Latiesha Cook consulted as an editor on this piece.
As the beer industry confronts the concurrent crises of the coronavirus and racism, the CEO of the Brewers Association (BA), Bob Pease, says it’s economic fallout from the former that is more important to member breweries. While the BA did recently announce it would address racism within the industry, the group plans to do so only via the input of its voting members.
On July 20, the BA announced it would update its bylaws and governance documents to address racism among its member breweries. In response to pressure from some brewers and consumers, a statement written by Pease acknowledged the group’s “limited public response to date has not been sufficient for many but it does not equate to apathy.”
The association promised to create a mechanism for revoking a brewery’s membership, to create a code of conduct for members, and to design a complaint process to review allegations of racist actions by member breweries. After a comment period, the new bylaws—which include the ability of the BA’s board to revoke membership—are set to go into effect August 11. The code of conduct and complaint review process will be detailed at an unspecified, later date.
In recent weeks, consumers and some brewery employees have criticized the BA and its CEO for failing to combat racism among member breweries while issuing platitudes about the Black Lives Matter movement. Specifically, critics have called on the BA to revoke the memberships of breweries that have engaged in discrimination and racism. Some have also repeatedly implored the BA to speak directly with Black members of the beer community to hear their concerns.
Pease has defended the BA’s response in two ways: By committing to the updated bylaws and a complaint review process, and by stating that this issue isn’t a top priority for member breweries, mentioning during a July 13 interview with the Beer Edge podcast that economic issues are top-of-mind for breweries right now. These defenses could be read as contradictory. Moreover, each is based on a specific presumption that hasn’t born out in the past:
The proposed complaint review process—likely to be similar to the BA’s Marketing and Advertising Code Complaint Process, designed to root out “derogatory or discriminatory messages”—presumes it’s an effective system.
Stating that racism isn’t a top priority for member breweries presumes that member breweries have been able to adequately communicate their feelings on this issue to the BA, and that consumers are not a part of the BA’s decision-making process.
The BA’s proposed complaint review process is designed to weed out racist or discriminatory actions by member breweries. While consumers can call out this type of bad behavior on social media—often resulting in breweries changing beer names or even in brewery owners resigning from their jobs—there has thus far been no formal mechanism for the BA itself to police its members.
The proposed process has precedent in the BA’s Marketing and Advertising Code Complaint Process, which was adopted in 2008 and revised in 2017 to address sexist, racist, or otherwise offensive beer labels and advertisements. The BA declined to say whether any complaints have ever been filed since the process was adopted more than a decade ago.
That the Marketing and Advertising Code Complaint Process has not once created a demonstrable outcome in 12 years is perhaps a function of how drawn-out it is:
First, a member brewery must contact the member brewery whose label it finds derogatory, an awkward step in an industry built on camaraderie. A brewery owner who supported the creation of this process publicly admitted in 2017: “I’m not going to call out another brewery.”
Next, the complaining brewery would have to discuss the situation with the BA, which would determine whether additional action is necessary.
If it’s deemed necessary, the offending brewery would have 10 days to address the complaints.
Only after that period has passed would the BA consider convening a panel of “appropriate and unbiased participants” for review and comment.
Such a panel would not be convened if it were determined that the offending brewery had made “all reasonable efforts” to address the complaint.
According to the rules governing the Marketing and Advertising Code Complaint Process, any panel discussion and decision would be posted on the BA’s website. No such discussions or decisions have ever appeared there.
The BA’s proposed system for handling complaints about racism and discrimination is likely to be modeled on a previous process that, by all accounts, has never been set in motion. This is not for lack of labels that could be considered offensive, many of which plainly use sexualized imagery of women or slang terms for their body parts.
A PR agency representing the BA said Pease was on vacation this week and unavailable to comment for this story. It also said other staff members were out of the office and would be unable to comment.
In Pease’s appearance on the Beer Edge podcast in which he promised concrete changes, he urged patience with the organization, noting that issues of race are a priority for the BA’s Diversity Committee, formed in 2017. He also downplayed discussions of racism in the beer industry that have been taking place on social media and podcasts.
