This episode is a toast to the women who are fermenting change and crafting a new narrative in the male-dominated adult beverage business. Meet Julianna Pierandozzi from Three Sheeps Brewing Company and Jaclyn Stuart, sommelier extraordinaire and visionary behind Vintage Elkhart.
Juliana and Jacqueline bring their stories of innovation, from groundbreaking roles in beer sales to sommelier stardom, and discuss the unique contributions that women are making to the flavor profiles of our favorite drinks.
Both women are hosting female-empowered events in March to celebrate International Women's Day on March 8th. Scroll below for more info. So, pull up a chair, pour yourself a glass, and let's savor the wisdom of these remarkable women who are stirring up tradition and pouring new possibilities into our cups.
Tune in as we discuss
the challenges they've faced
the shift toward more and more women leading these industries
their recommendations for the perfect pour this spring
3 Sheeps Brewery limited edition beer- This year, the specialty 3 Sheeps Brewing Co. beer Lady Lupulin IPA will be featured for March which was crafted by female cellar team member Kate Thomma. The brewery will donate 50 cents per pint sold at the taproom to Safe Harbor of Sheboygan. This beer will be on-tap at various Women’s Month participating bars and restaurants, on-tap and as 6-packs in the taproom, and available throughout Wisconsin as the rotating beer in the New! Variety Hop Pack.
Sip Sip Soiree - A celebration of women and wine. Thursday. March 7th at Vintage Elkhart from 6 - 8 pm. Enjoy the following featured items:
- An assortment of Harry’s Pizza e Vino Roman-style Pizzas
- Six curated wines from female winemakers/owners selected by Select Sellars
- A delish raspberry and chocolate ganache cupcake from Cupcake Sugar
This episode is a toast to the women who are fermenting change and crafting a new narrative in the male-dominated adult beverage business. Meet Julianna Pierandozzi from Three Sheeps Brewing Company and Jaclyn Stuart, sommelier extraordinaire and visionary behind Vintage Elkhart.
Juliana and Jacqueline bring their stories of innovation, from groundbreaking roles in beer sales to sommelier stardom, and discuss the unique contributions that women are making to the flavor profiles of our favorite drinks.
Both women are hosting female-empowered events in March to celebrate International Women's Day on March 8th. Scroll below for more info. So, pull up a chair, pour yourself a glass, and let's savor the wisdom of these remarkable women who are stirring up tradition and pouring new possibilities into our cups.
Tune in as we discuss
the challenges they've faced
the shift toward more and more women leading these industries
their recommendations for the perfect pour this spring
3 Sheeps Brewery limited edition beer- This year, the specialty 3 Sheeps Brewing Co. beer Lady Lupulin IPA will be featured for March which was crafted by female cellar team member Kate Thomma. The brewery will donate 50 cents per pint sold at the taproom to Safe Harbor of Sheboygan. This beer will be on-tap at various Women’s Month participating bars and restaurants, on-tap and as 6-packs in the taproom, and available throughout Wisconsin as the rotating beer in the New! Variety Hop Pack.
Sip Sip Soiree - A celebration of women and wine. Thursday. March 7th at Vintage Elkhart from 6 - 8 pm. Enjoy the following featured items:
- An assortment of Harry’s Pizza e Vino Roman-style Pizzas
- Six curated wines from female winemakers/owners selected by Select Sellars
- A delish raspberry and chocolate ganache cupcake from Cupcake Sugar
Hey you Betcha-Seeded listeners. Today we have a great show. We have two interviews going on at the same time. I am talking to two rad women who are both in traditionally male dominated fields. I have Juliana Perendosi. She is a sales rep in the beer brewing industry and works for Three Sheeps Brewing Company. I also have Jacqueline Stewart, who is a wine sommier and also the owner of Vintage Elkart. We are going to be picking their brains about all things adult beverages and what it's like to work as a female in these male dominated industries. Did she really do that? You Betcha-Seeded?
Speaker 1:
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of you Betcha-Seeded, the podcast where female leaders, entrepreneurs and change makers, especially from the Great Midwest, share their wit and wisdom. I am your host, rainer Kickey, and today we have a super special episode because we have two rad women in the studio. We have Juliana Perendosi and Jacqueline Stewart, and they are both women in the beverage industry. I want to start with something kind of fun. It's March, spring is on the horizon and I always like to learn more about everything. I'm a total nerd in that sense. I want to pick your brain. What is your favorite wine or beer, depending on your field, and what would you recommend pairing it with for spring?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, as spring comes in, obviously as Midwesterners we all get super excited that there's sunshine and we can all sit outside again. Yeah, I start to lean in more into the lighter crisper beers. At Three Sheeps we right now have Wisconsinitis, which is our newest cream ale that we just released. Super light, really easy to drink in, Just good to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine with. Then, as we get more into summer, we have our lemongrass pills, which is very unique. I like cooking with that one, making brines for wings or sauces for grilling out. I like to cook with beer too, because that's just an added element of fun.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I like that. I enjoy drinking beer, but I don't often think about cooking with it. That's a good tip to think about. Jacqueline, how about you? What's a great wine for spring and what would you pair it with?
