THE GIST
The beer industry has struggled to respond to the demands of the Black Lives Matter movement and to improve diversity within its ranks for years. Now, a U.S. beer blogger has suddenly assumed a leadership role in responding to social justice issues.
On June 23, Alex Kidd, the creator of popular satirical beer website Don’t Drink Beer, launched a fundraiser raffle to benefit the family of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman shot and killed by Louisville police officers in her home on March 13. Kidd subsequently expanded the fundraiser to also benefit the family of Elijah McClain, a Black man who died in August 2019 after he was detained, placed in a chokehold, and injected with ketamine by police and first responders in Aurora, Colorado. In just one week, the fundraiser brought in $67,900 from roughly 14,000 individuals.
Every $5 donation to the Don’t Drink Beer fundraiser went to GoFundMe campaigns created for the families of Taylor or McClain, with winners receiving rare beers or beer society memberships. The prizes came from Kidd, breweries, and beer lovers around the country.
WHY IT MATTERS
The effort is relevant for a key reason: An individual—not a brewery, not a brewers guild, not a national group—organized one of the industry’s most visible fundraisers to benefit families of Black Americans killed by police. Beyond raising money, Kidd also used Don’t Drink Beer’s substantial social media following to educate followers about Taylor and McClain. (Don’t Drink Beer has a combined 79,354 followers across Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.)
Since the death of George Floyd galvanized national protests, breweries have participated in collaboration beers such as Black Is Beautiful, created by San Antonio, Texas’ Weathered Souls Brewing Co., or have posted on social media in response. Because breweries taking part in that collaboration beer don’t centrally pool their money, it’s unclear how much those efforts have raised. Kidd’s raffle is likely to be among the industry’s most successful fundraising campaigns. His raffle also echoes recent history within the U.S. beer industry, as calls to create change more often than not come as grassroots efforts by those outside the industry. Outsiders can often speak the loudest because they’re not invested in the status quo.
Still, Kidd’s fundraiser was not without criticism, both from the “All Lives Matter” crowd who left comments on his page, and from people who told Kidd it was tactless to caption a photo of a sought-after bottle of beer with the hashtag #justiceforelijahmcclain. One person in particular told him it seemed like Don’t Drink Beer was capitalizing off tragedy.
That gave Kidd further reason to speak more forcefully than others in the industry who feel they can’t.
“I thought, well, then the best way to do this is to push the specifics harder, to push the details of the case,” Kidd says. “In subsequent photos you’ll see it’s less about what you can win but why you can win them. I had to check myself. Just because you’re doing something good, doesn’t mean you're doing something good in the right way.”
Because Don’t Drink Beer is run by just one person, Kidd felt he could be more explicit in his messaging than a brewery itself could be.
On one Instagram post of a photo of beers from Lake Zurich, Illinois’ Phase Three Brewing Company, Kidd writes: “I can wager that many of my followers never have to fear for their lives at a traffic stop, or have ever googled what a carotid chokehold is or why no knock warrants are unconstitutional and pose a grave danger to the black community. With thousands of donations, I hope that some reflect on the disparity between what you may have and the basic rights that others are not afforded. Beer is great, but promoting equality and abolishing systemic violence and racism takes a huge priority over any fermented sugar water. […] If you know what a rare stout is, chances are your privileges may be tremendous compared to marginalized people whose lives remain in danger. I just wanted to make it clear what this raffle is really about.”
Kidd says he often receives messages from brewers that congratulate him for expressing critical opinions that brewers or drinkers won’t express publicly for fear of alienating customers, brewers, or friends. (It’s not just breweries who are reticent; advertisers across industries have reportedly requested their digital ads not run next to articles or videos about Black Lives Matter.) Kidd calls what he does “laundering”—his account expresses what others think or feel but shields the individual breweries.
Tampa, Florida’s Angry Chair Brewing, for example, donated bottles to the fundraiser, but has been quiet about what other charitable donations it’s made in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I think a lot of breweries can look at it as us beating on our chest, so what we do, we don’t share publicly,” says Ryan Dowdle, founder of Angry Chair Brewing. Still, the Don’t Drink Beer raffle was an easy one to get behind, he says. “It’s a touchy situation, but I don’t necessarily see the problem with trying to help a family in need so that’s what we wanted to do.”
The fundraiser allowed breweries to support a cause by donating beers while Don’t Drink Beer took the brunt of any pushback. Kidd’s day job is as a lawyer, so his livelihood doesn’t depend on Don’t Drink Beer.
Many breweries have publicly said “Black Lives Matter,” but have been reluctant to take too strong a stance on more specific issues. (Reluctant breweries may have seen a cautionary tale in Bronx Brewery, which last week canceled plans for its Defund The Police beer after it received threats of violence against its staff.) This leaves the more forceful stances and often more concrete action to those with less financial skin in the game. Drinkers can either view breweries’ hesitance as necessary public relations, or as hypocrisy from businesses who claim to support change.
“These breweries are in such fear and they run on such thin margins, they don't want to upset the apple cart,” Kidd says. “I want to serve as a proxy. They can use me to send a message. Lash out at me, not the brewery.”
Kidd recognized he’d amassed a social media following that gave him latitude to be outspoken about beer—why not harness that power to be outspoken about something more important? Drooled-over bottles of beer are his medium, and he could use them to get out his message. He says his followers are largely White, and many are wealthy enough to spend hundreds of dollars on rare beers. This demographic might not naturally see itself as particularly affected by issues of police brutality and racial injustice. Kidd felt that through beer, he could put Taylor and McClain’s stories right in their faces.
“Suddenly when there are stakes and you have something involved, you'll read every post, every word of it,” he says. “There is a certain degree of manipulation to it, but I’d rather manipulate them and have them learn.”
Don’t Drink Beer’s voice is generally comedically cynical, but the fundraiser made Kidd optimistic about what beer drinkers can accomplish. He spent the equivalent of three work days logging donations, handling emails, and connecting with staff from all sorts of positions across the beer industry, from keg washers and servers to owners.
“This is going to sound like such a bromidic cliche, but I expected so much less of the craft beer community,” Kidd says. “Because I deal so much in lampooning the failures of the industry, I forget that there are 8,200 breweries and so many people are doing it right.”
He encourages breweries and individual beer drinkers to continue to do what they can. Other less well-known beer accounts have already created their own raffles in the Don’t Drink Beer vein, including @doctordie, @whistlepunkchris, and @tompavlich. (Kidd credits @beersnobbin as one of the Instagram accounts that inspired him to raffle off beers for a charitable cause.) Such similar efforts speak to the continued role individual beer drinkers play in responding to social justice issues.
Meanwhile, industry organizations including state guilds and the Brewers Association are financially struggling as a result of the pandemic. Grassroots efforts have sprung up to try to fill the gap where such groups haven’t taken the reins. It might seem laughable that a satirical beer blogger and Instagram personality is taking a leadership role in the industry’s response to Black Lives Matter, but Kidd isn’t jaded.
“You can say, ‘No, it’s not on breweries or a satirical beer account to change the world.’ But silence in aggregate in the status quo,” Kidd says. “If you align craft beer so closely with these projects and away from sexist and racist labels, then when people think of craft beer they think of things I want it to be aligned with—and less with the things I don’t.”
Words by Kate Bernot