Hi there. You may notice that I am blogging more than once this week. You may also notice that I don’t get paid to do that. This may explain some of the tone that is about to emerge. I apologize in advance for any cussing. You know I hate cussing. 

I am going to put this out in extremely stark terms. 

You need to work with the government. Regardless of who the government is, they are the only government and you need to work with them. I think that’s fine. We all get that. 

I’ve just had a call from a brewery owner who would prefer to remain nameless, and who feels just awful about the meeting the OCB had with the government and then tweeted a photo op about. Now, this is a brewery who has had two tries at apologizing sincerely. He explained that they did not properly understand the amount of hurt people were feeling about the issue and that he did not understand it was an emotional reaction. 

Excuse the shit out of me, but did you see last Friday? You know? The Climate Strike? We are on total emotional reaction all the time, forever. Everyone under 40 is glued to their phones wondering if there will be a planet in 20 years.

This is one of the most recent Stats Canada population pyramid diagrams. I really need you to put down the apology tour script and understand this.

This is the 2017 population of the province, and it is displaying the 1997 population of the province. Really clever companies used to refer to people’s prime beer drinking age as being between 18 and 35. You are a company in the beer selling business. You know what the next 10 years look like? Well, the population you’re selling beer to is really really small, and the immigrants who are going to come to the country to join us? They might not be from beer drinking cultures.

It’s not good, and you aren’t owed shit. No one has to buy your products. You are not guaranteed custom. Beer is about people and the people you are trying to sell beer to are not represented even cursorily in that tweeted photo op. The only person under 40 is anti-choice and anti gay marriage and he just outsmarted you. You are dumber than that guy.

I want you to think about that. The head of the OCB, who dictates the content of their channel, was not savvy enough politically in 2019 when there is an ongoing push towards diversity in this industry to understand that there might be blowback over such a photo op. It is his job to be a political fixer and he has probably lost three members, and taken two tries at an apology over this self created fucking quagmire. The president of the OCB is a political incompetent. There’s no two ways about it.

White Claw is waiting in the wings, and if you have 80 members, then the list the AGCO sent me last week stating there are 357 manufacturing licenses correctly indicates that there are three times as many non-OCB properties as there are OCB properties.

Do you not employ anyone under 30? Do you not employ anyone of colour? Anyone with an iota of political savvy? Representation matters. From what I’ve seen, just about everyone under thirty is making dick for money, living in exorbitantly expensive rental property because it would take until you were 40 to save up for the down payment on a condominium, and adopting either a total wellness philosophy or detached nihilist cynicism in order to get by. You know what they don’t want at the end of the day? For the product they just spent half an hour of minimum wage labour on to be politically complicated. It’s just one more blow to them and it’s the easiest thing for them to ditch. They don’t need your product. They might not overthrow the landlords, but there’s about 200 other fucking pale ales. 

Understand this now: Your employees and customers are under 40. They are being probably being paid badly for complex labour and probably carry debt. They are diverse. From different backgrounds. Of different sexualities and genders. Of different races. They are tired as hell. Your job is to meet them more than halfway. They don’t fucking need you, but you need them like the air you breathe.

Beer is about people. Every. Single. Time. And you just spat in their faces. And you’re surprised it’s emotional?

That population curve? See them folks under 20? They’re led by a little Swedish girl who is sick of your shit and isn’t going to take no. She literally has to think 50 years ahead so that there is a planet. Your short term gain is not impressive to anyone and selling your soul for it is toxic. Selling out your customer base is worse. 

The OCB’s leadership is actively undermining its own credibility. They have lost two members this week in Block 3 and Manantler and may well yet lose Muddy York. Their largest members are backpedaling faster than I have ever seen them and while I would like to think that this would be a wake up call to them, I just don’t believe it. I think they believe this will go away because this is an emotional response. 

Guess what? It won’t. Because the root problem here is not doing business with a government. You have to do business with the government. It is the tone deaf messaging that has occurred since the new leadership was installed. Every time, including buck a beer, the messaging coming out of the organization has worded their releases to stroke the Premier’s ego regardless of popular sentiment or their membership’s concerns. It plays to an audience of one mediocre politician at Queen’s Park. I don’t think we need that kind of Trumpian fluffing in this industry. 

If you’re an OCB member and this is actively concerning for you, vote with your feet. Join the nearly 260 free breweries of the province. What is this getting you aside from alienated customers and paying someone minimum wage to cover the organizational logo on cans with a sharpie?

You really want to make a difference? You want to send a message? Call for new leadership. Someone who’s special subject isn’t the extremely hip and relevant sport of golf and who might actually resonate with your market. Someone who would meet with the government and have the actual goddamned savvy to not post a picture that alienates 60% of the population that is the target market for the product. There are a lot of young, hungry people out here that will do it for less money, not embarrass you, and not make you spend your time having to read me getting angry. 

I appreciate that you may wish to rescind my media pass to the Ontario Craft Brewers Conference,

Cordially, 

Jordan.