Win/Win: Drink Beer, Help Guatemalan Girls

Tomorrow's going to be a beautiful day, and it seems likely you might want to drink a beer or five. If you're going to be doing that anyway, why not benefit a project that helps women and girls in rural Guatemala have better lives through education?

Four midtown breweries -- Six Row Brewing Co., Buffalo Brewing Co., Urban Chestnut Brewing Co. and the Schlafly Taproom -- are participating in a People's Choice competitive pub crawl, and your $25 admission fee goes to the Starfish One by One program.

Women and girls in rural Guatemala receive on average 1.4 years of education in their lives, says Alfred Frager, a Ph.D candidate in psychology at St. Louis University and one of the event's organizers. The program finds ways to get them more education, which lowers poverty and birth rates for the women.

The proceeds from the event, dubbed "One Fish Two Fish Starfish Brewfish," will help Frager and colleagues assist the Guatemalan staff develop better methods for keeping track of information, which will streamline their work and let them serve more women and girls.

Helping women and girls have better lives is without a noble goal. But why beer?

"Ha!" says Frager."There's actually five different graduate students and faculty at SLU that brew their own beer. The initial idea was a psych department home brew competition at Buffalo."

But in talking with brewers, Frager realized the idea could be bigger and better, and so help the organization more.

Each brewery will give out two-ounce samples of two of their brews, along with descriptions of the beers. Participants vote on their favorites, and one will come out victorious.

"Most beer competitions have five or six professional judges deciding," Frager says. "This is a people's choice award. The people decide."

The people also get five tickets that can be redeemed for ten-ounce pours or a food item. That's potentially a lot of brew, so the event will have two buses -- one handicapped-accessible -- circulating between the four breweries. And designated drivers will get a special wristband so they can ride along with their friends.

Tickets are cash-only, so make sure to bring some greenbacks. Buy them from any of the participating breweries, and get your do-gooder guzzle on. It's tomorrow from 1 - 6 p.m.