Founders CBS Draft and Bottle Release
Friday, Nov. 1, 4–10 p.m.
The Glass Jug Beer Lab
5410 N.C. Highway 55, Suite V, Durham
919-813-0135, https://www.facebook.com/events/1346501618859894/
If you’re not up on beer-scene news, you’ve probably missed the shit hurricane that’s pounding Michigan’s Founders Brewing, the fourteenth-largest craft (for now) brewery in the country.
The short version goes like this: In August 2018, a black manager at two Founders locations filed a federal lawsuit against Founders, alleging “a racist internal corporate culture” in which, among other things, some coworkers used the N-word and management did nothing about it. After he complained, Tracy Evans says, he was fired. Founders denied the allegations.
Last weekend, the case blew up again when Graci Harkema, the diversity and inclusion director Founders hired in January, quit and posted an open letter to Founders’ leadership team on Facebook: “Your actions have explicitly shown that you are more interested in the optics of my face than the impact of my voice. I have dedicated myself to a life and career of equity, ethics, integrity, and morals. I cannot represent a company who doesn’t stand for the same.”
Then, in a deposition, a Founders general manager claimed that he didn’t know he was black. As the Detroit Metro Times reported: “A transcript of the exchange between Founders’ Detroit general manager Dominic Ryan and Evans’ attorney, Jack Schulz, shows Schulz shifting from shocked to incredulous and perhaps a bit angry as Ryan claims he had no idea Evans is Black. Instead of just answering the question and moving on, Ryan digs in deeper and deeper, repeatedly asking for clarification when Schulz asks questions like ‘Are you aware Tracy is Black?’”
Founders not only faced a barrage of social media criticism, The Takeout reported, but it was also forced to close its Detroit taproom “over concerns for employee safety. … Some Michigan bars and retail shops have also reportedly stopped selling Founders beer in the wake of the ongoing lawsuit.”
Update, Nov. 1, 9:45 a.m.: On Thursday afternoon, Deadline Detroit reported that Founders had settled its lawsuit with Evans, saying in a statement, “Through recent discussions with Tracy, we listened, engaged in self-discovery, and reach[ed] common ground to make amends.” In his own statement, Evans said, “To those that were affected by all of this within Founders and had nothing to do with this, I apologize. To the few of those that were affected by this and you are a part of the problem, I hope you listen to what your company is about to start saying.”
So, now you’re up to speed. Well, mostly.
There’s also this: In August, a Spanish conglomerate reached a deal to acquire a 90 percent stake in Founders as of January. At that point, depending on how you define the term, it will no longer be a craft brewer.
With the acquisition, Founders is also killing off a much-coveted limited release called Canadian Breakfast Stout, which makes this year’s release the last one.
That presented The Glass Jug Beer Lab with a conundrum. The Durham brewery and bottle shop had a CBS release event planned for Friday evening, and a few customers—mostly beerheads who closely follow brewery news—wondered how it would react to Founders’ troubles.
Earlier this week, co-owner Chris Creech responded with a lengthy blog post on The Glass Jug’s website.
“Because of the recent attention the racial discrimination lawsuit has captured,” he wrote, “retailers like The Glass Jug are being asked if we plan to continue purchasing and selling Founders products, specifically, if we will be moving forward with our planned release event for Founders CBS (Canadian Breakfast Stout)—the final release of the CBS brand.”
The short answer, Creech wrote, is yes, the event will go on. But there’s a longer explanation that involves the complexities of how businesses like his work. (We’ve posted excerpts here, but the whole thing is worth a read, whether you agree with Creech’s decision or not.)
The Glass Jug is one of the top-selling Founders accounts in the Triangle. This is not by happenstance. Each year, our ownership and retail sales manager meet to identify about a dozen breweries we want to focus on, giving preferential shelf space and putting their beer on draft more often. … Founders was a brewery that we had selected this year, and we have succeeded in selling a lot of their product.
Unfortunately, when we made that decision, we did not anticipate them selling out or being sued for racial discrimination. Our crystal ball was in the shop for repairs that day.
