Mass. Bay Brewing Company and the Massachusetts Brewers Guild (MBG) have launched Hop Forward Equality, a website with resources and a job board with the goal of creating a more diverse and equitable industry and consumer base for Bay State breweries.
“We have to ask ourselves why, and we have to do a better job truly encompassing and embracing our communities,” MBG executive director Katie Stinchon said in a press release. “This resource center was created out of the need for a home base for everything we’ve been learning and should answer the question I receive most often from members – where can I go for help?”
In Massachusetts, about 80% of craft beer drinkers are white and only about 12 of the state’s 189 craft brewers are owned by people of color, according to the release. The state’s craft breweries produced 519,135 barrels of beer in 2020, ranking Massachusetts 13th in the nation in production, according to data from the Brewers Association (BA).
Hop Forward Equality isn’t the first time MBG and the Boston-based maker of Harpoon have teamed up. In October 2019, they hosted the Hop Forward Career Fair to attract candidates from underrepresented communities to the craft beer industry that included representatives from nine Massachusetts craft breweries. The 2019 event was one of six to receive grants from the BA’s $20,000 diversity and inclusion events grant fund.
In addition to its job board, Hop Forward Equality will offer digital assets “for those just forming their internal [diversity and inclusion] groups, those looking for HR best practices to change company culture as well as a suggested reading list and a video library,” according to the release. The library is curated by members of Mass. Bay and MBG’s diversity and inclusion committees, with input from partners Boston Pride, the City of Boston’s Office of Diversity, the Verna Myers Company, YWCA Boston, and Crafted for All, the equity educational consultancy founded by Dr. J. Nikol Jackson-Beckham, equity and inclusion partner at the Brewers Association.
“We are not the experts, our partners are,” Mass. Bay assistant vice president of human resources Rich Ackerman said. “We’ve invested the time to form partnerships with organizations to offer a wide array of information in different ways to meet brewery staff and owners where they are.”
Hop Forward Equality will also showcase Black Brew Dialogues, a web-based local travel show hosted by Collin Knight, a “beer geek” and tourism entrepreneur based in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood. Knight will tour Massachusetts breweries and discuss diversity and inclusion efforts with their founders. The first episode will feature Black-owned, Springfield-based White Lion Brewing.
“It’s not easy to walk into a space and see that no one else in the room looks like you. That’s my typical experience when I go into a brewery,” Knight said in the release. “I want to hear where the breweries are at, where they are finding success and where they are struggling in this work. Through this dialogue we hope to learn, grow and find some answers together over a couple of cold ones.”
Knight previews the forthcoming web show in a trailer on MBG’s Instagram account.