Sarah Hite is the type of person—smart, articulate, magnetic, funny, adaptable—who should thrive in the beer industry, or in any career she chooses. And for a decade, she succeeded, turning her job as the first full-time employee of a prominent beer education organization in 2010 into subsequent roles with two large U.S. breweries. But a steady drumbeat of misogyny and sexism, and two incidents of alleged sexual assault by colleagues, led Hite to a decision to leave beer behind in 2018.
Hite’s story is her own, its details unique to her. But in its specificity, Hite’s experience of loving, then leaving, her career distills what is at stake if beer professionals cannot address issues of harassment, misogyny, and unsafe working conditions: They will harm and alienate talented people who are vital to the industry’s success. The issue isn’t limited to beer, either. A 2022 survey conducted by OnePoll on behalf of SurePayroll found 48% of full-time employed women in the U.S. have considered leaving their jobs due to sexual harassment.
“I lost the career I had been busting my ass to build,” Hite says. “I was really proud of where I’d gotten to, and it was awful to lose that. You put all these hours in, and it’s just gone. It didn’t feel fair.”
After more than a decade in Chicago and California, Hite today lives in Ohio, where she founded a real estate investment firm and works in sales for a home renovation company. While she doesn’t feel the same level of camaraderie or belonging in those fields that she did while working in beer, they’ve also proven to be safe and dependable careers that have allowed her to carve out an identity that isn’t tied to her job. Traits and skills like intelligence, flexibility, and personability that allowed her to excel in prior roles have helped her establish new paths.
Leaving beer has also given Hite the ability to speak out about painful experiences she kept quiet for years out of fear of being blacklisted, harassed, or ostracized by peers and prospective employers. She began posting about these instances publicly on Facebook in 2014, with hope that sharing her career trajectory—the good and the awful—would be part of a long process of making the industry safer for others.
“I learned life lessons about keeping myself safe, mentally and emotionally, and about being able to spot people who are healthy to be around,” Hite says. “Those are all good lessons but I wish I hadn’t had to learn them. … I’m [talking about this] just so it doesn’t happen to somebody else.”
It’s been nine months since brewer Brienne Allan’s Instagram account, @ratmagnet, became a lightning rod for stories of sexual harassment, discrimination, racism, and abuse within the beer industry. Allan and others gave a megaphone to existing calls for reform—calls that women like Hite had been making for years. That moment created tangible change. Some industry leaders have stepped down, a beer collaboration project called Brave Noise has kept codes of conduct in the forefront of discussion, and worker safety has become a topic of regular attention.
These calls may be reaching a crescendo, but they’ve come too late to keep Hite in the career she worked so hard to establish—or to help the untold other women who have faced similar workplace experiences. In the face of misogyny and sexual assault, Hite chose to leave.
Hite first encountered the kaleidoscopic world of craft beer at the Great American Beer Festival in 2009, which she attended with her then-husband. She was introduced to industry leaders including Chris Black, co-founder of the seminal (now-shuttered) Denver craft beer bar Falling Rock; Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery; and Shaun O’Sullivan, co-founder of 21st Amendment Brewery in San Francisco.
“It was the first time ever in my life I felt like I belonged somewhere,” Hite says. “Right then, I felt like I needed to find a way to become involved in it.”
In February 2010, Hite became the first employee of the Cicerone Certification Program, a Chicago-based education and certification program for beer professionals, where she served as the assistant to the organization’s founder, Ray Daniels. Colleagues say she quickly displayed an aptitude for the job and a talent for beer sensory and education work.
“She was seen as a go-to, respectable authority—just a very capable, smart, funny individual,” says Hite’s friend Adam Vavrick, who has worked in beer as a buyer, restaurant group beer program manager, and independent distributor for 15 years.
At first, Hite loved the camaraderie and fellowship she found at Cicerone, and with those she met through the job. But within a year, she encountered what she describes as “the sinister shit under all of that.” She and her husband separated shortly after she began working at the organization, and Hite subsequently went on a series of three dates with someone who would undermine her feeling of safety.
She met Jared Rouben, then the brewmaster at Goose Island Brewery’s brewpub, when she and Daniels had lunch there in spring 2010. (Rouben is now co-founder and brewmaster at Chicago’s Moody Tongue Brewing Company.) After dinner on their third date, Hite agreed to accompany Rouben back to his apartment for beers. She says she quickly became intoxicated and disoriented, though she hadn’t been drinking excessively. The two began having consensual sex. Hite says that during sex, Rouben began hitting and slapping her buttocks and legs with enough force to cause her pain, and she asked him repeatedly to stop hitting her and to stop having sex with her. She says he ignored her calls to stop and instead began hitting her harder until he finished penetrating her and fell asleep.
Hite characterizes this as rape. Rouben denies the allegation of sexual assault.
