drinking partners could tell them a thing or two about what makes a good pint - and the supermarket agreed to give them a chance.

This week they took a morning off work for the first of their quarterly meetings at Tesco's superstore in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. Faced with a mountain of bottles and cans they started with an Irish port stout. Holding the glass up to the light they agreed it looked "a bit dark and dank" and their suspicions were confirmed when they moved on to the "nose".

"It smells like a rough pub, where they've spilled a lot of beer on the carpet," said Carolyn Murphy, 38, a buyer for a software company from Shepherd's Bush.