International Women's Day - Rational Creatures 2025
For International Women's Day on the 8th March we'll be releasing our 2025 Rational Creatures - a super tasty, quaffable Table Pale Ale (ABV 3.3%).
There’s no quicker way to warm up on a cold January morning in Edinburgh, than lifting 25kg bags of malt and grain into the augur at the start of a brew!
This is the sixth time that the women of Bellfield have got together to brew a special beer to mark International Women's Day (IWD) on 8th March.
And this year we’ve designed a beer that looks back at our 'Mimosa' IWD beer of 2020.
Mimosa never got its moment in the sun as it was launched just a few days before the first Lockdown at the start of the pandemic.
But we were so proud of it – and it tasted so good - that we decided to try and recreate the recipe, with a few tweaks (to account for new processes we’ve introduced since then).
Rational Creatures 2025: the beer
Expect a straw-coloured, Table Pale Ale: a balanced, light beer, with a prominent refreshing fruity hop character using hops originally selected for the 2020 IWD brew (Cascade, Centennial, Amarillo).
Flavours of citrus, pine, orange and tangerine will all feature, balanced with a honey-like and toastie malt profile thanks to the mixture of light malts including Scottish Pale, Vienna, Cara and Cara Gold.
The addition of oats delivers a smooth, creamy and luxurious mouthfeel.
A little history
The first International Women's Day (IWD) was held in March 1911 when over one million women (and men) attended rallies worldwide, campaigning to end inequality and promote women's rights to work, vote, and hold public office. Read more on History.com about ‘The Surprising History of International Women’s Day’.
IWD isn't country, group or organisation specific. It's a day of collective global activism and celebration that belongs to all those committed to forging women's equality. Although IWD has been around for over a hundred years, many of the issues still impacting women's advancement remain.
IWD 2025
This year’s theme is #AccelerateAction.
The campaign asks us to imagine a gender equal world free of bias, and discrimination that's diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
The call to action is that we can all – collectively – in our businesses, workplaces and social lives, play our part to accelerate action towards gender parity.
The IWD website says “When we inspire others to understand and value women's inclusion, we forge a better world. And when women themselves are inspired to be included, there's a sense of belonging, relevance, and empowerment. Collectively, let's forge a more inclusive world for women.”
The Bellfield Women Brewers
This year’s beer was designed by six of us: Marie Brown, Director; Anna Orr, Sales & Marketing Manager; Giselle Dye, co-founder; Jessica Shoemark and Phoebe Crosbie, Taproom team members.
All five of us took part in the brew day in January, fortified by plenty of strong coffee and Greggs doughnuts, a guilty brewery treat.
We’d like to thank our Brewer, Dale, for his expert help on the day: he supervised the technical aspects and kept us focused on track. And a special thank you to our Head Brewer Keith, who listened carefully to what we wanted to achieve, and designed the recipe with us.
We’re really chuffed with the result and hope you all enjoy drinking the beer too, when it’s launched in a few weeks time.
Rational Creatures 2025 will go straight into keg and cask for enjoying as fresh as possible.
We’ve already got some pre-orders from bars and pubs across Edinburgh and we’ll put a full list on our Instagram feed just ahead of launch day.
2025 badge design… and the name
The badge – with its fresh colour palette of yellow and green – has been designed with the mimosa flower in mind. This blooms in early March and is a longstanding symbol of International Women's Day.
The badge design for this beer replaces the stylised soundwaves that normally radiate from the centre of the Bellfield logo with the distinctive leaves of the mimosa plant.
The name comes from Jane Austen’s famous and much-loved final novel, Persuasion.
“But I hate to hear you talking so, like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.”
IWD launch in the Bellfield Taproom
Rational Creatures, IWD 2025 will be launched as a limited edition beer, in our Edinburgh taproom on Thursday 6th March from 5pm and we would love you to join us.
Everyone is welcome: partners, pets, children and friends! Book your table here
Women’s Aid Donation
We’ll donate 50p from every pint of Rational Creatures 2025 sold over that weekend in our Taproom to Scottish Women’s Aid, a charity that’s close to our hearts. They work to prevent domestic abuse through a network of 36 specialist local Women’s Aid groups.
Also in Lastest News from Bellfield
