Apathy Has Rained On Me — On DEI Burnout in the Beer Industry
DEI is so 2021. For many in the beer industry, as well as in the wider world, diversity, equity and inclusion has become old news, no longer worthy of column inches.
“I believe that the progress of social advocacy work in craft beer is in danger of stalling out completely or even rolling backward,” academic, activist and DEI professional Dr. J. Jackson-Beckham stated in a post on Crafted For All in September 2023. It echoed the feelings of many other DEI activists and advocates in the industry: One of powerlessness, frustration, and lack of support and progress has led to large-scale burnout.
DEI advocacy and activism involves supporting marginalised groups, be they producers or consumers. It’s about upholding standards of equality and safety and pushing back against prejudice, bigotry and harassment. Some people do this professionally, others as part of their wider involvement in their industry. People take on DEI advocacy because they care.
“It's the right thing to do,” says head brewer at Coalition Brewing and DEI advocate Charlotte Cook. “The industry isn't fair and work shouldn't ruin your mental health.”
Hospitality professional, co-editor of Burum Collective and DEI advocate Helen Anne Smith agrees. “I want the drinks industry to be sustainable for people to work in,” they tell me. “I care about the positive development and evolution of the industry as a whole.”
Advocating for DEI is always challenging. There will always be naysayers, trolls and bullies. But it becomes an excruciating Sisyphean grind when that work is consistently disregarded or sidelined. There’s only so many times you can ask people not to buy from breweries that have been accused of racist employment practises, to implement safety policies at festivals, to remove sexist branding, to employ anti-bias training, and be ignored. Hitting your head against a metaphorical brick wall of unconcern hurts.
“I was feeling a type of burnout I had never felt before,” says Lindsay Malu Kido, DEI activist, academic, and founder of Beer Is For Everyone. “I realised it was no longer healthy to be at the same advocacy level I wanted to be at—my body was burning out before my brain was. It was a big realisation that though we really want to do this work it is causing us harm.”
***
The World Health Organization classifies burnout as “an occupational phenomenon[…] resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” Its consequences being “feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and reduced professional efficacy.”
When you’re working very hard, often outside and beyond regular hours, for a cause you’re passionate about that also affects your daily life personally and professionally yet nothing changes, this is the result.
DEI burnout has physical and mental health implications for those affected, as well as consequences for our careers, and ultimately will have a knock-on effect across the beer industry.
““If you establish yourself as an advocate and activist you are always on, and always that person.””
But what’s happening in the industry that’s causing DEI burnout? And what can we do about it?
Much has changed since the political landscape of 2020-2021 when DEI initiatives in beer took centre stage.
Following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd, Weathered Souls Brewing in San Antonio TX launched the Black Is Beautiful collaboration beer project to raise money for social justice initiatives. The initiative captured the zeitgeist, with over 1,600 breweries participating across the world.
Beer, however, was soon to fall short of the new standards it had set itself. May 2021 became known as beer’s ‘#MeToo’ moment, when Brienne Allan, then production manager at Notch Brewing in Salem, Massachusetts, ignited a storm of accusations of sexism, abuse and misconduct following a viral Instagram post. The story was picked up by media around the world, and owners of well-known breweries including Denmark’s Mikkeller, Philadelphia’s Tired Hands and Vermont’s Hill Farmstead faced pressure to step down as breweries cleaned house, bringing in internal and external DEI specialists, and promising improved working conditions.
But the promise of change and the hope that these moments of collective outrage offered fell flat. Now, less than four years later, many of 2021’s alleged offenders are back in their executive roles. After stepping down as CEO in October 2020 Mikkeller’s founder Mikkel Bjergsø returned to a chief executive role in 2022.The second iteration of Black Is Beautiful has—per its website—just 11 current participants. For activists and those affected by the events that sparked the initial progressive movements, this is a bitter, painful pill to swallow.
