The Brewers Association Responds to Questions About CBC
Source: Brewers Association
A couple weeks ago, the Brewers Association held its annual industry event, the Craft Brewers Conference. I didn’t attend, but I started noticing criticisms crop up on social media. They gained steam, and in the days after CBC included some very serious criticisms, especially from members of underrepresented groups.
Stan Hieronymus offered a representative (but not exhaustive) sample here: the event’s location was problematic due to recent activities by the state legislature to ban abortions and expel two Black members for protesting inaction on gun violence; LGBTQ and BIPOC attendees worried about their safety and felt organizers did little to secure them; finally, one presentation, by a White woman, titled “Privilege as Your Leadership Superpower,” was widely panned as tone-deaf and offensive. The Brewers Association also announced winners of the World Beer Cup during the conference, and many were dismayed to see Founders celebrated for winning a medal even as the company is being sued for racial harassment for the second time.
I reached out to the BA’s public relations coordinator, Meg Papanastassiou, and she provided me with official responses from the organization. Below you’ll find those responses, and following that I’ve added some of my own comments.
What are your plans for siting CBC in the future given concerns about Tennessee (Indianapolis in particular?
All future CBC locations are under review.
There are limited locations across the country that have the facilities, accommodations, infrastructure, and schedule to host an event the size of the Craft Brewers Conference. While we cannot predict a state’s legislation or political climate at the time of the event, the Brewers Association can guarantee that we work closely with the host cities and their community engagement programs, and are committed to ensuring that all our events are welcoming, safe, and supportive of all.
Any statement in defense or reconsideration of the panel “Privilege as Your Leadership Superpower”?
We are aware of criticism regarding a particular seminar (Privilege as Your Leadership Superpower).
Members of our community attended the seminar and by virtue of attending, some found the content to be psychologically harmful. While imperfect at moments, we do not feel that the content of the presentation was irresponsible or reckless. The speaker, a former director of diversity and inclusion at Constellation Brands, is an experienced and qualified practitioner. We have heard that some may feel it is inappropriate for a white person to speak on the subject of privilege without including the perspective of a person of color. We hold space for and value that perspective. We also see value for people with some types of privilege to speak on the importance of creating awareness of your own privilege and using it for good.
[Note: the BA shared a link to the audio recording of the session with me.]
Do you have a response to the experiences of LGBTQ and BIPOC attendees who expressed frustration at the conference’s failures to welcome, include, and secure underrepresented groups in Nashville?
Currently, the Brewers Association is listening to attendees who expressed frustration and gathering feedback from seminar ratings and surveys.
The Brewers Association invites dialogue with brewery members and CBC attendees. Anyone that wants to have an open and respectful conversation with the trade organization is encouraged to reach out to info@brewersassociation.org.
Any comment on problematic breweries entering BA-sponsored competitions (thinking here of Founders)?
The BA is consistently reviewing and evolving processes for hosted beer competitions.
We welcome feedback through our code of conduct and affiliated complaint process for brewery members and hold our peers accountable for unacceptable behavior while pursuing an educational path forward for a more professional, responsible, inclusive, and respectful environment. This dedicated reporting tool is effective if/when used and we encourage our members to submit their thoughts to shape any changes in process.
Any preliminary statement about the structural changes the Brewers Association plans to make so that the failures of CBC23 aren’t repeated?
At this point, our next steps are to listen and understand before recommending a course of action.
Currently, the Brewers Association is reviewing elements of the Craft Brewers Conference and attendee survey results; investigating potential best practices based on feedback we’ve received to date; and having direct conversations with individuals involved.
The Brewers Association welcomes feedback from and dialogue with our members and anyone that attended CBC.
I want to thank the Brewers Association for agreeing to answer these questions. This is a difficult moment, and it would have been a lot easier to throw plywood on the windows and try to wait out the hurricane. This suggests a good-faith effort to engage and accept accountability. If you comment to this post, please remember that.
Nevertheless, the situation arises, at least partly, from a fault line that has always bedeviled the organization. From the very start, the Brewers Association saw itself as not just a trade association, but the central champion of a new culture of beer and brewing. This put them in the position of speaking for an industry far larger than their member breweries, and necessarily created compromises when the interests of their members deviated from the industry’s in general.
The CBC is a distilled example of this dynamic. Like all industry events, it functions as a trade show with informational presentations and a multi-day party. These things exist across industries, but most of them, like Gutter Con, the annual conference of rain gutter manufacturers, are not widely heralded outside their tight knit communities. It’s an opportunity to connect, meet people, and blow off some steam. Trade conferences may garner some public attention, but they’re designed for an insular audience. By these metrics, the CBC was by all accounts a fine event.
Yet CBC draws lots of press and members of affiliated industries—it’s not just a trade conference. Take the siting as an example. Holding the event in a different city each year is a way of spreading attention and money to their members in a rotating location. The CBC is a great opportunity to spotlight a state’s breweries. That conflicts with political controversies centered in those locations, however. The BA wants to be politically neutral in terms of state politics, because whatever the local government is doing, their interest is helping local breweries thrive. But for an audience increasingly insistent on making the industry welcoming to everyone (👋👋), places like Tennessee are toxic. Most of the really objectionable stuff in the Volunteer State happened since the Supreme Court ended abortion protections a year ago, so it would have been impossible to relocate this event. Yet the BA didn’t feel comfortable even discussing the situation before the event.
That fault line appeared in the controversial presentation, as well. In the context of a trade conference, scheduling a discussion that focused on the agency of owners might have made sense. To the many attendees from underrepresented groups (and allies) struggling to make beer more inclusive, having a White presenter speak to mostly-White owners was both offensive and enervating.
That last item points to an uncomfortable topic. On Friday, Stephanie Grant posted a wonderful article about her experiences at CBC. She is one of the smartest and most nuanced writers working today, and her comments should be mandatory reading by organizers. But these important correctives—see also Ren Navarro and Lady Justice—shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place. Had any of them been on the organizing committee, a lot of the problems at CBC never would have happened. (The problem of the fault line would still be there, but none of the unforced errors.) Representation matters, and bringing smart people who think like these folks (and there are a lot of them!) into BA’s upper management would be a good first step in transforming the way the organization thinks.
Like it or not, for now the Brewers Association is that central champion for “craft” culture. In all the commentary I’ve seen, people don’t want them taken down, they just want them to do better. I do, too. I hope they listen to their critics.