MAY 8, 2025 | FEATURES | By Megan Burich and Izzy Roe
Welcome back to a very bittersweet Beer for Babes, as it is the end of an era. Izzy is, unfortunately, dying (graduating) and will never be seen again (will probably be washed up in a couple of months). But we have an exciting announcement and special guest: Haley Outwater will be filling in for next fall as a co-writer for Beer for Babes and joined us this week to get a bit of practice in! For the last one of the year, we decided to drink Shrubby, a double IPA by Outer Range Brewing that clocks in at 7.9% ABV. But fear not, if you were worried that we wouldn’t get drunk enough, we also went out for Cinco de Mayo happy hour right before, so we had a nice little head start.
This was a classic IPA. It was very hoppy and Megan described it as tasting and smelling like piss. Haley described herself as feeling midwestern while drinking this beer because, at its core, it is truly the definition of a beer. For a double, this beer was easyyyy, for a single, this would kill anyone after half a beer. The can’s design was simple but perfect. It showed exactly what the beer was: shrubs. It tasted at times like chewing on leaves, but not wet leaves because those scare Haley.
Although the beer itself was not all that thrilling of a taste, it brought out a drunk in us that is rarely seen, a rowdy one. We were sending those little Trader Joe’s cookies flying and rarely catching them. We played Beerio Kart with almost no casualties, other than one bag of vomit that got punctured. And we finished off the night with some intense sock wrestling. There was biting, punching and many people who had bruises the next day, but that’s what you get when you give a group of girls double IPAs that aren’t too hard to drink. The chug was awful as always. I think one thing that Izzy has learned from her college experience is that chugging just isn’t for her.
All in all this was a great final beer to drink as my last ever Beer for Babes. Tia and I would have never expected this column to outlive us at The Catalyst, but it will return with Megan and Haley next year. I hope that anyone out there who loves this column will be thrilled to see it continue to thrive.
And as for my last ever sign off, love you all XOXO Beer for Babes.