So the Craft Beer Industry is a Bastion of Sexism and Hatred?

Source – Does craft beer have a diversity problem?

Of course it does. …

Given that big beer makers for decades courted male consumers with sexist TV ads featuring women in bikinis, it perhaps surprises no one that the craft beer business has become a haven for white males — most of whom happen to be hipsters. Sadly, what counts as diversity in this industry is the clean-shaven minority mixing with the bearded majority.

It can be jaw-dropping to see how monochromatic its consumers are: Of craft beer and hard cider drinkers, whites account for 77 percent of the market, while Hispanics are 10.6 percent, blacks constitute 5.4 percent, and Asians are 5.1 percent, according to new data from the consumer insights firm MRI-Simmons. …

Consider this 2019 survey from Kantar, a research group: Of weekly craft beer drinkers, about 79 percent of black and Hispanic consumers agree with the statement “I am frustrated by brands that treat people like me as an afterthought.” About 73 percent of Asians also agree with that notion. Meanwhile, only 55 percent of white drinkers feel frustrated.

I wasn’t ashamed to admit this before, but now I am: I go to a lot of craft beer places. The South Shore where I live is starting to get as many of these brew pubs as we have Dunkins, and that is saying something. The rise of these places is one of the major cultural and socio-economic changes to have taken place in my lifetime. And it’s mainly happened just within the last two or three years. Hell, last year I was in Italy and someone told me they’d love to come to New England to try our beers because they’ve heard of such places. Go figure.

And I’ve seen it as a pure good. I walk into a building that was formerly just a warehouse space, now filled with happy people enjoying themselves. Spending money which other people use to make a living for themselves as small business owners. But also as craftspeople, inventing their own recipes, experimenting with new methods and expressing themselves creatively through the art of brewing and the science of zymurgy.

As a matter of fact, I’ve looked at the people I see in these places and envy some of them. I’m talking about the young families who come to these brew pubs with kids and even infants in tow. The kids play games. The infants nap in their strollers. While the parents get to still have a social life that I could only have dreamed of when my kids were little. One time I was so desperate to stay in touch with a couple of friends that one afternoon I took my 2-year-old with me to a pub that had like four other people in it besides us. Which was eight strangers’ eyeballs staring daggers at me like they were ready to call DSS. I fired down one quick one and noped out of there, never to try that again. But at these craft beer shops, they can go and freely socialize and no one judges them as problem alcoholics. Just responsible adults with a shared love of beer.

But now I stand corrected. Stupid me, I just assumed that anyone is free to come and go in these places as they see fit. I look around and see close to a 50/50 split of male to female and order beer from women behind the bar and forget all about sexist TV ads with women in bikinis. I see people with a common appreciation for IPAs, Maple Porters, Kolsches, Lagers and Pale Ales talking about hops and grains and ABV% and it just never occurred to me to ask if whether the brand was treating them like an afterthought or not.

I just assumed the people who want to make or drink craft beer are free to make and drink craft beer. Whether they have a beard or, like me, couldn’t grow one if they were castaway on an island for three years.

I stand corrected. Craft beer people aren’t just drunks who like to drink from 16-oz cans. They’re hipsters, sexists and full of hatred. I’ll never do business with them again. Thanks for enlightening me.