The picture gets especially grim when it comes to BrewDog. Despite the BBC’s documentary on their alleged business malpractices and countless allegations of workplace misconduct across two separate open letters from employees, James Watt is still in a senior position. Although he may have stepped down as CEO, Watt remains ‘captain and co-founder’ with a 21% stake in the business. Despite journalist David Jesudason’s recent expose of ongoing sexism, racism, mismanagement and illegal activity at their Waterloo location, no major policy or practical changes have been brought in to safeguard workers. The sense that no amount of proof is enough to enact change is brutal and demoralising.
I could go on about how bad things in beer really are, and I will, because we need to address the inconvenient truth that these problems have not been solved and things are not okay.
Illustrations by Heedayah Lockman
In the US, 2023’s Craft Brewers Conference (the largest brewing convention in the world) featured, among other major DEI-based issues, a session woefully titled ‘Privilege As Your Superpower’. This created a huge amount of negative feedback, due to the connotations that privilege is something to lean into rather than unpick, and that the talk was given by a white woman with zero input from people of colour.
Back in the UK, Cask Ale Week—a yearly promotion organised by industry body Cask Marque—participated in an ill-considered collaboration with right wing broadcaster GB News. Additionally their highly offensive and diversity-negative t-shirt release indicated an unwelcome return to poorly-conceived attempts at prejudice-based humour with anti-queer and anti-trans connotations. All of which feeds into a pervasive sense of burnout among those investing their energy into pushing back.
***
The pushback against and apathy towards DEI is not isolated to the beer industry. It’s part of a larger worldwide trend, with roots ranging from the ongoing ‘culture wars’, cost of living crisis, international emergencies including the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, and government legislation.
The US Supreme Court has outlawed affirmative action admissions policies in US universities, with several states banning all DEI initiatives on campuses. Everyone from tech leaders like Google and Meta to entertainment giants like Disney and Netflix are cutting their DEI staff and programs. Even the American Academy of Dermatology is pushing for an end to its DEI initiatives.
As belts tighten and global attention moves to new disasters, DEI is being left behind across the board. “Breweries and venues [are] desperately trying to survive, so are not putting the time and energy and resources into this kind of work,” Helen says.
While DEI advocates understand the complexities of running what are often small businesses on tight margins, the prevailing attitude of DEI being the first thing to be thrown under the bus of austerity further adds to the burnout we are experiencing.
“DEI work truly requires consistency and buy-in by everyone and the downturn of the economy is affecting people’s capacity to do that,” Lindsay tells me. “The world in general is so dark right now so it feels like there isn’t any point focusing on these ‘small’ things in craft beer—even though these are the things we can actually change ourselves.”
““I am haunted by this idea that I’m letting people down.””
“Advocacy work is money.” Dr. J. is very specific about the importance of not letting DEI work slide in difficult times, and what it means if we do.
“If we don’t continue with [DEI] now the lesson all of us will learn subconsciously is that when times get tough financially we can afford to set this aside—conversely if we keep the momentum going when things are tough we will learn that this is intrinsic to our value,” she says.
Dr. J. outlines a plan of action for this in her online course which grew as a response to her own sense of burnout. “The course is a hope to offer some sort of framework which will be useful to someone out there to orient themselves to the work in a way that can be a little bit more relieving,” she says, “One of the hardest things about [DEI] work is the drive to do it all is so real for all of us—you can’t bear to not do it all.”
She aims to demonstrate through the course that DEI work is a shared responsibility, pushing back against one of the major causes of burnout, which she refers to as the “always-on effect.”
“To some degree if you establish yourself as an advocate and activist you are always on and always that person. If something terrible happens, be it super or a little—discrimination, violence, harassment or a crappy label or beer name—everyone sends it to me all the time,” she explains.
This in turn leads to a pressure to respond, which can be laced with guilt and responsibility. When you care about DEI and live with it as an ongoing issue it can be hard to put down boundaries, which leads to further burnout. There is a very real fear that if you don’t take on the responsibility of reacting, no one else will and nothing will happen, forcing you to take action even if it comes at a personal cost. Dr J has found herself asking “Does this action need to happen more than I need to say no?”
This sense of guilt also affects Helen. “I am haunted by this idea that I'm letting people down,” they say.