Illinois statute defines sexual assault as “an act of sexual penetration” during which the assailant “uses force.” The statute further notes that: “A person who initially consents to sexual penetration or sexual conduct is not deemed to have consented to any sexual penetration or sexual conduct that occurs after he or she withdraws consent during the course of that sexual penetration or sexual conduct.”
When asked to provide his account of the night in question, Rouben declined to do so, saying only: “The allegations are false.”
Hite says that after Rouben fell asleep, she quickly dressed and immediately left his apartment. She says she never spoke to him or heard from him after that. Four of Hite’s industry peers recall her telling them about the alleged assault, including one who says Hite told her about it within days of it occurring. (Hite confirms that she initially asked these people not to speak publicly about it.) She says Rouben left bruises on her legs that lasted for more than a week, making it uncomfortable for her to sit down.
Despite knowing at the time that she had been hurt, Hite says she didn’t feel that she could talk to law enforcement or most colleagues about what had happened for fear that it would negatively impact her career and reputation. According to Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation data analyzed by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, about one-third of sexual assaults are reported to police, and 2.8% result in a felony conviction.
Hite says she’d heard how people in the industry talked about women who complained about sexism or harassment, and feared she’d be blacklisted or ostracized. She is not alone in this perception. A Marketplace-Edison Research Poll conducted in 2018 found a quarter of women say they’ve experienced workplace sexual harassment, and of those women, 46% say it caused them to leave jobs or change careers.
“Of course I didn’t tell anybody. I was new in the business and surrounded by what feels like these giants,” Hite says. At the time, she had worked at Cicerone for about three months. “It wasn’t even an option to tell anybody.”
After leaving Cicerone, Hite continued to advance in her career, working at two breweries and a restaurant group in roles including bar manager, retail account manager, and regional field quality specialist. She was also an adjunct faculty member at the College of DuPage’s Business of Craft Beer program from 2014 to 2017. Though she was thriving professionally, trusted colleagues whom Hite had confided in about the alleged assault recognized the effect that it had on her.
“I think this opened the door to her eventual exit from the industry,” says Seth Feldman, a former co-worker of Hite’s at SmallBar in Chicago, who now works as a distributor representative in Chicago. “I can’t say that that wouldn’t have happened regardless, because the industry was going to beat her down as it tends to do for women in beer, but I think it always seemed like the demon on her shoulder.”
In the eight years after, Hite tried to keep her head down and to focus on her career, but even that drew some criticism.
“I heard not just one or two people tsk-tsk-ing her for flitting around [jobs] too much,” says Nicole Erny, who worked with Hite at the Cicerone program and now works for a brewery and a restaurant group in California. “When women make those aggressive, go-getter moves, especially in sales, they are often vilified if they move around. I don’t see men getting criticized with the same venom. It’s like, if young women make moves, it’s because of their looks or they’re sleeping around.”
Erny says this wasn’t the case with Hite at all: She was ambitious, smart, and well-liked—all traits that men in her position would likely receive praise for. Indeed, Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show U.S. men and women on average hold almost the exact same number of jobs (12.6 versus 12.3) between the ages of 18 and 54.
“There’s a slight flirtatiousness about her, but if a man working in similar positions in our industry had … that air about them, they would just be lauded as a great salesperson, not targeted [for criticism],” Erny says.
Hite’s final job in the beer industry was her most accomplished yet—she was a field quality specialist for a large craft brewery, hosting training sessions with distributors and retailers to ensure quality across a territory that spanned 11 states. (Hite declines to name the company due to signing a nondisclosure agreement.)
In that role, Hite says she was also sexually assaulted by a male co-worker. She alleges he slipped drugs into her drink when they ate dinner together during a work trip. She later woke up in his hotel room, remembering nothing that happened after the midpoint of their dinner.
Hite was disgusted and enraged, but hesitated to report the assault, assuming she wouldn’t be taken seriously. She describes a company culture in which unprofessional behavior, especially by men, was tolerated. Hite says she did ask the company’s human resources department to implement training about consent and workplace sexual harassment, but that a human resources employee instead asked her for details about what incident had prompted her request. Hite reluctantly divulged information about the alleged assault. She says the company then launched an investigation into the male co-worker but didn’t discipline him.
“[Human resources] told me he was remorseful, and said, ‘We all make mistakes sometimes when we drink.’ I was like, ‘OK, so that’s how this is going to go,’” Hite recalls.
Hite says a few months later, in June 2017, human resources unexpectedly wrote her up for “poor communication,” but wouldn’t offer any context for the criticism or specify areas in which Hite could improve. Six months later in January 2018, the brewery laid her off.
Hite hired a lawyer to explore the merits of a wrongful termination lawsuit. Ultimately, she reached an agreement with the company that required her to sign the nondisclosure agreement, which prevented Hite from speaking publicly about the alleged assault and how the company handled it.
