It shouldn’t surprise anyone with even a passing interest in beer to find Garrett Oliver included on a list celebrating the figures innovating and shaping the industry’s future. But what is wild is just how long the Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster and author has been at it. His presence on such a list could have happened in 1994 just as easily as in 2020. That long-lastingness isn’t lost on him, either. As he often jokes on his social media, “I am 400 years old.”
As protests against police brutality and racial injustice unfolded in cities across the country in response to the killing of George Floyd, Oliver was among the beer professionals to take action. In establishing the Michael James Jackson Foundation for Brewing & Distilling, he aims to remedy the beer world’s persistent lack of diversity and inclusion. Named after the late British beer writer—a close friend and mentor of Oliver’s who was “actively and completely unapologetically anti-racist,” he says—the organization’s mission is to grant scholarships to fund technical education for people of color currently working in the beer and spirits sectors, with a longer-term goal of doing outreach to communities that might not be aware of those jobs. Awardees will also be assigned mentors with the necessary support and connections to help them succeed and advance professionally once their formal education is complete.
“Unless we unblock the barriers—the lack of assets and how expensive it is—that have long existed for people of color in both brewing and distilling, we’ll keep getting the same results,” Oliver says. “I realized that the ways in which this industry has historically produced these barriers included me and my administration. And so I asked myself, ‘What could I do to change that?’”
To date, a GoFundMe campaign for the program has raised more than $217,000, most of that via major donations from breweries. Oliver thinks they’ll see a return on that investment, as he told GBH in July: “When we go out in the world and say we’re a great industry and we want your support, now we’ll be more deserving of your support. If you want people to buy your whiskey or beer, people want to know there’s meaning behind your company and industry. Being inclusive creates that meaning.”
Words,Niko Krommydas