The Michael James Jackson Foundation (MJF) has awarded five scholarships to beer industry professionals from across the country in what it anticipates will be the first round of many grants to help Black, Indigenous, and people of color advance their education and break into the brewing and distilling industries.
“We still live — whether we recognize it or not — in a very, very segregated society,” said Garrett Oliver, who started the foundation and serves as its chair. “The United States is fantastically segregated. And as a result, there are barriers up that people don’t notice or realize, unless, of course, they are members of minority groups.”
The face of the brewing industry is undoubtedly white, with Black people making up only 1% of brewers, according to a survey by national trade group the Brewers Association. Unless you have a connection or a few years of experience under your belt, it’s difficult to break into the brewing and distilling industries. The added hurdles people of color face make it even harder, said Oliver, the long-time brewmaster of The Brooklyn Brewery.
“You’re not going to go out on Monster or something and see brewing jobs,” he said. “A lot of these things are word of mouth, friends of friends, all these things. And if people are not in these social networks, and in these networks of access, they will never even find out about these jobs in many cases, never mind being able to qualify for them.”
Oliver’s solution is a mixture of providing funding for education, and creating a hub for networking resources and mentorship for people of color. More than 100 applicants vied for the first round of scholarships, with a final five chosen in March by a board of industry professionals. They include:
Alexandra Turner (brewer/cellerman, Pikes Peak Brewing Co.)
- MJF Sir Geoff Palmer Scholarship Award for Brewing
- Applying to the World Brewing Academy Advanced Brewing Theory program at the Siebel Institute of Technology
Lannon Powell (brewer and distiller, Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey)
- MJF Nearest Green Scholarship Award for Distilling
- Applying to the Institute of Brewing and Distilling Master Distiller Program
Enrique Leyva (lead brewer, Heart of Darkness Brewery, Vietnam)
- MJF Sir Geoff Palmer Scholarship Award for Brewing
- Applying to the Master Brewer Program at the University of California — Davis
Jonathan Cano (assistant brewmaster, Crux Fermentation Project)
- MJF Sir Geoff Palmer Award for Brewing
- Applying to the American Brewers Guild Program
LaTroya Butts (brewer, Five Wits Brewing Co.)
- MJF Sir Geoff Palmer Scholarship Award for Brewing
- Applying to the WBA Concise Course in Brewing Technology at the Siebel Institute of Technology
The MJF set up a GoFundMe to help fund the first round of scholarships. More than 400 individuals donated to the campaign, along with larger pledges from existing companies. What surprised Oliver, was many of the larger donations came from smaller or newer breweries.
“What I’m seeing out there is a real interest among craft brewers and putting their money where their mouths are. They want social progress to be part of the brewery’s culture and ethos and action,” he said. “What I’m not seeing so far, except for a couple, is the older breweries, the more established breweries, really kicking in in any major way.”
The awardees in the first round of scholarships have already made strides in the industry but are looking to further their knowledge to turn their jobs into careers. Although Oliver started the foundation with the intent to educate home brewers and people looking to break into the industry for the first time, he was convinced by Sir Geoff Palmer — the recently named Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University and civil rights advocate for whom one of the scholarships is named — to first consider people already doing the work.
“You [take] somebody who’s already proven themselves to a certain extent, the people who work with them love them, they are set up for success, but they are missing something,” Oliver said. “And the thing they are missing is the education that would give them a career instead of a job. And that would allow them to step up into positions where they could then hire other people and mentor them, and you’ll have a multiplied effect.”
Powell, the recipient of the foundation’s distilling scholarship, said he is constantly reminded that there are not many people of color doing the work he wants to do. Working at Stranahan’s Colorado Whisky, he only knows of a couple other people of color on staff, with none on the production team.
“Now that I have a scholarship and I’m going back to school, I feel like I need to self educate and work harder, because of the opportunity that I have,” he said.
Mentorship is a core value of the foundation, whose namesake is one of Oliver’s personal mentors: the late beer and whiskey writer Michael James Jackson. Jackson helped shape the current culture of craft beer. He also lived a deliberate, anti-racist lifestyle that Oliver admired.
“There’s nobody out there now in food and drink that carries the cultural power that he did,” Oliver said of Jackson. “People forget, when he walked through something like the Great American Beer Festival, it was like watching a boat go across a lake. He had a wake behind him of 30 to 40 people who would just follow him everywhere. There’s nobody in the beer world even close to what he was.”
The Michael James Jackson Foundation hopes to connect brewers of color with mentors who can show them they have a place in the industry, which many forget was once dominated by African Americans and other people of color.
“People are often gaslighted by society into believing that their people, their backgrounds, have not been part of the story of American cuisine or brewing in the United States,” Oliver said. “Which it turns out, when you look at actual history, the story turns out to be quite different.”
Turner, the scholarship recipient from Pikes Peak, emphasized the importance of having diverse leadership in brewing, for the betterment of everyone in the industry.
“Just having someone who looks like you to look up to can motivate people beyond belief,” she said.
Diversifying breweries could also help increase craft beer’s consumer base beyond its mainly white and male current state, which can be off-putting to people who don’t currently see themselves represented in the culture.
“If you have people of color working in the breweries, then they are going to invite their friends, they’re going to bring their families, and you will naturally populate the taprooms, and the beer bars, and the restaurants that are part of the craft beer space, with people who actually look like America,” Oliver said. “It’s important for people to realize that this is a culture that belongs to all of us.”