Though she’s only 27 years old, Elle Gaston is well traveled with a multifaceted résumé. While in college in New York City, the SoCal native worked as a maitre de assistant, server, mixologist and private-event coordinator at iconic fine-dining restaurants, including The River Cafe and its sister property, The Water Club. But it wasn’t until she moved to San Diego and began working as a beertender at Harland Brewing that she felt she’d found her calling. Her passion for the beverage industry ignited, she took on roles in sales and hospitality with Ashland Hard Seltzer and MadeWest Brewing before feeling a pull to the production side. This, despite never having brewed on a recreational or professional level. Fortunately, the team at Embolden Beer Co. was looking for someone enthusiastic that they could train from the ground up, and brought her aboard as an assistant brewer. Nine months in, she’s made plenty of progress, but says making friends and connections in the industry has proven a bit more challenging. Determined to change that, not just for herself but for others like her, she teamed with a trio of Embolden colleagues – company co-owner Megan Alkana, Digital Brand Strategist Isabel Smith and former beertender Maggie McCutcheon – to form The Night Shift. A recently launched group focused on establishing and fostering relationships among women in the beverage industry through events built around networking, education, activities and more, The Night Shift’s inaugural get-together was held at Embolden earlier this month. Intrigued and inspired by her initiative, we caught up with Gaston to find out more about the impetus and intentions behind The Night Shift as well as what’s next.
What is The Night Shift and what would you like it to become?
The Night Shift is an open-invite social club for women in and around the craft beer industry. My primary goal in starting it is to offer women what I was so fortunate to have within my position at Embolden, a comprehensible learning environment that will be stimulating no matter your level of experience. We don’t care if you’re trying your very first beer or are the director of operations at a massive production facility – let’s have a beer, learn, network and make new friends. Creating connections is what progresses any industry. Furthermore, I’d like The Night Shift to be collaborative. What I foresee for our club is members signing up to “host” events by organizing activities, speakers and picking educational topics. We will actually begin our sign-ups for this at our next event! Down the road, I’d love to host “new brewer” collaborations where we talk through flavor profiles and create a recipe at one meeting, then host a brew day at the next. Hop sniffing, blind tastings, seltzer production and even other activities like cooking classes, floral arrangement and cocktail-making are also on our future agendas. The Night Shift is currently in a stage of being open to anything, and we are open to any and all collaborations with small businesses, speakers and members.
What inspired the name of the group?
The name The Night Shift comes from my background in hospitality, with a little nod to the craft beer world. If you’ve ever worked in fine dining, at a hotel, behind a bar at a brewery or in any kind of hospitality role, chances are you’ve worked a night or closing shift at some point. You’ve closed down a bar, finished a late service or locked the doors long after everyone else went home. The Night Shift is our version of that shift. It’s the time when we finally clock out, grab a drink and actually get together to connect with people. I also liked the idea of it being a slightly tongue-in-cheek “excuse” to get together with the girls, like: “Sorry, I can’t tonight…I’ve got my night shift.” I also wanted a name that left room to grow. My hope is that The Night Shift can expand beyond just the craft beer world and reach other parts of the service and hospitality industry. Eventually, if there’s interest, I’d love to see different chapters of The Night Shift led by women throughout San Diego – restaurant and hotel managers, mixologists, dive-bar lovers, servers and more. The idea is to create opportunities for leadership while also giving women from all corners of hospitality a place to meet new people, share experiences and learn about things that interest them through fun, engaging activities.
Megan Alkana, Isabel Smith and Elle Gaston
How does The Night Shift differ from other industry-based women’s groups?
I think groups like Pink Boots Society and Girls Pint Out are incredibly important and have done a lot to support women in beer. Honestly, the more female-focused groups that exist in this industry, the better. Craft beer has historically been pretty male-dominated, so having multiple avenues for women to connect, learn and support one another only makes the community stronger. Where The Night Shift differs a bit is that the barrier to entry is intentionally very low. You don’t have to work in beer – or even in hospitality – to participate. A lot of people are curious about craft beer but can feel intimidated by spaces that seem very industry-focused. I wanted The Night Shift to feel more like an open door: if you enjoy good beer, good conversation or meeting interesting people, you’re already in the right place. Whether you’re a brewer, bartender, server, someone who enjoys a great pint or someone completely new to craft beer, there’s a place for you.
How did your first event go?
It honestly exceeded my expectations. About 18 women showed up, which, for a first gathering, felt amazing. The event began at 5 p.m. with about an hour for everyone to arrive, grab a beer and get comfortable. Then we kicked off a few short talks, including an introduction and glimpse of what we hope to achieve, Megan sharing her experience opening a brewery during COVID and what it’s been like building a career in such a male-dominated field. From there, Isabel talked about her role at Embolden and the ins and outs of marketing beer through social media, followed by Maggie talking about her background in event coordination and experience working in customer-facing roles. For the evening’s activity, we did a malt sampling, laying out flaked rice, honey malt, two-row, milled two-row, white wheat, rolled oats and dextra-pils. We encouraged everyone to pick them up, smell them, taste them and really notice the differences. As they sampled, they wrote down notes about how it tasted, smelled or felt, and when or why they thought it might be used in brewing. Once they were finished, they could flip the sheet over to read the actual descriptions and see how close they were. It was especially fun reassuring everyone that, yes, they were allowed to eat the grain. One of my favorite parts of the night was the suggestion box. I kept calling this our “guinea pig event”, so I really wanted to hear what people thought regarding what days work best for them, what topics they wanted to learn about and what activities sounded fun to them. The feedback was incredible.
What do you have in mind for future events?
One of the things that excites me most about The Night Shift is the opportunity to keep it dynamic and offer different types of experiences depending on what people are interested in. Some gatherings may follow a similar structure to our first event – casual time to mingle, a few short talks from women in different roles within hospitality or brewing and some kind of interactive activity – but I’d also love to explore other formats. That could mean more hands-on learning nights, guest speakers from different parts of the industry, brewery or bar tours, tasting-focused events or even more relaxed social meetups where the main goal is simply connecting with new people. I also want this community to be shaped by the people who are participating in it.
How can people learn more about The Night Shift?
Follow us on Instagram, and message us with questions or your email if you’d like to sign-up for our monthly newsletter. And if you would like to speak at or host an event, please let us know. We are currently building out our website and plan to have plenty of information available there as well as a career bulletin board.
The Night Shift’s upcoming events will take place on Tuesday, April 14 at Harland Brewing in Scripps Ranch, and Wednesday, May 13 at Embolden Beer Co. in Miramar