Speaker 3:
I mean, there's so many good wines for spring, but it's really hard not to think pink when it comes to spring, just as a temperature-starking warmer. I always think rosé. With social media and everything, there's the hashtag rosé all day. I'm kind of a rosé all year as well, but specifically when it gets warmer it's just a great refreshing style of wine to have at any time when you're outside or waiting for warmer weather.
Speaker 1:
Do you have a favorite rosé? Because I really like rosé too, I was looking for new ones to try and sample.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I have a few Specifically from France. I tend to gravitate towards that style. I really like Provence style. That's probably the most popular, but there's some really nice ones from some areas in France outside of Provence, in the Loire Valley, specifically from Chinon. They make them with crab fronk predominantly and they're just really nice and floral. They have these really cool, more herbal undertones that I really like with food. When you're thinking spring too, it just makes you think of fresh flowers and the grass getting green again and all that.
Speaker 1:
Exactly All the fresh smells and the loveliness that comes after hibernating. Excellent, well, as two women and pretty much traditionally male dominated fields the beer industry and the wine industry. What first drew you to go down this path? And then, what challenges have you faced as women in these fields? Jacqueline, why don't you start us off with that one?
Speaker 3:
Sure, so actually I started off in beer. I was working for a micro brewery yeah, so I have, like this, the soft spot for for beer, because it was my original passion. But I started off in a small micro brewery in Northern California working as assistant manager and they needed an assistant brew master. So I was like, hey, I can do that, I like fermentation science. This sounds fun. Let's get nerdy in the brewery and learn. And so I picked that up.
Speaker 3:
And then I was doing a wine and beer or sorry, a beer and food pairing dinner. So before I got into wine, I was already pairing up things with food. And during that beer dinner I had a guy come up to me and he's like hey, you know, you could do this with wine and probably make a little bit more money and and get more people to come, because we only had a small amount of people. And this was back in the like early 2000s, so the idea of craft beer was just really starting to catch on and I just found this like new avenue of like hey, I can just go with any kind of beverage, this is kind of fun. And I started learning more about wine and ended up moving to Wisconsin, which normally when you pursue a career in wine you move to California, not the other way around.
Speaker 3:
So I moved here to Wisconsin with my husband and I was working at the American Club in Kohler and they were looking for a sommelier and I was like, well, I can, I can do that. I know about wine, I like it, I like to drink it, so I could probably sell it and do this. So at the time they had never had a female sommelier at the American Club and they've had a couple now since then. But they wanted me to get some certifications to prove that I knew what I was talking about. So I started really pursuing this high level education. I was the first female sommelier to get the W set diploma here in Wisconsin and just kind of started breaking through some glass ceilings and really making a big name for myself in the wine industry.
Speaker 1:
Awesome Congratulations. That's cool. That was a great story, very interesting twists and turns, and I love breaking some ceilings along the way. That's how you got to do it. Juliana, tell us about you. How did you get into the beer industry and get acquainted with three sheeps? I mean, they are booming. I see them everywhere now.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we're continuously growing, which is very cool and very exciting. I started, I was born and raised in restaurants. I'm originally from kind of the south side of Chicago suburbs of Chicago area and literally I had a crib in my dad's restaurant growing up and everyone else in my family cooked and owned restaurants on the side and so naturally when I started getting jobs I worked in the restaurants and kind of just kept doing that. When I moved to Wisconsin for college, I worked for the Lowlands Group for a very long time. I was a server and a bartender and supervisor and all those, and we always luckily had a good amount of women in like the managerial roles, but not a ton in GM ship ownership, things like that, and all that's actually changed since I've left there. But in that you know, wisconsin Milwaukee is so small, especially in the service industry, so I eventually moved on. I was a bar manager at the Paps River side Turner Hall theaters and then I was looking to not work till two in the morning anymore.
Speaker 1:
I can understand that.
Speaker 2:
I was kind of kind of done with. It was very fun and very cool. But actually someone I had previously worked with in Lowlands Group was now the area manager for three sheets and they were looking for a salesperson and you know I was like I've never done sales. They're still. You know, I knew a lot of the other beer reps and they were mostly men and I had no idea. But luckily they took a chance on me and have always been very supportive of, you know, a woman's perspective in the industry. And now there's I mean, I think even I started four and a half years ago and there's probably double the amount of women reps Cool. And yeah, even in wine and spirits as well it's. I think when I was like a buyer at these restaurants and stuff, it was like all men and then slowly when I was there, there were more spirit reps and more wine reps that were women and now we're getting into beer Awesome.
