THE GIST
At least three breweries have announced they will not attend the upcoming Mikkeller Beer Celebration Copenhagen (MBCC) festival later this month in response to accounts of sexual harassment, discrimination, and bullying that several former Mikkeller employees allege occurred at the company. Mikkeller has denied these allegations.
In statements posted to social media, Ontario breweries Dominion City Brewing and Collective Arts Brewing, as well as London’s The Kernel Brewery, say that they are reversing course on prior plans to attend the prestigious event, scheduled for Oct. 22-23. Now in its ninth year, MBCC annually features some of the most revered breweries in the world; roughly 3,400 people have RSVPed as “attending” on the event’s Facebook page. According to communications provided to Good Beer Hunting, at least one other brewery has indicated it plans to pull out of the festival, but the business has not yet announced it publicly or responded to a request for comment. [Since publication on Oct. 13, at least 23 more breweries have also announced they will withdraw from MBCC. See a full list at the bottom of this story.]
The reversal for these breweries and potentially others is a response to continuing pressure activists have exerted on these companies, urging them not to participate in collaborations or festivals with global beer company Mikkeller, which is based in Copenhagen. Nearly 100 breweries from across the world are still listed on the event’s Facebook page as attending.
In its statement announcing their decision, Dominion City leaders wrote, in part: “In 2020 we accepted an invitation to participate in Mikkeller Beer Celebration Copenhagen; ultimately postponed to later this month. Since that time, a number of former Mikkeller employees have shared stories of a toxic workplace culture as part of an industry-wide reckoning around inclusion, sexism and misogyny in the beer industry. … We failed to appreciate how lending our name and participating in this festival at this moment in particular, would send exactly the wrong signal about our sincerity on these issues. With this in mind, we've pulled out and are no longer attending.”
WHY IT MATTERS
Mikkeller’s influence as a tastemaker within the beer world is part of its global operations, and that cachet is largely exerted through brewing collaborations and invitational events such as MBCC. Should enough breweries decline to attend Mikkeller’s festivals, rendering it less influential for drinkers and brewers, it would deal a large blow to the company’s standing in the international beer industry. The controversy over MBCC is just the latest in a series of recent setbacks for Mikkeller, which include the closure of its New York City taproom last October and a public art protest against the brewery in June.
A 2019 blog post from German brewery Mahrs Brau summarizes how prominent MBCC has long been among brewers and drinkers: “An entire weekend spectacle of superlatives, comprised of 100 top breweries presenting over 800 fantastic beers to a phenomenal audience in Denmark’s great capital. … In terms of international appearance and upward momentum, the MBCC also grants a special honor.” Tickets for this year’s MBCC festival cost 550 Danish krona, or roughly $85 for general admission and $305 for a “gold” level ticket.
Mikkeller did not respond to GBH’s request for an interview, but provided the statement it had posted publicly to its social media channels. In that statement, the brewery wrote, in part: “Mikkeller is 100% supportive of the agenda and drive to ensure a safe and equal work environment for everyone in the craft beer industry. … However, we must also raise our hand when Mikkeller is being portrayed in an inaccurate and unfair manner, which is the case in this recent wave of posts. It is simply not true that we have not addressed allegations.”
Mikkeller has created a code of conduct for volunteers and “partners” attending the MBCC, which was provided to GBH. At four pages long, it details how volunteers can report discrimination or harassment. Volunteers are told to report those incidents to volunteer captains, the Mikkeller MBCC volunteer manager, or “a Safe Space Volunteer who can provide for a meeting with the Volunteer Captain together with the relevant Volunteer.” It is not clear who the Safe Space volunteers are or whether they’re members of a third-party group; the volunteer manager for MBCC is a Mikkeller employee.
