Beer’s effectiveness as a social lubricant is well known, but sometimes it goes beyond starting a friendship and helps build something even more enduring. Case in point, Books & Brews, a women’s book club founded by Briana Margeson and Viviana Zaske (pictured below, right-to-left), friends who met at a local brewery and have been thick as a physical edition of War and Peace ever since. Last year, Briana came up with the idea to start a literary group and hold meetings at different breweries each month. Ever the enthusiastic beer bud, Viviana provided the encouragement and assistance to help make it a reality. Fifteen months later, the club has slowly and steadily grown, and its founders has endeared themselves to the brewing community. Not only have Briana and Viviana begun coordinating events with Mission Brewing, they recently teamed up with Girls Pint Out to help with a forthcoming collaboration beer at that company’s Miramar headquarters. Even with all they’ve accomplished, the duo says they’re still in the early chapters of their story, and welcome anyone who’s interested to join in on their low-pressure, highly enjoyable get-togethers.
How often do you meet and where have you held your events?
We meet once a month. Our very first meeting was at Gravity Heights in Sorrento Mesa. At first we would pick breweries from a list of favorites we had, but as the club grew we started getting requests from breweries wanting to have us over. Our one-year anniversary party was hosted by Mission Brewing in Miramar and our most recent meetup was at Mujeres Brew House in Barrio Logan. We’ve also gone to Duck Foot Brewing, Embolden Beer Co., Harland Brewing, AleSmith Brewing, Kilowatt Brewing, Coronado Brewing, Abnormal Beer Co., Fall Brewing and even Serpentine Cider.
How do you select which books the club reads?
We do a lot of research to find two book options that have similar themes. They’re typically fiction and always under 300 pages to give everyone a chance to finish reading before that month’s meetup. Each month we post a poll on our Instagram story with the two books we’ve selected, and our members vote for their preferred read. Accessibility and inclusivity are very important to us, so most of our book picks are available at county libraries or have audiobook options available on apps like Libby or Spotify.
Walk us through a typical Books & Brews event?
Ordering beers is step number one! We have our members RSVP each month so we know who is coming, and once everyone has arrived we discuss the book and go through some pre-determined discussion questions. After that we stick around to socialize a bit and drink our beers. We try to keep it laid back and encourage people to still come by even if they haven’t finished the book. No book snobs here, but we can’t promise there won’t be any spoilers!
How did the collaboration with Girls Pint Out and Mission Brewing come about?
We were lucky enough to come across a Girls Pint Out’s Instagram post and were two of the 10 women chosen to participate. The brew day with Mission was such a fun experience. We started bright and early, and had a chance to participate in some of the brewing process. We loved being able to meet other beer enthusiasts and women interested in brewing. It was so enjoyable to get to network and we even got to chat books during our downtime.
When and where will your next Books & Brews event be held?
Our next book club meeting will be at The Church by The Lost Abbey in the East Village at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 19, where we will discuss The Club by Ellery Lloyd. We also just held a book-bedazzling event at Mission Brewing’s East Village location, and have another craft event coming up at their Kensington location on Sunday, July 13.
Do you have any future Books & Brews initiatives in mind?
We would love to collaborate with local authors and other book groups in San Diego. Reading Rainbow is a reading group that meets the first Thursday of every month, and coordinating with them for a fun reading event is something we’re looking forward to in the future. We are also looking for local or first-time authors who might like to speak at one of our group events. We have also done a reading picnic at Kate Sessions Park and would love to do a beach day or coffee date soon.