The craft beer world is continuing to reel after a wave of allegations of workplace misconduct began to surface on social media in May — what's now become known as craft beer's #MeToo moment. What started out as a series of Instagram stories on one Massachusetts brewery worker's account blossomed into an existential crisis for the industry on a national scale. Prominent figures from some of the nation's most celebrated breweries from San Diego to Philadelphia resigned or were fired after facing accusations of sexual or other misconduct.
But the true work of repairing craft beer culture is just beginning, Bay Area beer workers say, and now is the time to make sure that the professed commitments to change, made in the heat of the crisis, can actually last.
"What I hope right now is that the change is real," said Melissa Myers, owner of the Good Hop in Oakland.
My colleague Janelle Bitker and I wrote about the initial fallout a few weeks ago, describing how a handful of Bay Area beer businesses including Humble Sea, Modern Times, Original Pattern and Beer Baron took action after their workplaces were cited as the sources of allegedly inappropriate behavior.
Since then, there have been a few new developments locally. Employees at the Oakland taproom of Modern Times, which is primarily based in San Diego, announced that they had met with the company's management and were optimistic about the willingness to "realign" with the values of inclusion, diversity and equity. The Oakland employees had initially released a statement on Instagram that they would refuse to pour any beers until they were satisfied that the company was taking decisive action following accusations against founder and CEO Jacob McKean. He has since resigned. (The staff did not respond to a request for comment.)
And on Monday, the owner of a San Jose beer bar announced that he was resigning and "pursuing change of ownership" in response to allegations against him. In an Instagram post, Ryan Summers acknowledged the charges that he had fostered "an unhealthy, toxic and misogynistic work place" at Good Karma and Pizza Flora, both of which he owns. He described his past behavior as "gross misconduct," apologized for it, and urged followers to continue to support the businesses for the sake of his employees. (Summers did not respond to a request for comment.)
This reckoning is playing out in a distinctively modern way: entirely on Instagram. The accusations are leveled on Instagram, the reactions registered on Instagram, the apologies issued on Instagram, the resignations announced on Instagram. (The Chronicle reached out to several of the accusers and accused; they did not respond to requests for comment.)
Craft beer is not the first sphere to have a crisis occur on this plane. During the pandemic, restaurants in particular have had their own social-media calls to accountability, as workers took to the platform to call out bosses for inequitable treatment, toxic leadership and racial discrimination. But as my colleague Soleil Ho has noted in the case of restaurants, change effected through a barrage of anonymous posts can feel precarious. The accusations can be difficult to verify — and, consequently, maybe, difficult for some people to trust — and often don't invite constructive resolutions. Even if the grievances are aired in the spirit of restorative justice, it can be hard to actually know whether restorative justice is being achieved.
When the revolution takes to Instagram, it also runs the risk of falling prey to some of the less productive impulses that the platform encourages in us. Social media urges us to keep scrolling on to the next thing. It shortens our attention spans. That means that a movement gone viral can fade away just as quickly as it emerged, eclipsed by the next viral thing — and leaving those who most desperately need change, like the beer workers who leveled serious accusations against bosses and colleagues, without much leverage to ensure that change actually happens over a longer period of time.
What has seemed clear, in the wake of all this, is that the stories of harassment and discrimination speak to a larger, more intractable issue than individual bad actors. "Most brewery owners are white males, and that creates a certain culture," said Jonathan Acosta Rosales, who does sales and marketing for Oakland's Ale Industries. What he's pointing to should be obvious: The fact that groups like women and people of color are underrepresented in brewing makes it easier for dynamics to develop that don't prioritize their safety.
Ale Industries has not been the subject of any misconduct accusations, but the small company is using the moment to try to improve itself anyway. Borrowing a framework from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Rosales and partner Casey Cobb came up with a system by which the brewery could "grade itself" on diversity. The framework hinges on the IDEA acronym, which stands for inclusion, diversity, equity and accountability, and measures how well the company fulfills each of those principles. Right now, its four-person staff is entirely male and 28% non-white. Under the grading rubric, Ale Industries has given itself an F.
They're committing themselves to hiring a more diverse staff and to sponsoring diversity and sexual harassment trainings. The hope is that it becomes a more meaningful long-term way to effect change than simply firing individual employees when they get called out for bad behavior. "I wish that people didn't only make change when they feel they have to," said Cobb.
That spirit of weary optimism was present at the Good Hop this week, too. On May 18, in the days after the Instagram allegations began to go viral, Myers hosted a gathering of about 60 women at her bar in an attempt to cultivate some solidarity. "We've all got stories," Myers said. The next morning, after images of that gathering had been shared on social media, Myers arrived back at the bar to find a front window smashed.
On Wednesday, Myers was smiling as a brand-new window was installed — the glass so pristine and shiny, she said, that it almost looked like the window wasn't there at all. She paid for the repairs out of pocket, despite the fact that supporters raised roughly $12,000 through a GoFundMe campaign. That money is going to five local charities, Myers said.
"Yes, there's a bunch of terribleness happening, and the stories are still coming," she said. "But there's also so much goodness coming out of this. We're finally really having conversations about how do we make this industry safer for women. For people of color. For trans people. And that's beautiful."
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Craft beer's MeToo reckoning will need more than Instagram posts for lasting change - San Francisco Chronicle
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