Thus, we find ourselves here, after having put in the work of promoting and selling Founders beer all year, questioning whether or not we should accept the “reward” of an allocation of their most popular product the very last time it will ever be available.
The “knee-jerk” reaction, he continued, would be to decline the beer and disassociate from Founders.
But the unfortunate thing here is that if we turn down this allocation, it will just flow down the chain to another account who will sell it. Even if all of the community-minded local shops like The Glass Jug were to turn down our allocations, CBS would end up on grocery store shelves or in large chain stores where the money used to purchase the beer would not stay in the local economy, but be fed out to the big corporations. To us, if a beer like this is going to sell out, regardless, we want to see it sell out where it will make the most impact on the local community and economy.
… By not selling it, there would be exactly zero impact on Founders. It will only decrease our revenue and result in our employees missing out on a busy day with good tips. We simply don’t want the poor decisions of another company to negatively impact our company.
To “help fight the racial discrimination that this event has put in the spotlight,” Creech added, “The Glass Jug will be donating $1 from every pint of Glass Jug beer sold on Friday (11/1) to the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. We will also have a jar to accept any additional donations you would like to give and we will be matching those donations up to $500 on top of the donation from our draft sales.”
In addition, he wrote, The Glass Jug will deprioritize Founders going forward—not necessarily because of the pending lawsuit, but because Founders will no longer be a craft brewery after the acquisition goes through. (Creech noted that The Glass Jug made the same decision about Wicked Weed after it was purchased by Ab-InBev in 2017.)
The last thing I will say is that I know there are people out there who do not agree with our decision to sell CBS—they think we should not accept the allocation on principle. And I am probably not going to change your minds. The one thing I ask is that you respect our decision as a business and to know that we are always trying to do what is right for our team and our customers. You can personally choose not to support Founders, but please do not pass judgment on us. Running a small business is a lot of work and we are constantly faced with difficult decisions. We just ask that you respect our decision whether you agree with it or not and we hope we will continue to earn your business, no matter what beer you choose to buy.
“We wanted to take the opportunity to shine a light on the situation,” Creech told the INDY Thursday. “We’re going to carry it, but we’re giving our customers the opportunity to make an informed decision about whether they want to purchase it.”
Many Glass Jug regulars hadn’t heard anything about the allegations against Founders or that it was being bought by an international conglomerate, Creech adds. Now, he says, “the people who needed to know, know.” His customers—the people who know him and his wife, Katy, the co-owner and general manager—understand where he’s coming from.
But the post spread online, and soon, “keyboard warriors” were attacking him, Creech says. One anonymous poster accused Creech of not liking black people. At the same time, his Founders sales rep was also pissed at him over the post—which, Creech points out, raises another wrinkle.
Founders is a huge operation with employees all over the country, many of whom have never met the company’s top brass, let alone taken part in its allegedly racist culture. They’re taking the heat for Founders’ bad press, too. And now, so are small businesses like The Glass Jug that wanted to give their customers access to something special—CBS’s vintages have been very well-regarded—but now find themselves in no-win scenarios.
At this point, Creech says, he’d just as soon the whole thing would be over with—and that this story not be written.
“My degree is in journalism,” Creech says. “I get why it’s newsworthy to you. I just wish it would go away.”
Soon enough, it will. The Glass Jug doesn’t have much CBS—five or six cases of 12-ounce bottles, one case of 750-milliliter bottles, and a five-gallon nitro keg. Creech expects everything to be gone by the time the CBS event ends at 10:00 p.m. on Friday.
Contact editor in chief Jeffrey C. Billman at [email protected]. This story has been updated to include news of the settlement.
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This is pretty worthless journalism. I get why the Founders situation should be publicized (to a point), but to take a hard-working, honest local business run by the nicest folks you’d ever meet and rake them over the coals for the benefit of clicks-by-shocking-title is petty and detrimental to our community. I’m disappointed in you
IndyWeek.
I think this is a decent approach. Using sales of CBS to raise money for an organization that’s actually doing real social justice work makes more sense to me than passing the allotment on to someone else who likely won’t be doing the same for SCSJ or anyone else.