When the dust settled after her layoff, Hite realized she no longer saw beer as a viable, safe career path. She didn’t look for another job in the industry, instead moving to Ohio and living briefly with her mother. She’d physically removed herself from the places and situations that had hurt her, but their effects continued to linger. In Ohio, she decided to embark on a completely unrelated career path.
“That’s where my career in beer ended and at that point I was like, ‘I’m done. I’m not going to put myself through this anymore,’” she says. “I’d been thinking for a few months that I needed to get out of this. It just wasn’t getting better.”
It took Hite a year to emotionally process the abrupt end to her career in beer. It’s a sentiment many people—even those who haven’t experienced trauma in the industry—have expressed when seeking another profession.
“It sounds so dramatic, but I mourned losing that part of myself,” Hite says. “I felt completely out of my element. I was like a fish out of water. The beer industry is so unique; nothing was the same.”
Slowly, Hite taught herself not to identify so strongly with her new jobs, which she says has been a productive choice. She went to therapy to help her process the difficult emotions that stemmed, partially, from the trauma she experienced from that part of her life. Away from Chicago and memories of her time there, she felt more emotionally safe. And that’s when Hite felt she rediscovered something she had lost years prior: a voice to speak about the misogyny and alleged assaults she experienced.
“It just dawned on me that I don’t need to be afraid of these people anymore,” Hite says. “I just needed to let it go, basically, and let it stop having control over me.”
With her employment and friend group no longer tied to beer, Hite felt freedom to speak publicly, and began posting about her experiences on Facebook in 2014. At first she shared stories in more general terms, then beginning in March 2020, she named Rouben’s brewery, Moody Tongue, directly. She also spoke with friends and one journalist about what she’d experienced in the hope it would put a human face on issues like sexism and assault that are often only discussed in broad terms.
“The story’s not really about Jared. It’s about me and all these other women that have similar experiences,” she says. “I thought deeply about: ‘What is my responsibility to my stepdaughter and how do I use this experience and others to ensure that she’s safe?’”
Hite draws purpose from her family. Before moving to Ohio, she met a man who would later become her husband, and became a stepmother to his daughter. Hite says parenting compelled her to set an example of strength and self-advocacy. She credits it with encouraging her to see herself less as a victim and more as a person with resilience and autonomy—lessons she could one day share with her daughter.
Part of what allowed abuse to thrive around her, Hite says, was a fear from her and other women of losing jobs or tarnishing their reputations. Some friends and colleagues have been willing to talk to her about the abuse and misogyny, she says, but people in beer and media have largely ignored her.
“It’s exhausting to keep telling this fucking story,” Hite says, adding that between 2020 and 2021, she and a trusted industry peer contacted two journalists about her experiences. Hite had given an interview to one of these journalists, but neither published stories about it. She says the reporter who interviewed her eventually stopped communicating with her.
“When it’s just crickets, I’m like, ‘OK so, what now? Did it just not matter?’” she says.
Colleagues who have spoken with Hite say her experiences have changed the way they think about the industry, even as they’re still a part of it.
“I learned that I need to be a better ally to other women in the industry. I learned a lot of people are going through a lot more than I have,” Erny says. “I definitely think that the party’s kind of over, you know? There are too many people that push things too far. The reason the corporate world is the way it is is because it’s necessary. People need to treat workplaces like workplaces.”
Vavrick says honest discussions of sexism, assault, and harassment in the beer industry need to come out of the shadows. He believes that putting faces and names to such stories will help more men recognize how pervasive these problems are. He says that as a man, it’s not his role to dictate how the industry should address such issues, but rather to make sure that everyone around him knows he won’t tolerate inequity or harassment.
“It’s one thing to know that something exists and it’s another to put it out of your head until it happens to you or someone adjacent to you,” Vavrick says. “People need to realize this shit happens all the time, a lot.”
Now that she’s gone public with her story, Hite hopes the media and industry begin to take allegations like hers more seriously. She hopes that if the industry sees how women are made to silence themselves, companies can begin to remove barriers toward sharing those stories internally and externally.
Hite was initially encouraged by the outpouring of stories shared by Brienne Allan and others last spring, but she was disheartened to see that some of the women who came forward still faced backlash on social media. She’s skeptical that misconduct, abuse, and harassment can be eradicated from beer until they’re eradicated from society more broadly.
“A few people were reprimanded and removed from positions but you know what, none of it fixed the whole issue,” Hite says. “It’s still there.”
Hite is happy now—fulfilled by her family and career, supported by her loved ones, and no longer bottling up a story that has been hers to tell. She wants to see a future where more women, in beer and otherwise, can get to the same place she is, but without having to endure what she did.
She knows exactly what others could have done differently, and it’s simple.
“Just freaking believe me,” Hite says. “Because I’m not the only one.”
Words by Kate Bernot