Rebecca Bennett (brewer)

She graduated in May 2005 and was working for Anheuser-Busch in June. Before joining Anheuser-Busch, Bennett said she "always liked beer, but I honestly didn't know a lot about it when I got here."^[3] She learned quickly, working first as a production supervisor at the main brewery (2005), a member of the innovation group (2010), and head of the pilot brewery (2013).^[3] Unlike Pete Kraemer, Bennett didn't grow up in a house where beer or brewing were prevalent, but her science background was helpful.^[3] In her work at the pilot brewery, Bennett experimented with new beers in a scaled-down replica of the main brewery; each batch of beer is 10 barrels and most of the 500 recipes she and her team brewed each year never moved beyond the experimental stage.^[5] She liked being able to combine her STEM studies with management, marketing, and tasting.^[6]

Bennett developed the recipe for Bud Light Platinum and Michelob Ultra-Light Cider.^[2][5] She and Jill Vaughn developed Shock Top and the Straw-Ber-Rita.^[7][8] After her move to Anheuser-Busch's Baldwinsville Brewery, Bennett worked on Bud Light Seltzer.^[9][10]

Bennett is creative with ingredients; she mixed hibiscus flowers with wheat and lemon peels to approximate the taste of a “strawberry lemonade” beer, an idea that emerged from a baking recipe with chocolate chili powder cupcakes and hibiscus frosting.^[5] She has also found inspiration in cocktails: "from an ingredient perspective, there's a lot of fun things happening in cocktails, and being able to cull inspiration from that and work that into beer is exciting."^[11]

Bennett says she doesn't feel like a trailblazer in a brew master's masculine world, citing an increase in women brewers and her work at Anheuser-Busch InBev with Jane Killebrew and Jill Vaughn.^[2][12] At the same time, the gender imbalance in consumers and brewers is real. In 2013, Teri Fahrendorf, brew master and founder of the Pink Boots Society, estimated that 99% of brew masters are men; the Siebel Institute, a brewing academy, says only about 5% of its students are women.^[3][5]

As an African American millennial in the brewing industry, Bennett is outside the norm of industry demographics.^[3][13] She said that "People have a perception that brewers are all guys with beards and are surprised when they see me, an African-American female. I tell them that I am a brewer, and that the brewing process is really rooted in science. There is so much you can do with a STEM degree."^[14]