Speaker 1:
I love that. I mean it's kind of fascinating. Right In the last 10, 20 years you've really you know both of you personally have seen that shift of like more and more women getting into these roles and playing playing bigger roles. So that's great. That's just going to pave the way for even more women to get into it. Can you guys share a particularly rewarding moment in your career where maybe you know, like you, being a female in this more male dominated field like what's an advantage, maybe helped kind of shape things in a better way?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I'll kind of piggyback off of some of the things Juliana was saying. You know, as far as females go, we tend to have a heightened sense of smell and taste, more so than men.
Speaker 1:
I know that.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. So it kind of gives us a leg up in this industry, because there's a lot of times where I'll be tasting with a group of people and I can pick out keen. You know smaller details in wine and maybe others don't but that's always given me a leg up, I think, and it's fascinating working with other women in the industry. It's it's, you know, definitely a perk. Let's see how to back up this story a little bit. But I did the top new song.
Speaker 3:
I was competing in Chicago against a bunch of guys and I won the top new song in 2011, which was really cool. So it was really fun being in Chicago at a big, fancy hotel and competing against all these guys. I was the only female there. I went on to the national competition and I think there were two other females that were part of that. But when you look at the picture of this group, it's all guys and then like there's three girls just dotted in there and since then I've seen the industry. It's so fun. The industry's really evolved since then. I mean that's 2011 and now you see a lot more women taking on more leadership roles in the beverage industry in general, especially as some of these We've had more master some of these and definitely far more on the level, so it's been really neat to see that evolution.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, good for you, jacqueline, that's awesome. I love that story about like sea of men. And then you're like I'm here, I'm winning, I'm crushing it. Juliana, how about you? Like? What insight do you have? You know, being a female, how it's, giving you maybe an advantage or a different perspective.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, I think in general, you know, I kind of did Jacqueline's point. You know, sometimes we have biological things like better taste and smell or just things that maybe we're inherently a little better at. I the something I've gotten from buyers is in, and I don't, you know, don't know if this is necessarily a female thing or fresh eyes in the industry, because the industry has been still mal dominated. They're those have been the ideas forever and you know there's really not a new perspective showing up. So what I get from buyers a lot of time is, you know, new event ideas, new pairing ideas, new group things that people can do to enjoy beer, and you know, kind of think in a way of being more inclusive for women and, yeah, just kind of branching out. I mean it genuinely and I know we're going to speak of this later.
Speaker 2:
Women's Month has been like this huge thing that I'm so proud of and so excited about.
Speaker 2:
We started doing it. This will be our third year and in the first year there were only four of us, this year or five of us, and this year I believe there's 13 female reps. Beer and spirits. We have a ton more partners and a lot of these partners are woman owned, woman managed restaurants. And just seeing that expand, as well as the amount of money we've been able to raise for sojourner truth house I mean the first year we raised like 2500 and last year we raised over Nice so just the continued like expansion of meeting more women in the industry. And you know, in the spirits world, in the wine world, you know we're working with some women bakers this year for a bake sale idea and just yeah, kind of just getting to know more women in this industry. That it's. I've been up. I mean I've lived here 16 years, 17 years, and the last four years I've been more a part of this industry in a greater way than I think I ever have.
Speaker 1:
That's great to hear that it's just coming together and women are coming together to collaborate, which, yeah, you kind of hinted at this. So in March, I know you both have different events coming up that are women-driven, women-led. That helps support women, especially with International Women's Day coming up on March 8th. So, juliana, let's piggyback to you, talk to us a little bit about what's going on with women and brewing in Wisconsin.
Speaker 2:
Well, that's actually another really cool part. There are so many more female brewers in this state. You know Tumbled Rock, giant Jones, third Space, three Sheeps I'm sure there's a million more people that I'm leaving out. The biggest one, nuglaeus, is owned by Deb Carey. So there are just so many more women, even on the back of house operations of it. But for Women's Month, we have 34 events through the entire month, which I think there's only 31 days Wait this map doesn't work Like wait a second.
Speaker 2:
I know. So we try to go across and do a whole bunch of events and the key is to be able to network with each other and kind of take over these spaces that we've maybe not been super invited to or necessarily felt super comfortable in for a very long time and continue to work together to see how we can continue to support each other while raising money for Sojourner Truth House.
