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YOU COULD BE forgiven if your mind goes straight to premium vodka when looking at the beautiful and ballsy woman pictured here. For six years Ali Dedianko, the new boss of London Beer Week, run by Drink Up London, was Belvedere global ambassador, so her move to all things hops and a fixed address will come as a shock to some. But those who know her well will know Dedianko is not one to shy away from a challenge.

Born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Dedianko considers Baltimore her first home. “My mum is from there and my parents still live in the same house I grew up in. They actually met in Baltimore.” Strictly speaking, they met in the sky. Dedianko’s mother, a flight attendant, served her father on a plane.

Dedianko left Baltimore for New York to read European Studies at college. Her study choice was an obvious one after spending a year in Tuscany at the age of 15. “I’m sure my parents didn’t think I’d do the exchange,” she says. “I had to arrange it all myself and spoke zero Italian. It was kinda a jerk move on my part really. I should have done some research. When I got there I was like a child – they would hold things up and I would repeat them. I went to a normal school so I was like this weird kid that legitimately could not talk. But I learned so fast.”

She had to. Dedianko lived with a family who didn’t speak any English and a host mum who would not mollycoddle. “She was great, but she was one of those people that wouldn’t do things for me.”

Fluent in two more languages after her time in New York, Dedianko enrolled in a college in St Petersburg in 2006 to learn a third. “I studied the Russian language because my Ukrainian grandparents spoke Russian. They didn’t speak it to us and my dad doesn’t speak it but I was interested in that aspect of my heritage.” While working at Belvedere, Dedianko started to learn her fourth language, French.

TRAVEL BUG

To date, the 32-year-old has travelled to more than 50 countries. Inspired by her glamorous mother’s jetsetting, perhaps? “You know what, I have a really crippling fear of flying,” she confesses. Then surely she’s a glutton for punishment to take a job at Belvedere, which requires a flight a week? “I actually developed the phobia when I was 28,” she says. And the BA gold cardholder has been to great lengths to combat it, taking the airline’s fear of flying course.

“I hate it,” Dedianko says. “And I hate it even more because in every other aspect of my life I’m in control and I’m sure it’s linked to that. It’s like that trapped feeling. I’m not in control of the plane and if something goes wrong up here, we are [whispers] fucked.”

As well as the fear of flying, the time away from home and her husband of two and a half years, Joe Stokoe was, understandably, taking its toll on other aspects of Dedianko’s life.

“I’m married and I never saw my husband. I wanted something that was still creative and still in the industry but where I could just stay put.”

Her new job will see her in one place for a while. But the move wasn’t gifted to her, despite an impressive resume and being good friends with Drink Up MD Hannah Sharman-Cox.

“Hannah made me do a full, proper interview. She knew I was good at my job and loved beer but this job requires a different skill set.”

The role is keeping Dedianko busy. Now in its third year, London Beer Week is the youngest of the three Drink Up festivals – Wine Week is in its fourth year and Cocktail Week in its eighth. The big change for Beer Week this year – other than Dedianko – is the move from February to March.

The new festival director says: “March is just a bit friendlier for people going out. Also, organising a festival in Feb is tricky because you do the bulk of the organising before Christmas, which is tough. We were also clashing with Craft Beer Rising, which was previously our partner.”

DIFFERENT STROKES

Dedianko says the two festivals still have a great relationship and thinks both will thrive now they don’t clash. “Craft Beer Rising talks to a different audience and is much more trade-focused, whereas ours makes no concessions about the fact we aren’t a craft beer festival. There will be big brands there, just as with Cocktail Week. It is a consumer festival and a celebration of all beer.”

The new news is The Beer Edit, taking place from March 13-18. “It is our version of a beer village and the Friday happens to be St Patrick’s Day. The cocktail market at Spitalfields has been a really great model and a huge success. We are replicating that with beer at the Oval Space in Bethnal Green. It has got everything you need in one place. East London is very edgy, good for beer.”

So, how does the face of the festival feel? “It’s a new project for me and I feel a lot of pressure to make it great because I would never want to let that legacy down,” she says.

“It’s so different this year. Year three for any festival is kinda the tipping point. It’s when it’s got enough noise around it but it’s when things start to change.”

Many will question if beer has always been a passion for Dedianko and her response is a refreshingly honest one. “Yeah, always,” she says. “I have worked behind a bar since I was 18/19. I worked as a cocktail waitress first then I moved up to the bar. I liked beer-ish, more like a beer and a shot. Very easy-drinking beers – a Budweiser or a Blue Moon. Nothing challenging.”

If she hadn’t got there on her own, then she would have had to answer to her mum. “She really loves beer and has always been a beer drinker. I remember one time I took a sip of her beer and said it was gross. She said: ‘No daughter of mine is not going to like beer’ - and she was right.”

GAINING AUTHORITY

Having a taste for beer and being an authority on it are two very different things – something Dedianko is well aware of. “I would never claim to be an expert,” she says. “I understand the brewing process, mainly because of my background in spirits. And, don’t forget, I am quite an expert in events and the industry. So, in that respect, my skills are transferable.

“In terms of the liquid, yeah cool, I couldn’t taste a beer and tell you which hops are in there. Some of them I could, but not all of them. With this, it’s really about growing a great event that consumers want to go to versus being the authority on beer, which I would never claim to be. Although I would love to learn more. I will hopefully have the opportunity to brew a beer specifically for Beer Week.”

She adds: “It’s a bit like languages really – I’m learning through osmosis. It’s almost better to know less because then you are more willing to learn and don’t have any preconceived ideas. For me I’m going in with a totally open mind and actually like any beer which tastes delicious. It doesn’t matter what it is.”

And a favourite? “Wu Gang Chops the Tree. It’s a foraged herb hefeweisser from a little craft brewery in east London – it’s so delicious. I would challenge anyone who does not like beer to not like this beer.”

Dedianko isn’t a know-it-all and doesn’t want to be. She’s currently trying to break into the circle of beer writers while breaking down the stereotypes associated with women in beer. If anyone can spread the word and convert consumers, the smart money is on Dedianko.