There is a clear picture that this element of DEI burnout is the result of too much work falling on the shoulders of too few people, fueled by the overall decline in interest in DEI. Dr. J. highlights that the shortage of people currently engaged with these issues reinforces a cyclical element to the problem of burnout. The less interest, the harder the work, the fewer people are willing to engage, and then the work gets even harder.
“It's not the life for everyone, you need a certain mettle to go head to head with people much richer and more powerful than you, and as such it's not a burden I would wish to place on other people,” Charlotte says. “I find it very challenging to be willing to put your head above the parapet—that makes you a target for online and real-life harassment and abuse.”
This abuse can be overwhelming. The beer industry is rife with social media trolls who often operate in packs and will make targeted attacks on anyone who disagrees with them. Often these are against DEI initiatives. Dr. J. highlights the personal toll this can take and her need to “go dark” on social media to deal with it.
While there have always been ‘anti-woke’ trolls on social media, the lack of a counter-presence which previously existed is another contributing factor to DEI burnout. With many people now stepping back from social media and those who remain becoming increasingly cautious of raising their heads above the parapet, the support and sense of community that helped to duel DEI activism has fizzled out.
“People don’t have the privilege of being as outspoken as when things were more economically advantageous—publications are seeing a reduction of resources across the board so are creating content that is less controversial,” Lindsay says.
That lack of support in the public sphere also translates into a financial issue, creating another vicious cycle. Both Lindsay’s Beer Is For Everyone and Helen’s Burum Collective have suffered from lack of sponsorship, meaning there are less DEI-focused stories out there, creating fewer conversations. This means more work and pressure on those remaining, and an increasing sense of isolation, all of which entrench the feeling of burnout.
But what can we do about DEI burnout in the beer industry? The prescriptions all involve a shift in perception as to how DEI is viewed by many in the industry—an acceptance and understanding of the fact that DEI work affects everyone and is everyone’s responsibility, and an overturning of the scarcity myth that can prevent this from happening.
““Even though [the beer industry] is not perfect, it’s worth fighting for.””
Creating a safe and equal environment does not mean that those who currently enjoy the privilege of equality and acceptance lose something by sharing it. Everyone gains from successful DEI as it makes the industry more dynamic and more profitable by tapping into wider markets with a greater range of products. While these cases have been made over and over again by countless industry experts and organisations, the fact that we are here is proof that for many DEI was indeed a trend rather than a necessity.
“This pullback has been happening for a long time, and it's because there were a lot of people in positions of power who were not truly engaged,” Helen says.
The tools are already out there. The best way for allies to help alleviate DEI burnout is by using them to share the burden that is currently falling on too few groups and individuals. The answer isn’t going to our already-exhausted advocates and activists and asking them for tools and resources, but choosing to seek them out and self-educate.
Respecting the time, energy and availability of DEI advocates by taking on some of that work would be a huge step towards limiting burnout. Taking DEI imperatives as seriously as any other business imperative, resourcing them with the same care and determination as production quality and operations management is also a key way to reduce DEI burnout. Being heard, taken seriously, and responded to—feeling like a full part of the community—has a significant psychological impact on DEI advocates, alleviating burnout.
Ultimately, DEI progress should not be reliant on a trend, fad or revelation to keep its momentum running. The issues have not gone away just because they’re not going viral, and they won’t until DEI is integrated as part of a permanent ongoing industry strategy, be it through in-house brewery and organisational policies and more broadly through unionisation and an industry code of conduct. We are, as Dr. J. states, at a crossroads where we can lead the beer industry towards a more equitable future, but only if the responsibility, energy and work required are shared and collaborative so that no one gets burnt out.
There have been some positive steps, including Dr. J’s recent appointment as Director of Social Advocacy at the Brewer’s Association (subsequent to being interviewed for this piece), leading a restructured team to implement a wider approach to DEI, and the BA’s positive engagement with Lady Justice Brewing over the issues raised by last year’s Craft Brewers Conference. But these are still very small steps dependent on strong individuals leading from the front.
“Even though [the beer industry] is not perfect, it’s worth fighting for, even if it feels impossible right now—this is why I continue the work,” Lindsay says.
I say let’s share the work and protect and support one another to make this a reality.
