Penises everywhere. Penis after penis after penis. On house walls. Dramatically big. All of Vienna was suddenly covered in scrawls. It all started with them. It was through her that Sophie Tschannett came up with the idea of becoming artistically active and flooding the city with Vulven.
“Public space is often appropriated by marking it,” says the Viennese. “I just thought it was a shame that only the penis was visible. It’s omnipresent anyway.” So she stuck against the gender imbalance. Her vulva stickers became a counterpoint to the penis tags. But it didn’t stop with the stickers. Beer followed stickers.
Tschannett is the woman behind Muskcraft. A beer that’s pornographic, obscene, gross, that messes up society. At least that’s how some people see it, who take issue with the vulva on the label, the word pussy in the name, or the word feminism. Because Muskcraft sees itself as feminist. As a beer, brewed to fight patriarchal structures.
No. It’s not a beer that has to go through a vagina before it’s bottled. “And it is not enriched with microbiomes from the vaginal mucosa, as some have already suspected,” says Tschannett. It’s a perfectly normal craft beer, more precisely: a pale ale. In terms of taste, nothing from the fetish corner is to be expected here either, but subtle notes of honeydew melon, grapefruit and malt. So what does this have to do with a vulva?
“I think a lot of people don’t understand what’s going on in a head that’s thinking about putting out a beer with a vulva on it,” she can understand. “Of course it doesn’t have to be on the label. But what has to?” The vulva is still taboo, it provokes. It also provokes controversy and provides material for discussion. Therein lies its strength.
“And although I get a lot of hate, I also see that this means that the topic is being discussed in circles in which it would otherwise not take place,” says Tschannett. That is exactly the intention of Muschicraft: drinking beer and reflecting on patriarchal structures at the same time. Meanwhile, not only in the feminist inner circle, but in the mainstream.
After almost a year on the market, the feminist craft beer is so successful that it is no longer only sold in Vienna, but recently also in Berlin. In the beginning there was not the beer, but only the word: pussy power. According to the Viennese woman, it was given to her by the universe. The idea for beer came much later – with beer, so to speak.
Every time she ordered a beer and her boyfriend ordered a Campari soda, the waiter gave her the Campari soda and him the beer. “I was very surprised that the fairy tale that beer is a drink that only men consume still persists in the 21st century,” says Tschannett. She doesn’t observe that in her environment.
In general, the entire industry in Austria is male-dominated. Starting with the fact that there are only a few women brewers, only men sit on the executive floors of the companies and marketing is also very much tailored to male consumers. Why, she wondered, isn’t that more diverse?
For her, there is no better product than beer to convey issues such as feminism. Beer can be described as something like the smallest common beverage denominator, it is sold all over the world and is drunk by all genders. The numbers speak for themselves: According to Statista, around 1.86 billion hectoliters of beer were brewed worldwide in 2021. In Austria alone, per capita consumption was 101 liters, in Germany it was an average of 92 liters.
“In addition, people often lose their inhibitions when it comes to alcohol and they discuss certain topics more openly and honestly,” says Tschannett. “In interaction with the vulva as a discussion stimulus, it was a well-rounded thing for me.”
She is aware that the entire gender spectrum is not covered with the vulva either. As a person who sees herself as a woman and has a vulva, she finds it difficult to portray a different gender. “But I wish that much more diversity would become visible in public space in the future,” she says. The beer can only make a minimal contribution to the fight for more gender equality. “It’s just a beer and not the great bringer of equality for society as a whole”.
Tschannett is actually a social worker. In the meantime she devotes herself exclusively to pussy craft. She knows that to a certain extent she economises on politics and feminism, “because in the end I have to pay my rent and my life with it”. She believes that political messages will increasingly be distributed on a large scale in the future. It is important, she says, that you stand by the fact that you earn money with it.
But not only Tschannett earns money from her feminist beer, women-related projects also benefit. “It was unconditionally clear to me that an amount would be included that would be invested to make the world a bit fairer,” she says. Currently 10 cents per beer are donated. In the first ten months of Muskcraft more than 3000 euros were raised. And that was just the beginning. If everything goes well, the craft beer should soon be available throughout Austria.
