Hello Charlotte Beer Babes & Friends!
Another year is done, another year of enjoying craft beer, local spots, and 42 events with a host of amazing ladies & friends!
Yes, we did 42 events in 2015! We volunteered, learned about beer, explored local spots, road tripped, toured breweries, paired beer with food, brewed beer, drank, and laughed A LOT!
This was a heck of a year Babes!
We had 12 Second Saturday events, visited 14 Breweries, 9 Fundraising/Volunteering events supporting 14 different charities, and did 15 one-off events! Whew!
We had the following count of events per month: January (3); February (3); March (7); April (3); May (6); June (4); August (1); September (1); October (6); November (3); and December (3).
We learned about these styles of beer at the monthly Education Class at The Beer Growler Charlotte: Stouts, Reds & Aphrodisiacs, IPAs, Brown Ales, Saisons, Session Ales, Wheats & Hefeweizens, “Flavored” Beers, Oktoberfest Beers, Pumpkin Ales, and Sours!
We visited these breweries: Sugar Creek Brewing, Barking Duck Brewery, Olde Hickory Brewing, Catawba Brewing Company, Fonta Flora Brewing, Olde Mecklenburg Brewery (new location), Triple C Brewing, Birdsong Brewing (new location), Heist Brewery, Lenny Boy Brewing, Wooden Robot Brewery, Free Range Brewing, Red Clay Ciderworks, and Sycamore Brewing!
We also helped to raise a LOT of money for charities this year – both by helping to volunteer with events that give money to charities, and by doing our own events!
QCBF Volunteering benefiting ACEing Autism: $4000 from raffle
Power Hour for JDRF: $1085 from tips (including from CBBs!)
NC Brewers & Music Festival Volunteering: benefits Rural Hill
SouthEnd Hops Festival: benefited Chronic Illness Relief Fund in 2015!
17th Annual Charlotte Oktoberfest Volunteering: $50,000 donated to Ada Jenkins Center, Beds For Kids, Greater Charlotte SPCA, Operation Homefront-Carolinas
Carolina Raptor Center Jewelry Fundraiser: $135 donated by CBBs!
Funkonia Sour Fest Volunteering: benefiting Arts For Life for 2015!
NoDa Military Fundraiser Wort Share: $400 donated by NoDa Brewing & CBBs to support Patriot Charities & Operation Homefront-Carolinas!
CBB’s 4th Anniversary Party: $200 donated to Safe Alliance & The Butterfly Project
All in all, we helped events that donated or fundraised ourselves a total of over $58,000 this year for these great charities! Aaaamazing working all of these events this year!
Finally, we did 16 one-off events this year! We went on a road trip to Morganton & Hickory; did a Night of Nerdisms and saw a women-centric local play; did a specialized beer cocktail & food pairing brunch; did a Ladies Bar Crawl; saw a hockey game; learned about Beer Photography with Eric; Brewed Beer in teams with Lady HomeBrewers & NoDa Brewing; Showcased the Lemon Drop Hop in the AHA Hop Showcase; went to a lot of beer festivals; did a mixer with another local group; did a Beer & Wine Conversion Class with Mike of Brawley’s Beverages; went to the Renaissance Festival for BrewFest; did a Fullsteam & Fūd at Salud dinner pairing, and had our 4th Anniversary Party including a Yoga & Self-Defense Class as fundraisers!
Whew! That was quite a year ladies (& gents for some of those too)! Thank you all for helping me make this year a continuation of the success of 2014! Thank you to everyone who came out for any of the events, donated to any of the charities/fundraisers, attended any of the local beer festivals, and had fun with us!
I am so proud of everything we did in 2015 and am already planning a plethora of events (repeat and new) for 2016!
Looking forward to seeing everyone again this year, meeting new people this year, and getting a bigger and better showing for 2016 to make it our best year yet!
Slainté,
Bethany
CLTBeerBabes 