Putting Breweries in a Penalty Box
If you’ve been following the beer news lately, you probably saw the name “Mikkeller” pop up—for all the wrong reasons. Writing in Good Beer Hunting, Kate Bernot offers a full indictment:
After nearly four months of denying former employees’ allegations of sexual harassment, bullying, and unsafe working conditions and years of failing to communicate with them, more than five months after a public art protest was installed at the brewery’s headquarters, and after a week in which dozens of breweries withdrew from its prestigious beer festival in opposition, leadership at Danish brewery Mikkeller finally say they are sorry for past behaviors….
As recently as last week, founder Mikkel Borg Bjergsø had remained defiant, telling two Danish media outlets that activists were trying to ruin his business, and that issues of harassment at the brewery were not part of the company’s overall work culture.
I encourage you to read Kate’s article—she uses every paragraph to paint the picture of a brewery that: 1) had a toxic culture that damaged employees, 2) knew they had a problem, 3) denied the problem until it had metastasized into a potentially company-damaging scandal, and, 4) is now desperately trying to convince fans that they are sincerely sorry. Undermining one’s confidence in that sincerity are recent events: breweries are jumping ship from Mikkeller’s annual Copenhagen beer festival in growing numbers, focusing a spotlight on the company’s misdeeds. Mikkeller’s effort to stage a public “dialogue” at the fest, an early gambit in damage control, has also collapsed. (In a brutal riposte to the invitation, a former employee told Kate: “‘My trauma is not an attraction… It’s not something for attendees and [MBCC] ticket holders to come watch.’”)
Mikkeller tried to ignore the accusations, hoping to rescue their reputation through silence. The pressure has forced them to cop to the truth: they cultivated a toxic culture within the company. (“‘We have issues in our places of work. We are sorry. We are responsible. We need change,’ and admitted in an email to Good Beer Hunting [to] ‘severe harassment and misogyny.’”)
the Penalty Box
Let’s be clear: this is not a murky case. Mikkeller created a toxic workplace that victimized its own employees. They have acknowledged this. The question is, what are they going to do about it? There are direct victims, former and current employees. That the company allowed this culture to thrive likewise exposes a beech of trust with customers and industry partners. They’ll need to do a lot more than issue an expedient apology after months of obfuscation. Because of that breach of trust, I think it’s reasonable enough to demand they actually take steps to make things right. Don’t tell us, show us.
When breweries behave badly like Mikkeller has, I put them in a mental penalty box. I won’t write about them nor visit their pubs nor drink their beer. I often see fans complain that such breweries shouldn’t have their businesses destroyed; they deserve an opportunity to improve. In some cases, companies should quietly go away (no brewery is too precious to fail), but mostly this is accurate. But a company with toxic culture no longer gets the benefit of the doubt. They have to do the work and demonstrate real change. It’s not “cancelling” a brewery, it’s holding them accountable for behavior they admit was wrong.
So I support the breweries pulling out of the Copenhagen festival, and I hope others will join them. I hope enough drinkers put Mikkeller in the same penalty box. A year of steeply declining sales might help focus their minds on what is really important. There are a lot of breweries out there—quite a few owned and operated by underrepresented groups (I tried to link to my diverse breweries database but Squarespace has garbage tech and isn’t linking just now—and they could use your support.
It’s up to you, now, Mikkeller.