Meet the world’s first transgender beer
By Micah Sulit
Ahead of BrewDog Soho’s Friday opening, the Scottish craft brewery have unveiled their latest concoction: a ‘transgender’ beer made from hops that changed sex before harvest.
Dubbed ‘No Label’, the 4.6% ABV Kölsch is touted as “the world’s first non-binary, transgender beer”, with profits raise going towards helping LGBT organisations.
It sounds like an outrageous concept, but it sounds like the folks at BrewDog have put a lot of thought into creating No Label.
The company said: “We have looked at the traditions of brewing – where female hop plants are used and male hop bines discarded (as the flowers don’t grow into full cones). For No Label, we have sourced Jester hops – a varietal naturally prone to altering sex whilst growing – and brewed No Label with 20kg that have undergone this change and grown male flowers; to add diversity, rather than restrict it.”
The ‘non-binary’ bit alludes to No Label having qualities of both a lager and an ale, and drawing “parallels with individuals who identify themselves in a similar ‘non-binary’ way, as neither exclusively male nor female – a community of people that is still largely under-acknowledged by society”.
No Label will officially debut at BrewDog Soho, but it’s now available to purchase online.
Profits from No Label sales will be donated to events organiser Queerest of the Queer, who will in turn use the money to support LGBT-oriented organisations such as the Albert Kennedy Trust and Micro Rainbow International.
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