Dogfish Head Instagram post called out as #MeToo movement reaches beer industry
Shannon Marvel McNaught"The craft brewing community is 99% asshole free. - Sam."
Sam is Sam Calagione, co-founder of the Milton-headquartered craft beer giant Dogfish Head, and that quote was posted to the company's Instagram account Tuesday, Sept. 7.
At first glance, it seems innocuous enough, but many commenters found it "tone deaf."
The beer industry is in the midst of a reckoning. The floodgates have been open since May, when brewer Brienne Allan (@ratmagnet) asked women in the industry to share their experiences with sexism on Instagram.
Since then, thousands of stories of alleged sexual harassment, assault, sexism and racism have been shared, triggering resignations, firings and investigations at breweries nationwide and beyond.
"The Dogfish Head post was out of touch and totally disregarded all these stories. It showed exactly what the problem is with this industry," said 35-year-old Ash Eliot, founder of Women of the Bevolution. "A white male founder of a major brewery speaking based on his experience and his views, and with no regard to what women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community have faced in the beer industry. It showed privilege and disrespect to what we are all trying to strive for right now - a better, safer and discrimination-free beer industry."
Dogfish never took the post down, but did add some text, which said in part, "The spirit of this post was to celebrate you, the craft beer drinker, and the amazing community that often gathers to enjoy the art that is craft beer. But we see now, we missed the mark and for that we’re sincerely sorry."
Calagione spoke about the post Sept. 9 during a panel at the Craft Brewers Conference in Denver, Colorado.
"In the context of the day," which was National Beer Lovers Day, he said, "we were talking about the giant community, but very quickly the discussion on our social channels talked to a very serious issue about industry workers and a lot of unfortunate things that have happened and been exposed and been discussed."
In Maryland:There are fewer than five Black-owned breweries in Maryland. Nationally, it's just as white.
Calagione's wife and Dogfish Head co-founder, Mariah Calagione runs the company's social media, he said. They decided to embrace the discussion happening in the comments and leave the post up.
"Probably, we alienated both some longtime drinkers and some newer drinkers, but the mixed message was pretty equal and we thought it was worth letting that debate continue to play out. Sometimes that stuff happens. It's not fun but I don't think its bad either," he said.