“It’s great that there’s a code of conduct but if they're not living up to that code of conduct and directly contacting women that have shared their stories to discuss these matters, then that’s an issue,” says Ash Eliot, founder of Women of the Bevolution, a group that seeks to empower women and non-binary individuals in the beverage industry. Over the past two days, Women of the Bevolution has been contacting breweries attending the MBCC to inform them of allegations made against Mikkeller. Eliot says it’s not acceptable that Mikkeller has not spoken to the women who went public with their allegations in July.
The question of whether breweries should attend festivals or events with other companies whose employees have been accused of sexual misconduct isn’t limited to MBCC. Women of the Bevolution also encouraged its social media followers not to attend the Untappd Beer Festival earlier this month, primarily because breweries which the group characterized as “problematic” were listed as attendees.
But how to define problematic is itself debatable. Eliot says breweries whose employees have been accused of misconduct through stories posted to the @ratmagnet or @emboldenactadvance Instagram accounts should have publicly acknowledged the accusations and communicated concrete steps to address them. Such steps might include publicly sharing that they’ve fired the accused employee, developed a code of conduct, conducted anti-harassment training in the workplace, or partnered with a third-party consulting firm to conduct a human resources audit.
“The first step is: Have these breweries addressed the stories that have been shared? If they’ve been accused, what are they doing to take action within their workplace?” Eliot says.
Women of the Bevolution as well as Brienne Allan, the brewer whose Instagram post in May sparked the beer industry’s most significant #metoo moment to date, launched a collaboration beer project called Brave Noise this summer to foster a discrimination-free beer industry. To brew the Brave Noise beer, breweries must indicate that they’ve created a code of conduct for their brewery employees and customers, and must make a donation to a relevant charity or non-profit organization. Allan and Eliot have been especially critical of breweries who brewed Brave Noise and who are also attending MBCC.
“People are looking at it as performative, like ‘You brewed Brave Noise but you’re still a part of this festival hosted by a problematic brewery,” Eliot says.
While MBCC and the Untappd festival have been just the most recent events to draw scrutiny, Eliot says they’re part of a larger effort to put pressure on breweries to, in effect, police each other and create business consequences for breweries whose employees are accused of misconduct.
“Breweries need to be educated and to make the right decision. Whoever they collaborate with will affect what happens next to women in the industry,” she says. “It will affect all of the progress that we’ve made so far and all the progress we still need to see happen.”
Update, Oct. 14: An original version of this story referenced an interview with Ash Eliot in which she said Women of the Bevolution had contacted breweries about MBCC. Good Beer Hunting has since received a clarifying statement from Eliot saying that neither she nor Women of the Bevolution contacted any breweries; Good Beer Hunting confirmed with four breweries who have withdrawn from MBCC that they were not contacted by the group.
Additional breweries who announced plans to not attend MBCC after publication include:
Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co. in Gilbert, Arizona
Industrial Arts Brewing in Garnerville, New York;
DEYA Brewing Company in Cheltenham, England
Three Hills Brewing in Northamptonshire, England
Bearded Iris Brewing in Nashville, Tennessee
Highland Park Brewing in Los Angeles
Gamma Brewing in Herlev, Denmark
North Brewing Co. in Leeds, England
Kølster Malt & Beer in Humlebæk, Denmark
The Veil Brewing Co. in Richmond, Virginia
Green Cheek Beer Company in Orange, California
Fair State Brewing Cooperative in Minneapolis
Basqueland Brewing in Hernani, Spain
Fonta Flora Brewing in Morganton, North Carolina
Track Brewing Co. in Manchester, England
Fuerst Wiacek in Berlin, Germany
Boundary Brewing in Greenwood, British Columbia
Interboro Spirits & Ales in Brooklyn, New York
O/O Brewing in Hisings Backa, Sweden
Verdant Brewing Co. in Penryn, England
Track Brewing Co. in Manchester, England
Wylam Brewing in Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Jester King Brewery in Austin, Texas
HOMES Brewery in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Two Tides Brewing Co. in Savannah, Georgia
Bagby Beer Company in Oceanside, California
Words by Kate Bernot