The Making of the (White) Craft Beer Industry

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the post-Prohibition era up until craft beer arises as a response. Understanding how beer became racialized helps one to grapple with the continuities of its whiteness and the maintenance of racist practices within the beer industry writ large. The chapter looks at the historical and contemporary (re)construction of the craft beer response, largely through a critical look at the relationality of the three-tier distribution system and its structural and cultural linkages to race, racism, and racial exclusion in the industry as homebrewing arose (again) and craft was emerging. Additionally, it considers the role of actors at each level of the three-tier system in order to fully understand how exposure to craft beer through industry employment, marketing, and consumption contributes to and is the product of the racialization of beer. The respondents helped cast the three-tier distribution system in a whole new light as it plays out on the ground to make and keep the craft beer industry and culture white.