Edwin Methu has been in beer sales for the best part of a decade, and has seen how fickle and complicated the trade can be. His first job was at the infamous London Fields Brewery, an early innovator in the scene that slowly disintegrated due to the criminal dealings of its owner. After bouncing back from that, he was part of a Camden Town Brewery sales team overseeing huge growth, before becoming a sales rep for Sierra Nevada at a time when local craft was forcing U.S. imports into decline.
It could be Methu’s diverse experience that made Cloudwater Brew Co. founder Paul Jones approach him for a sales role in his new venture: what was then named Good Call Soda. Listen in as Methu tells the story of his introduction to the brand and the idea of hopped soft drinks—it’s clear that he loves a challenge, and takes great satisfaction in changing people’s minds.
In the last year or so, he’s turned those personality traits to a bigger cause. As a person of color in an almost exclusively white industry, Methu has always been self-aware in his work and socializing, but the experience of taking some friends to a beer festival turned that unease into a feeling that something had to be done. He has become a vocal campaigner for the beer scene to cast its net wider and bring in people of all backgrounds, and to challenge prejudice in all its forms with no exceptions. He is no keyboard warrior either—as he says, in the wake of the Founders Brewing Company racism scandal, he has spoken to many stockists and convinced them to stop stocking the brand at all. At the same time he loves to champion those working towards diversity and the benefits and joy it can bring everyone.
This is Edwin Methu of Cloudwater Soda. Listen in.