Apparently it's a male preserve - ale fellow, well met and all that - although I'm not sure a lot of my friends would agree with that.
Last night I joined a bevvy of beer babes, of assorted ages too, who had descended on the Metropolitan Cathedral crypt for a special women-only ale tasting session.
In fact the only men present were the equivalent of tavern wenches pouring out the amber nectar into our glasses.
CAMRA's pledge for Capital of Culture is to try and get more young people and laydeez to transfer their allegiance to real ale.
I'm the first to admit a love of wine and a certain ambivalence about beer, although I do quite like the taste of real ale.
Last time I did any tasting was on a press trip to Lodz in Poland in November when we were given the low down on beer by one of the country's top experts.
So I was game for a glass last night, and had a lovely evening in the company of some fun people.
We tasted a total of six named beers before a mystery ale (which I'm afraid I missed so I can't enlighten you on that).
It was interesting how everyone's palates could differ so much, as the show of hands for our favourites revealed at the end. Mine was a lovely, honeyedHopback Salisbury golden ale if you're remotely interested.
The winner was Okells' Eastern Spice which I really wanted to like from the description - involving chilli, coriander and ginger - but which was just too annoyingly spicy for me.
The main reason for the evening, which comes before the start of the main CAMRA beer festival today, was to introduce a new "women-friendly" beer brewed by the very young looking Harriet Easton (she resembled the Natalie Portman of ale making) in Shropshire.
Harriet and her family spent a lot of money testing this beer out.
Leaving aside the slightly patronising tone of creating a wimmins' beer, I was willing it to be tasty just because she seemed like a genuinely nice person.
So I'm sorry to report I didn't like it at all. It has been given an orange/lime flavour and frankly it tasted to me like I was downing washing up liquid.
Capital of Culture - how can you not be enjoying it?!
