The women leading Barcelona’s craft beer revolution

‘It’s a vocation’: the women leading Barcelona’s craft beer revolution
Female brewers in the Catalan capital are finding success in an industry traditionally dominated by men
It was Steve Huxley, a Liverpudlian and long-term Barcelona resident, who introduced the city to craft beer when he opened the Barcelona Brewing Company in 1993, but it was a woman, Judit Cartex, who helped establish Barcelona as Spain’s craft beer capital.
“Beer has always been a part of my life,” she says. “We were poor and all we had to drink was tap water, no Coca-Cola. Except on Sundays my mother and grandmother would open a litre bottle of beer to watch football on TV. Very English, no?
“It was Steve who opened our eyes to the possibilities of craft beer, not just in Barcelona but in the rest of Spain,” says Cartex, who learned her trade from Huxley and ran her own brewery, Cerveza Barra, until the floor collapsed and the building was condemned.
Learn more about Barcelon’s brewing culture at TheGuardian.com