“There’s a lot of energy in the social media space, but we are not being overrun by input from voting brewery members—and that’s who we work for—on this issue,” Pease told Beer Edge. “That doesn’t mean they don’t care and it’s not important to them; I just think right now they, like a lot of us, are in survival mode and they have other issues that are taking up their headspace.”
Pease seems to brush aside social media posts, yet that’s where many prominent breweries—Allagash Brewing Co., Bell’s Brewery, Brooklyn Brewery, and many others—have conveyed their support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Hundreds have also signed on to brew a Black Is Beautiful beer—including Boston Beer Co. and Russian River Brewing Co.— an initiative that involves donating proceeds to racial justice organizations.
Some breweries say they weren’t aware the BA is seeking their feedback on this issue. Jack Lamb is the CEO and owner of Aslan Brewing Co. in Bellingham, Washington, which posted a statement in support of Black Lives Matter on its website, outlining steps the brewery will take around equity and inclusion. Despite being a BA member, Lamb says he was unaware of the BA’s changes to bylaws and governance until Good Beer Hunting contacted him for this article.
After reading Pease’s post, Lamb—who is white—says he had a mixed response. He applauds the BA for saying it will address racism in the industry, but says he would have liked to see the group voice its support for Black Lives Matter explicitly.
“Vagueness is a little dangerous in this time. We have to be okay with calling out specifics here,” Lamb says. “That just reeks of, ‘Okay, is there a handful of breweries that you don’t want to piss off because you’re taking a stance on Black Lives Matter?’”
Lamb agrees that the BA should represent the interests of member breweries, but says on this issue he’d like to see it take the role of a “benign dictator, someone who’s doing good and forcing change because of ethics, because we know this is the right thing to be doing.”
John Harris, owner of Portland, Oregon’s Ecliptic Brewing—and a pioneer of the brewing industry whose career spans more than three decades—conveyed a similar sentiment to Bob Pease. Harris says Pease sent him a direct, personal email about the updated bylaws, to which Harris responded that it’s critical for the association to examine issues of racial justice. (It's unclear how many other breweries were or weren't personally contacted by Pease about the initiative.) Harris says he himself, as a white man, has recently been reading and thinking about anti-racist actions.
“I said it’s imperative for the board to look at this stuff,” Harris says. “I told him the board should reach out to the community who are BIPOC. We can’t improve as an association without hearing the input of those people.”
Other beverage groups have made timely, direct statements. The American Cider Association, for example, published a lengthy affirmation of its support for racial justice that read, in part: “The ACA believes Black Lives Matter. We acknowledge the injustices faced by Black individuals and we stand in solidarity with those raising their voice for change.” It also launched a monthly anti-racism newsletter in July and said it will not promote cideries that use racist language or imagery.
The BA’s assertion that it will not kick out breweries unless doing so has strong support from other member breweries indicates the organization will not take a top-down approach to eradicating racism among members. Yet experts in the business world have said corporate leadership is especially necessary on these issues. Pease said on the Beer Edge podcast that the BA would not—unless member breweries demand it—eject a brewery for racist actions. There was no follow-up as to what would prompt such a process or what type of complaints would be considered.
“If that is where they would like us to head, then yes,” Pease said. “If not, then I would want to take another look at it. We’re not hearing a lot on this from our members.”
In the past, however, the BA has taken a top-down approach to certain issues. In 2015, BA director Paul Gatza famously admonished breweries to focus more on beer quality during his address at the annual Craft Brewers Conference. Not mincing words, Gatza told breweries “don’t fuck it up” for each other, implying that a brewery’s careless approach to beer quality could spoil the industry’s reputation.
In contrast, the BA has taken a less forceful approach to addressing the proverbial bad apples when it comes to racism.
Founders Brewing Co. in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is often cited as a brewery whose membership the BA should revoke; in 2019, Founders settled a federal lawsuit alleging discrimination against a Black employee. (Founders does not meet the BA’s criteria to be designated as “craft” because it is owned by the Spanish beer company Mahou San Miguel, but it is an associate member of the BA.) Other breweries have been called racist in recent years, whether because they intended to name their beers Black Beer Matters and Flint Michigan Tap Water, or because a brewery owner waved a noose at a Black employee.
