Giving BIPOC Brewers an Equal Shot
Courtesy Brooklyn Brewery
This week’s Beervana Show was one of the best we’ve ever done—and as always in those cases that’s entirely due to our guest, Garrrett Oliver. Garrett is of course the brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery, where’s he been since 1994, as well as a famed author, beer authority, and ambassador (here and abroad) for craft brewing. The reason we wanted to speak to Garrett now, though, is his latest project in creating the Michael Jackson Foundation for Brewing and Distilling. The foundation will provide scholarship dollars for brewers and distillers who are black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) to finish technical coursework and, critically, connect them with mentors in the industry. The discussion was incredibly illuminating because Garrett managed to walk through the issues that created the dearth of BIPOC brewers in a clear, concise way. It is one of the best descriptions of the way racial inequities are created and sustained—even by people who want them to change—and what we can do.
I transcribed the pith of our discussion because it sometimes helps to see words on a page. Even if you’ve listened to the podcast (and I’ll put a link at the end of the post so you can make sure you do), reading Garrett’s words may help solidify their insight in your mind. Many people feel uncomfortable looking at structural inequities and feel paralyzed to help. Read this post! Garrett went through the same process and came out the other side and describes it in a way that is both honest but also knowing. There is work to do, but we can do it, and White brewers, brewery owners, pub owners, and bar managers are all in a powerful position to change things. I will turn most of this post over to Garrett’s words, with just a couple explanatory notes here and there. I have edited his words for print clarity, but again, you can hear him speak them by listening to the podcast below.
In a Position to Change Things
Garrett began our discussion by describing his own awakening to the challenges BIPOC brewers faced getting into the industry. Throughout our conversation, he used the first person in describing his journey, and that gives it power.
“I have not had a single African-American applicant for a brewing job in 30 years. I’ve been around a long time, I’ve been visible for a long time, I’ve had newspaper articles going back to the early-to-mid-90s, I’ve been on Emeril, I’ve been on Martha Stewart, I’ve been in Jet magazine. I wrote for the NY Times. So the idea that I would not be visible seemed impossible to me. What I came to discover is that, just because you are visible doesn’t mean that you are actually doing anything. If anybody had come in front of me and said ‘I’d like a brewing job,’ or ‘I’d like your help,’ I would have helped them. But nobody came. So I [thought] ‘well, the reason why people weren’t coming was because they weren’t interested. But it’s not my fault.’
“I reversed my thinking and thought, how about this as a mental exercise: what if it was my fault? The answer came pretty quickly. Let’s do the math. A place like Brooklyn Brewery, that’s been around a long time, has very high standards; I’m going to require two to three years brewing experience. We have to have people who really know what they’re doing. Less than 1% of people working in brewhouses in the United States are African-American, and most of them will have gotten in in the last few years. If I’m going to require two to three years, I’ve already removed almost everybody. I also said, two to three years *or* equivalent coursework. So let’s look at the equivalent coursework. I’ve probably hired a dozen brewers out of the American Brewers Guild. It’s a very good program; it costs $9,000. Short courses like the packaging course through the MBAA: $3,000. Master brewers course through UC-Davis: $16,000. Now take the fact that African-Americans have one-tenth the family assets of White Americans.
“When you take on a $9,000 course, it means that you have almost nothing to put up against it and you go into debt. You put those two things together, and in fact it tuns out to be my fault. Not on purpose, but this is the thing most people don’t understand about anti-racism. Anti-racism is an action. It’s work. It’s not not being racist. Not being racist doesn’t do anything for anybody. It may prevent you from doing damage to people, but that’s not the same as helping anybody. Helping anybody takes work.”
Breaking Down White Spaces
“Imagine that every time you wanted a craft beer--you love craft beer, it’s great--but in every bar you went to, everyone in there was Black. In every one--in every bar, in every city. You might say to yourself, ‘That wouldn’t bother me; that would be fine.’ But really? Really really? In every mood that you ever have, that would be fine? That would make you kind of superhuman. People like to see someone around them who looks something like them. If every bar you went into was 100% Black, you would get the idea, perhaps, that this wasn’t for you. By not hiring any people behind the bars, by not hiring anybody in the brewhouses and in the taprooms, you perpetuate this same thing. If you go in there and you’re White, you probably don’t notice that everyone else there is White. But if you’re Black, you definitely notice, the same way you would if everyone was Black. This also keeps people out of the beer scene. They don’t want to go to festivals where they’re looked at strangely.
“What really brought it home was going to Fresh Fest last year in Pittsburgh, and seeing a couple thousand Black people--and Latinos and everybody else, but people of color--but thousands of them drinking and geeking out on craft beer. People were really emotional. They’re like, ‘Where have you guys been??’ Well, we’re everywhere but you just don’t see us becasue we don’t want to go to the beer bar! Where we’re not treated that well and we feel strange. If you’d like to reverse this situation and make craft beer feel like America, it requires work.”
Michael Jackson Foundation
In introducing the topic of the Michael Jackson Foundation, Garrett mentioned that its principal mission was to send people to school. Then he continued.
“The work of the MJF is essentially two-fold. One, it provides scholarships to people of color for accredited institutions for technical education in brewing and distilling. The second part, which goes hand-in-hand with it, is that with each scholarship award, we then link each student with a mentor who is a person of color within the industry, who comes from a similar background to themselves. [It] provides them with a connection to the industry and someone to talk to. When you have a problem or you need something, this is your go-to person. Just as you don’t see many Black people in the beer scene, they don’t have people to reach out to. The general segregation of American life produces a lack of access.
“How do people get hired? They get hired the way people get hired for most jobs, through friends: ‘Oh yeah, I know a guy. You need sombody to work on the packaging line? I know this guy.’ Even something as simple as ‘I know a guy’ provides a huge proportion of the access. It’s the same way that they figured out that not allowing people of color or women on the golf course or in the club was a great interest to their careers because things move through social circles. The same is true of brewing. It’s not any different.
“And then besides that--and this is the off-label use, if you like, of the MJF--is that we will also be and are already becoming a connection center. If you come to us and say, ‘I want to be a cicerone, I want to do this, I want to do that,’ and it doesn’t fall within this narrow scope of what the MJF has as its mission, that doesn’t mean we’re not going to help you. We’re just going to find another pathway for you and try to connect you, as directly as possible, to people who will help you along your way. I have a feeling the MJF is going to end up being like that, that 75% of our work will actually not be the mission. It will be all the other little things.”
Once again, a big thanks to Garrett Oliver for championing the Michael Jackson Foundation and joining us to discuss it. If you’d like to hear him talk about the foundation in full, or hear how he booked the Cocteau Twins in London or what kind of beer town New York was and has become, give the pod a full listen:
COVER PHOTO: TOTALFOOD.COM