In May 2021, an exasperated Brienne Allan had had enough. In a single morning, two different men had approached the now-former brewer at Notch Brewing in Salem, Massachusetts, and questioned her craft-beer credentials.
“What sexist comments have you experienced?” Allan later asked her roughly 2,200 Instagram followers.
The offhand remark sparked the largest reckoning against misogyny the craft beer industry has ever seen, leaving her with nearly 60,000 new followers and worldwide media coverage. People by the thousands—nearly 100 percent of them women—shared stories ranging from harassment to assault, as well as prejudice in hiring, overlooked microaggressions, and more. The revelations were in direct conflict with the pervasive marketing in the craft beer industry, which tends to position itself as a kinder, gentler alternative to a heavily consolidated sector run by a handful of powerful multinational corporations.
Over a decade ago, Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Head Brewery, declared craft brewing to be “99 percent asshole-free.” But many question whether it has ever actually been a model of equity and inclusion.
“I’ve never known that to be true,” says Betsy Lay, co-founder, owner, and head brewer at Lady Justice Brewing Company in Aurora, Colorado. “We’re not doing ourselves any favors trying to believe that.”
Allan agrees. “I think it’s bullshit. I don’t think we [craft beer] have ever been a safe space for anyone,” she says.
“What sexist comments have you experienced?”
A demographic survey by the Brewers Association (BA) of the 9,000 narrowly defined craft breweries—independently owned, and brewing fewer than 6 million barrels per year—revealed that gender demographics within the industry skew heavily male, with women making up only 22.6 percent of craft brewery owners. Racial demographics also strongly lean toward white ownership; 88.4 percent of brewery owners identify as white, and just 1 percent identified as Black.
And despite the fact that the vast majority of craft beer employees and consumers are also white and male, those critical of the industry say it continues to promote itself as a bastion of equity, accepting of all races, sexual orientations, and identities. Some cite the lack of current requirements for craft designation to include diversity or equity considerations, and the lack of systemic demand for widespread inclusion, which they say has created a glaring disparity between perception and reality.
In the wake of nearly nonstop public callouts, and amid much broader societal reckonings about inclusivity for people who are not white and not men, craft beer’s disparity has led Allan, Lay, and many others to ask: What will it take for craft beer companies to start walking their talk?
Craft Beer’s Cognitive Dissonance Is Dissolving
Allan’s #NotMe moment is the latest in a long string of controversies plaguing the beer industry, which in just the past three years has included multiple accusations of sexism, racism, and even union-busting efforts. And her accidental crusade is far from the first time marginalized people in craft beer have spoken out against the industry’s nefarious—and often hidden—underbelly. In 2020, the global collaboration Black is Beautiful (BiB) launched in response to George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police. Its goals included brewing beer to raise awareness and money for Black people and other people of color most directly affected by police brutality.
Over a thousand breweries across all 50 states and 22 countries signed up to participate in BiB, although not every brewery has been transparent about where the charitable donations have gone. Even with such widespread participation, Marcus Baskerville, BiB creator and co-founder/head brewer at San Antonio’s Weathered Souls Brewing Company, knows the initiative could have gone much further.
“The initial response [to] Black is Beautiful was amazing,” says Baskerville, with a caveat. “[But] in the grand scheme of things, we look at how large the [craft] brewing industry is: With 8,500-plus breweries only 1,300 breweries participated . . . that’s a huge gap.”
Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find new bottles of BiB in any store coolers—although Baskerville is opening a second location of Weathered Souls in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2022. But the slow fade of BiB hasn’t stopped Allan, who, along with a number of industry partners, launched a similar collaborative brewing initiative called Brave Noise, which aims to provide “inclusive and safe environments for women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ throughout the beer industry.”
Fewer than 100 breweries have signed up to participate in the ongoing and feminist-forward Brave Noise collaboration so far, an even tinier fraction of the industry than those who participated in the one-off, anti-racist BiB initiative.
“Craft beer has always, always, always discounted the needs and the desires and the lived experiences of people of color, but specifically Black people.”
But shockwaves are still resonating from Allan’s initial query, both within and outside of craft beer. A number of new anti-harassment and anti-abuse resources have either launched or are in development, including the free third-party brewery reporting app #NotMe—which was developed in light of Allan’s shared allegations. Still, the overall microscopic participation in both of these campaigns punctures craft beer’s optimistically progressive narrative.
It’s telling that it took a white woman working as a brewer to capture the attention of those previously ignorant or apathetic to injustices within craft beer. Even Allan is uncomfortably aware of the disparity of her perceived power and authority to comment on the industry’s blind spots when it comes to intersectional equity.
“I don’t know why Black is Beautiful didn’t get that same recognition,” says Allan. “I wish [people] cared about Black is Beautiful just as much [as Brave Noise].”
Ren Navarro is an equity advocate for beer, as well as the Black queer woman behind Beer.Diversity, a Canadian-based consultancy and educational resource for improving inclusivity across craft beer. She’s well-versed in social justice movements in and out of beer, and she’s not surprised that Allan’s initiative against misogyny seemed to get more attention, although perhaps not participation, than similar movements related to racial injustice in the past.
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Craft Beer Faces a Gender and Race Reckoning - Civil Eats
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