Speaker 1:
And, jacqueline, I know you have an event coming up. I believe it's March 7th, the night before International Women's Day, and it's called Sip. Sip Swarovay In Elkhart Lake. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. So Sip, sip Swarovay, it's a celebration of women and wine and we're teaming up a few different females in the industry. So myself finted to Elkhart Lake, and then we have Lori from Harry's Pizza, evino, that just opened up in Elkhart Lake, across the street from me. And then I got my friend Rebecca from Select Sellers, which is a wine distributor, and then Beth O'Reilly PR that we're creating this event where people can come sample a bunch of different pizzas. They're amazing Roman style pizza and we're pairing that up with six different wines. And then also following that up with some cupcakes from another female business owner, sammy from Cupcake Sugar in Shewagon. So we're getting a lot of people involved and we're raising some money for Elkhart Cares, which helps out different families and people in the community here. And then we're also featuring some cheese from a local. I mean, it's Wisconsin, you've got to have some like really good cheese, exactly.
Speaker 3:
We'll have some awesome cheese from Deer Creek and the owner's daughter will hopefully be here to talk a little bit about her artwork that she's put on the labels. So just featuring a lot of different people, a lot of different wonderful women throughout this event, and hopefully this will be the inaugural one, meaning that there will be an annual aspect to this so that we can keep growing it from there.
Speaker 1:
Awesome I love it.
Speaker 1:
It's like it's just so great to have all this really cool, dynamic women energy coming together for these events and supporting other women. If you're interested in going to any of these events listeners, I will have everything linked in the show notes, so check out those links so you can attend these events. Support women Also. Just get out, grab some of your besties and go do some fun stuff. So, speaking on to our next question, how do we get more women in these fields? So you guys have had years of experience now. You've definitely seen it get more women friendly, which is fantastic. What advice do you have for someone who's thinking about entering the wine or beer industry, especially at the beginning, like what are some things that you know now that you didn't know then?
Speaker 2:
Um, I guess, for me, I take the leap. I mean, you know, there's a million reasons and I had a million and one of them not to, you know, go for it in the sales position or what I considered an upper level position in my industry. But I have found, you know, especially in the last year or two, there have been a lot new women reps for beer and a couple of spear companies as well. And you know, my first thing is hi, how are you? What do you need? Like, let's talk Like, yes, we're all in competition together, but not really.
Speaker 2:
There's plenty of, there's plenty of booze to grow around in the state of Wisconsin. Um, I think everyone will be fine and it's. It's just so much better and easier. And you know, we can talk about things that maybe, you know, the male reps don't have to deal with. We do have, like a lady thread of text messaging of you know. Hey, I had this buyer today. He was really creepy, or I had this event and this guy kept asking me or kept trying. That's my favorite. You know this.
Speaker 2:
This doesn't taste like an FDA is my favorite or, you know, trying to like mansplain to you what the beer that you sell is supposed to be yeah, I got it wrong.
Speaker 1:
That's so funny.
Speaker 2:
Yeah With. My comment is oh, let me call Grant Pauley the owner of our brewery. I'll let him know that you don't think this is correct. Um, but yeah, being able to share those experiences and joke about them and vent about them and, you know, kind of get them out of your brain instead of letting those experiences make you continue to feel like you shouldn't be here. So, yeah, take a leap, make some friends. Never, you know, never be afraid to take up that space and shake things up a little bit.
Speaker 1:
I'm all about it. Great advice. Uh, Jacqueline, how about you?
Speaker 3:
I think making a network of other females in the industry is such a great thing. Um, I was really lucky when I was working in Milwaukee to find um several other like minded females in the business to form um tasting groups so that we could um, you know, it sounds like really tough work getting them together and tasting wine, but we would get together and actually study. There is an academic side of it, but, um, you know, talking about wine, talking about our uh experiences in the industry and uh, I think that's such a great point of advice um to do. Um another thing is just be a sponge. When you start off Um, a lot of times, you know, if you're entrepreneurial minded, you just want to like get into your own place and start your own business, and I had the hardest time taking a step back and saying let's learn first before you dive in headfirst.
Speaker 3:
So working for other people and, you know, helping lift up their business, but also being a sponge and learning as much as you possibly can from them, and maybe even from their mistakes, so that you can learn what to do better. Um, it's such a big thing, cause you are getting paid to learn, which is awesome, instead of paying for your mistakes later on down the road. So I always try to really drive that point home with entrepreneurs to to be a sponge, don't rush into things. Um, your idea, if it's a sound one, will be ready when you're ready.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's good advice Observe, learn, take it in first, before you you really take some big risks and maybe find a mentor along the way. It sounds like women are very willing to help you out and kind of show you the ropes Awesome, well, thank you to you too for being on the show. Thank you, jacqueline, thank you, juliana. I'm excited for you guys and I'm so glad you are in these spaces, making room for women, making things taste delicious and um, you know, giving the word out, as always, if you like what you're hearing on you, betcha, she did. Don't forget to subscribe to the show. Make sure to share the episode, don't gatehold it. You know there was someone out there who wants to hear this episode, who is going to be inspired by it. So spread the word until next time. Thank you.