THE GIST
After nearly four months of denying former employees’ allegations of sexual harassment, bullying, and unsafe working conditions and years of failing to communicate with them, more than five months after a public art protest was installed at the brewery’s headquarters, and after a week in which dozens of breweries withdrew from its prestigious beer festival in opposition, leadership at Danish brewery Mikkeller finally say they are sorry for past behaviors.
The company wrote on Instagram on Oct. 16 that “We have issues in our places of work. We are sorry. We are responsible. We need change,” and admitted in an email to Good Beer Hunting that “severe harassment and misogyny” had occurred at Mikkeller despite declining to address the allegations in July.
Whether the apology is accepted remains to be seen. It’s now been four years since Megan Stone says she first raised these issues and more to management at Mikkeller’s San Diego brewery. Stone and other former employees have just this week received text messages and emails from Mikkeller leadership to discuss problems within the company during two meetings in Copenhagen on Oct. 21 and 25. The gatherings would take place after the Mikkeller Beer Celebration Copenhagen (MBCC) festival, from which dozens breweries have dropped out because of the ongoing—and until now, unaddressed—allegations against Mikkeller.
As recently as last week, founder Mikkel Borg Bjergsø had remained defiant, telling two Danish media outlets that activists were trying to ruin his business, and that issues of harassment at the brewery were not part of the company’s overall work culture.
Mikkeller CEO Kenneth Madsen wrote in a statement to GBH that Bjergsø’s comments “did not convey the company's or Mikkel’s stance in full on this serious topic,” saying “the two interviews were unfortunately conducted during a very stressful time with a founder who is incredibly proud and protective of the business that he has created.” (Mikkeller repeatedly declined to make anyone from the company available to GBH for a phone interview.)
WHY IT MATTERS
Critics have pointed to Mikkeller’s silence or Bjergsø’s defiance in the face of allegations as evidence that the company is not willing to accept responsibility and begin the work necessary to change what they say is a toxic work culture. But within the last week, the company says it has brought in “external resources”—which appear to be in the form of communications professionals—to help it craft its messaging.
“We have come to the conclusion that we haven’t handled the communication to the former employees and the public very well, so we have engaged a number of external resources to support us in making sure that our outreach to victims, public communication, and forward-looking forums will be handled in a much more supportive way,” Madsen stated via email.
In an Instagram caption, Bjergsø apologized for the interviews he gave to Danish newspaper Berlingske: “It has taken me a while to really acknowledge the extent of the problem, but it’s clear to me now.” In the newspaper interview, he repeatedly stated that activists were pressuring breweries to withdraw from MBCC in order to ruin his business.
Stone says the brewery’s divergent messaging has been confusing and troubling for her to take in, especially as she and other former employees are being asked to participate in face-to-face discussions with the company this month.
“It almost feels like Mikkeller and Mikkel are two separate things at this point, like he’s going off script and they’re scrambling to save face,” Stone says of the statements both have made over the past week. “It’s hard to trust them.”
This kind of behavior—to dictate terms of when, where, and why communication takes place—is often cited by psychologists and counselors as a part of power dynamics in abusive relationships. The invitation for a meeting comes after a years-long period during which Mikkeller ignored or denied complaints, which former employees say created intense emotional stress. Now, Mikkeller leadership intimates, the only way to fully address these issues is for former employees to come to them.
Stone says she may be receptive to a conversation with representatives from Mikkeller, and that she and other employees have been emailing with the brewery about those plans “behind-the-scenes.” But Stone has concerns about the way in which the invitation was extended to her, saying it made her angry to be contacted via text message about such a sensitive matter, and after such a long period of silence.
“You can access my personal cell phone but you can’t do enough digging to figure out what happened and what went wrong four years ago?” Stone says, referring to homophobic comments, workplace safety violations, and bullying that she says she endured at Mikkeller.
Stone says she and other former employees want any meeting with Mikkeller representatives to happen on neutral territory, not at Mikkeller HQ or as part of a festival created to celebrate the company and its friends. “My trauma is not an attraction,” Stone says. “It’s not something for attendees and [MBCC] ticket holders to come watch.”
Last week, a group of eight U.K.-based breweries proposed a public meeting during the MBCC weekend to discuss issues of harassment and abuse within the beer industry; following criticism that such a public event could be counterproductive, the breweries cancelled the event two days later.
A spokesperson from Mikkeller says proposed meetings would be private, and would take place at the SOHO coworking space in Copenhagen. Former employees say they have not been made aware of any specific proposed location, only that the discussions would take place in Copenhagen. The company offered to pay for attendees’ travel and accommodations to these discussions, but Stone and other former employees say it is still difficult to plan for an international trip on such short notice during a pandemic.
The idea of holding the meetings in the brewery’s hometown echoes a statement the brewery made in response to protests at the brewery this summer, stating that dialogue with critics should happen at the Copenhagen brewery: “We really think that a visit at our HQ will change the conception that the protesters have of us. We are friendly people, and we like to have conversations about anything related to Mikkeller and the beer industry.”
It’s important to Stone that any meeting between her, other former employees, and Mikkeller not be public, but include a third-party expert in workplace harassment or diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Stone and other former brewery employees say they needed to go public with their stories of harassment and bullying at Mikkeller in order to get the company’s attention, after they say efforts to directly inform the brewery received no response. But Stone says now that she and others have the company’s attention, they’d like to continue the dialogue away from the public eye.
“I just want people to know that there are conversations being had behind the scenes, and I don’t want people to think that we’re being uncooperative or hostile or have a vendetta,” she says. “It’s a slow process because it’s a lot for us to mentally and emotionally process. These are things that we have held with us, and that continue to affect us … It doesn’t end when you walk out the door, or when you quit.”
Words by Kate Bernot