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VOLUME 101 ISSUE 9
A Woman on a Mission Welcome to Sofie’s World of (Belgian) Beer
Leentje De Leeuw Correspondent
When I first met Sofie Vanrafelghem during a 2011 press trip in Jordan, she told me about her plan to make women choose beer over wine or bubbly in bars and restaurants. She easily won me over with the idea and four years later a huge part of her dream came true. Sofie is now traveling the world as a (Belgian) beer missionary and has jobs as a beer sommelier and consultant in places like New York and Dubai. In 2014, the renowned Belgian magazine ‘Ambiance Culinaire’ named her Beer Personality of the Year. – Leentje De Leeuw
Hoppily Ever After But the most beautiful thing to have happened, without a doubt, is her marriage to the love of her life on August 1st of this year. I rarely meet two people that are as compatible as Sofie and her husband David. For this grand occasion fellow brewer (and cartoonist) Erwin Van Mol made sure there was an appropriate beer, including a great label of course. Of course, everyone at Gazette van Detroit team wishes Sofie and David a long and happy future together... May they live hoppily ever after! For more information check out Sofie’s World online at www.sofiesworld.be or email her at hello@sofiesworld.be. You can also follow Sofie on Facebook at www.facebook.com/sofiesworld.be or on Twitter at @ SVanrafelghem. S. VANRAFELGHEM
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ne can say that a lot has changed for Sofie over the last four or five years. Everything started with Sofie’s fascination for Belgian beer: “I really am a foodie and I love beer. No white wine or cava for me. It hasn’t always been that way though. In fact, it used to be the complete opposite. I grew up in a wonderful, loving family but there wasn’t a drop of beer in sight. It wasn’t until my college years that I started to discover craft beers. When I took my first sip of a Trappist, I had no clue that that moment would change my life.”
“Beer is part of my own culture and history” Sofie started to dig deeper into the world of Belgian beers and she decided to take her love for the suds to a professional level: “There are so many brewers, beers, stories, traditions and flavors ... I couldn’t believe that I Leentje De Leeuw and Sofie Vanrafelghem had overlooked all of this first met during a 2011 press trip to Jordan. in favor of wine. I started to visit breweries and beer festivals. After my graduation, (Sofie has a master’s degree in Communications, LDL) I decided to learn how to brew and go for my degree in zythology “study of beer”. This rich product is after all part of my own culture and history. I really felt the urge to know every single thing about it.” Family and friends were quite easily won over, but Sofie wanted to appeal to a wider audience with workshops and lectures. “The main reason why people – especially women – tend to choose wine over beer, is that they don’t know much about beer (yet). I was and still am determined to change that. My team and I are very proud of our Belgian beers and we want the whole world to know!” To talk about everything Sofie and her ‘Women and Beer’ movement are doing to achieve this goal, would take up the entire newspaper, but one of the most exciting things she has done so far, is organizing brewing days for the ladies. “There is no better way to show what beer is all about than to invite the women into the breweries. This is how our own Eva beer was born. The recipe is based on the feedback I had received from many women’s organizations and associations. It is a refreshing, fruity, hoppy beer of 6.2% with citrus and grapefruit in the nose, thanks to the American Cascade hop. Extra hop makes a beer fruitier and not bitter as some people may expect. Eva is designed to be a perfect aperitif and is ideal to replace your glass of bubbly before dinner!”
Sofie Vanrafelghem tastes the hoppy blond Eva, a beer made for and by women. Through a competition on social media every woman had a chance to be a part of the brewing team. The name of every Eva-lady is always mentioned on the label.