Janet Street-Porter is prising off her purple high heels, seated at a table groaning with new “female-friendly” beers. “I hate everything about beer culture,” she carps.

“I hate the smell of beer, I hate men’s beer guts, I hate all the crap that goes with beer.” She pauses only to put on her trainers and summon new vitriol. “You know, one in four pubs is closing and they deserve to close because they are bloody crap!”

Right ho, Janet. The balanced discussion on why British women tend not to drink beer has got off to a lairy start. I can’t help thinking that if this were a group of Frenchwomen discussing wine, the conversation might be a little more elevated. But it certainly confirms that Project Eve, a new campaign to encourage more women to give beer a try, has some way to go: Street-Porter is not alone in her antipathy to the hop.

Only 13 per cent of British women choose beer over other drinks, compared with 40 per cent on the Continent.

This is the attitude that Kristy McCready, MD of BitterSweet Partnership, wants to change with the multimillion-pound campaign. It is not about encouraging a return to the ladette culture of the 1990s, but an attempt to help beer to shake off its overwhelmingly male image.

“We are encouraging women to have a choice,” she says. “We want to listen to women about what they want, get behind what they want and then speak to the licensed trade. We hope to change the landscape of beer.”

So what are they up against? Well, for a start there’s the big one: nearly 50 per cent of women polled for the initiative complained that drinking beer would make them put on weight. Add to this the more than 40 per cent who say the advertising is unappealing, and the third who see drinking beer as “manly” and you’ve got substantial opposition before anyone has even got on to taste.

The BitterSweet Partnership counters the weight claim with a number of studies, including “The relation between drinking pattern and body mass index and waist and hip circumference” (Tolstrup et al, 2005), which suggests that if you are drinking beer moderately every day you are less likely to suffer from obesity and will be slimmer than “someone whose consumption pattern is to only binge occasionally”.

The study shows that the risk of obesity is almost 30 per cent lower for those consuming over seven days per week as opposed to two to four days.

As to the manly accusation, the chef and restaurateur Allegra McEvedy, co-founder of the healthy fast-food chain Leon, prefers the word “ballsy” and is keen that women should overcome their prejudices to sample the great tastes of different beers.

McEvedy, a keen drinker of Guinness, feels very comfortable holding a pint. “The stereotypes around beer annoy me and get my back up. It is a fantastically crafted drink, but the most important aspect of it is taste and environment. I like to drink Sagres lager, London Pride, Guinness in winter, or Doom Bar beer in Rock in Cornwall. All of these have wonderful flavours — just like a glass of wine.”

McEvedy is also a keen advocate of using beer in cooking. “For example, just try putting a bottle of London Pride into a casserole, or a porter beer chucked into boeuf bourguignon at the beginning,” she says. Her interest today is in some of the “female-friendly” beers being tasted by the panel, beers that the industry will be rolling out in tasting sessions across the country over the summer.

I am sorry to say that I found the beers unpalatable. I hope that the clear beer, developed by Coors as a first for the UK market and as yet un-named, never sees the light of day for the sake of all those street cleaners in town centres on Sunday mornings. Flavoured with “dragon fruit and green tea”, it looked like lemonade and tasted like a sickly alcopop.

Equally gassy and difficult to drink was the “beer cocktail with crème de peche and cranberry juice”, and the Kasteel Cru Rose was a disappointing alternative to any middle-of-the-road rosé wine. Just as I was ready to leave unconvinced, hope sprang in the form of Harry’s Beer, made by Harriet Easton, 20, a student at Newcastle University, who has created a new beer with a citrus twist specifically for women.

“When I was going out at 16 or 17 I used to drink alcopops, but they made me feel sick because of the sugar. So I switched to lagers.” One day, hanging around in a bar waiting to be served, she noticed that none of the beer line-up was aimed at women. So she decided to do something about it and gathering a team of six. “I found a designer, financial person, sales, etc, by selling equity for shares,” she says.

As you may expect, there was no shortage of market testers at university, and in August last year the first bottles made it into local Midland supermarkets. “That month, we outsold Newcastle Brown Ale, so we knew we were on to something,” Easton says. “I thought it would take on the 18 to 24-year-old market, so my biggest surprise is that it has been a hit with the older generation, too.”

Easton was most concerned that the beer would be as free as possible from chemicals. “The low ABV [4 per cent] of my beer is a good alternative to high-ABV, chemical-ridden drinks.” What she wasn’t expecting was to register the drink as healthy. “When I registered my copyright and trademarks, I was fascinated to discover that beer was not in the ‘alcoholic drinks’ section, but in the ‘health drinks and cordial’ part. The principle is that good, pure ale is a great social drink that in moderate measures can be beneficial to health and help to relieve stress levels.” With sales for March outnumbering sales for the whole of the previous year, and talks with supermarket chain Morrisons going ahead, Easton feels confident that her student days will not end in unemployment.

Indeed, the only possible fly in the ointment may come from an unexpected source. Delegates at the National Union of Students annual conference in Blackpool last month voted to set a minimum price on alcohol in student unions, one of the last bastions of cheap beer.

Is Easton worried? “No. At £1.19 a bottle, my beer is classy, sophisticated and stylish,” she says.

Let’s hope that the beer can find enough equally classy and sophisticated women to agree.

Female-friendly beers coming to a bar near you

Harry’s Beer 4% ABV 330ml A golden ale brewed with Maris Otter pale malt and Cascade hops, with essence extracted from oranges.

Kasteel Cru 5.2% ABV 330ml Kasteel Cru is a traditional Alsace bière blonde. It is fermented with champagne yeast to give a dry, sparkling finish.

Kasteel Cru Rose 5% ABV 330ml Brewed in Alsace using champagne yeast with essence of elderberry and elderflower.

Blue Moon 5.4% ABV 355ml This Belgian-style wheat beer is unfiltered to give more depth of flavour.The process also creates a cloudy appearance.It is best when served with a slice of orange to bring out the fruit flavour.

Coors Light 4.5% ABV 330ml Brewed to taste light, using a Rocky Mountain recipe and special brewing process.

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