Creating a diverse customer base is an economic imperative. As the BA’s Diversity Ambassador and executive director of Craft x EDU, Dr. J Nikol Jackson-Beckham, told Good Beer Hunting last month, craft beer is an industry that is outgrowing its growth—meaning there are more breweries opening than there is growth in beer sales. Craft breweries need to attract people outside the industry’s usual bubble—straight, white, upper-middle-class men—to sustain itself.
Craft beer growth has been slowing overall in recent years. The BA reported craft beer volume grew 4% in 2019, down from years of double-digit growth in the early part of this decade. Even beers defined as “craft” by market research company IRI are declining in sales. Despite sales of beers from large breweries the BA doesn't consider craft, such as Blue Moon, buoying the category, year-to-year growth fell from 5.5% in 2016 to 1.5% in 2019.
“If everyone is going to survive, the pie needs to get bigger,” Jackson-Beckham said. “It has to.”
Pease contrasts members’ focus on economic survival with what he perceives as their relative silence on issues of diversity, inclusion, and racism. But the two challenges are inextricably linked.
The BA’s emphasis on formality and procedure favors certain modes of communicating feedback over others. As Jack Lamb stated, not all members are aware the BA is even asking for their input. This gives an advantage to those breweries who already have seats on the BA’s board and committees, or who have access to directors—in contrast to those using social media or other informal platforms.
For the BA to assess the priorities of such a disparate member organization—there are more than 8,000 breweries operating nationwide—around a subject as thorny as race is no easy task. Yet, as the BA’s past surveys on production data and demographics have shown, soliciting such feedback is possible.
When engaging in informal discussions, the organization’s leadership will likely hear from its most-established member breweries, the vast majority of which are owned by older white men. The BA’s 2019 Diversity Benchmarking Survey found just 1% of brewery owners and 0.6% of brewers are Black.
“My whole thing is, how many voting board members are black? How many Black-owned breweries are there? Like, let's be realistic. It's not a very high fucking number,” April Boyce, a beer enthusiast and a Black woman, told Bryan Roth on the Good Beer Hunting podcast. “You make your bread and butter off of breweries that sell to consumers. A large number of those consumers are fucking Black.”
Across history and industries, demands for institutional change rarely come from within the status quo. Especially on social issues of race and gender, individuals from outside the establishment are frequently those with the best-informed critiques. It’s often women, racial minorities, and members of the LGBTQ community, for example, who create the spaces they wish already existed within beer.
By mandating that member breweries drive the organization’s action on issues of race and diversity, the BA effectively guarantees that marginalized voices go unheard.
This method of soliciting feedback also creates no role for beer drinkers. Pease has been clear that it is voting member breweries alone whose input matters, and he has faced strong criticism from drinkers who feel deliberately ignored.
As a trade organization, the BA exists fundamentally to serve its members. But the BA has historically recognized that a passionate consumer base is vital to the industry’s survival. In the past, it’s made overtures to and demands of drinkers, exhorting them to “Seek The Seal” and purchase beer from craft breweries that meet its definition of small and independent; encouraging them to join and pay dues to the American Homebrewers Association, which falls under the BA; educating them about beer through its consumer-facing website, craftbeer.com; and more.
Boyce has for the last few weeks been tweeting at Bob Pease daily, asking him to engage with her and hear the concerns of Black drinkers who feel the BA is not taking a leadership role on racial issues. In an interview for Good Beer Hunting’s podcast, Boyce, who is Black, said it especially frustrated her when Pease ignored her daily tweets and instead responded to a white brewery owner raising the same issues.
“For the Brewers Association, yeah, there aren't a lot of Black-owned breweries. However, we are a consumer base. My voice should matter. My concerns should matter,” she said.
Discounting the role of consumers in providing feedback, when the BA has historically called on members to advocate and act on its behalf, is dangerous in two core ways. It cuts the group off from valuable input from racial and other minorities, the very people least represented among BA membership. It also risks alienating consumers whose enthusiasm—and dollars—the BA’s members count on.
Words by Kate Bernot