By: Bruce
*This post contains coarse (East Coast beer drinking) language
Pride season is here and I cannot wait to NOT drink all the one-off, pink raspberry lemonade sour beers that breweries are going to make when they remember 'oh shit, the Gays exist' and make a fruity beer for the fruits.
Frig right off.
If you think for one second that making one beer (and a stereotyped one at that) means you deserve a pat on the back, you are woefully mistaken. If you think that pinkwashing (google that, I'm not doing your homework for you) is being an ally, I'll probably boycott your business.
If you have queer staff, get them to help make a beer. If you don't have queer staff, well...there's probably a reason for that.
Ask your queer staff what they'd like to see in the tasting room for Pride. If you don't have queer staff, do some research into how you can support us/local charities and if you want the Professional Opinion of A Gay on what to do, ask them but fucking pay them for their time. My fellow gays, our time, knowledge and experience is valuable. If the straights need our help, they gotta pay up.
Put a Pride flag up and I challenge you to keep it up year-round. Do you think that the gays don't drink beer year-round? We do and we like to support people who make space for us. I'll even do the work for you: https://prideislove.com/collections/products This place offers FREE FLAGS. You just pay shipping.
And hey, maybe you DO support queer organizations year-round. Maybe you donate partial proceeds to organizations outside of Pride month. I only know of one, maybe two places that have ongoing donations. If you know of any establishment that does, send 'em my way. I'll give them my money.
So say you make a beer, you donate to a charity and you do more than performative allyship. That's awesome. But it means NOTHING if you don't shut down homophobia and bigotry in your establishments, within your team and on your social media. A brewery here made a misstep in a beer label and name. They made an apology post. The comments, unsurprisingly, were full of knuckle-dragging homophobes and the brewery did nothing to stop the negative comments. In fact, they liked a few of them. SUPER sincere, thanks for the lip service, I'll be continuing my boycott.
Allyship is an ongoing process. I'll repeat myself from prior messages - you do not get to declare yourself an ally. Start the process of supporting marginalized folks, keep the process going and use your platforms to educate others.
Follow @bruceandbeer on Instagram for the perspective of a trans-nonbinary individual in the craft beer industry.