Brave Noise Pale Ale is the collaborative, multi-brewery initiative of Massachusetts’ Notch Brewing and one of their brewers, Brienne Allan, designed to fund inclusive and safe environments for women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ individuals working in craft beer. As a priority of Surly, our DE&I Committee, and our Leadership Team, we’re proud to announce that we’ll be participating in this collaboration and continuing the long-term work that’s needed to create a better craft beer industry.
100% of the proceeds for this beer will go to charity, in this case towards RAINN, America’s largest anti-sexual violence organization. All breweries must also share their Code of Conduct with employees and patrons upon its release. Many breweries, including Surly, were called out in Allan’s Instagram thread about harassment in our industry. By participating in Brave Noise, we stand with those who shared their story and commit to creating a better future.
We knew that a press release or social media post saying “we’re working on it, cheers” wouldn’t and shouldn’t suffice. Difficult, necessary conversations have been had and will continue. Actual work is being done. A short list of what we’ve done since May:
- Listen-and-learn session with all the women of Surly.
- Ongoing conversations with leadership, within departments, and between co-workers.
- In-house survey on reporting harassment and discrimination.
- Updated Code of Conduct to better reflect the challenges facing women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ individuals in the craft beer industry.
- Reviewed harassment and discrimination policies and protocols.
- Mandatory harassment and discrimination training through MRA’s Harassment Prevention for Employees.
- Updated protocols in Beer Hall for patrons who feel threatened or unsafe.
- Participated in a local fundraising/informational event at Arbeiter Brewing.
- Used our in-house Book Club to read and discuss The Fix and Beer and Racism: How Beer Became White, Why It Matters, and the Movements to Change It.
It’s not enough. Frankly, it’ll never be enough. This kind of work doesn’t end. But it’s a start. Putting the Brave Noise money where our mouth is feels like the right way to cap this phase of the project.
Our focus going forward is to continue this work and build upon it. This includes but is not limited to: Listen-and-learns on preventing harassment, navigating uncomfortable conversations, and maintaining inclusive environments; HR transparency on harassment and discrimination policies and procedures; festival expectations and bar rules; and a follow-up DE&I survey and ongoing transparency around our progress.
We’ll be brewing Brave Noise in the coming weeks and putting it on draft in the beer hall this October.
The Brave Noise collaboration is about creating safe, discrimination-free environments. Thank you for reading.
