It’s worth reiterating that we were founded on a mission. Our mission is to serve the beer industry and beer drinkers in ways that raise the level of discourse, increase expectations, and keep us all honest about what is, and isn’t, going to help create a better environment for beer. That doesn’t mean we expect you to agree with us, collectively or individually. In fact, we often take stances that violate many of our readers’ self-images—those that look at themselves in the mirror and see a zealous revolutionary staring back, fueled by an IPA in a 16oz can. Sorry, folks: that’s just commerce. Beautiful, delicious, sometimes-contributing-to-a-small-business-dream commerce.

Of course, it can be more than that. Some breweries have ideals and/or an ethos that drives them to conduct business in a different way. We love discovering these breweries, and more often than not, these are the breweries we feature here on GBH under our Signifiers profiles. But these businesses are diverse! And not all craft breweries have an ethos that would align with your own.

It’s easy to get lost in the rhetoric that small breweries tend to share with each other, the code words for “little” and “independent” and “craft.” This is all political speech. And it’s been highly effective. I love that a wide swath of breweries have banded together to create a collective impact on our industry over the past few decades. It’s the reason that so many of the beers I love are now viable businesses. These politics weren’t just good for business, they were great for it. So please, don’t tell me brewers shouldn’t be political—the breweries you love today were founded in a sort of politicking that just happened to align with your own. And here's the thing: they have other opinions, too. And not all of them will align with your personal priorities or views.

Some breweries will happily stay out of the fray in the hopes that their neutrality will help them maintain a sizable customer base regardless of their politics. It’s not a bad move, even if it's not all that compelling either. Such is the way with customers and commerce. But don’t for a second think they’re apolitical. Breweries rely on the Environmental Protection Agency to keep our water safe and good for brewing—that’s now under direct threat. They band together to lobby for more favorable excise taxes on each barrel they brew, an issue that's lead small brewers to align with macro brewers on occasion. Some of them fund politicians or even run for office, hoping to change restrictive laws that hold their businesses back. And all of them rely on a customer base that feels confident in the economy, that feels good about socializing with their neighbors in public, and generally safe enough to even consider having a good time. Beer is a luxury good, after all.

Others will choose to emphasize their politics for reasons that have little to do with commercial priorities. So often, the breweries people love—not like, but love—are run by people with a strong voice, a personal approach to business, and an ethos that goes far beyond beer. They're out there lobbying for better small business laws, encouraging diversity and inclusiveness in the workforce, aiding victims of natural disasters, and fighting for fairer taxes, better environmental protections, and so on. This isn’t just true of breweries, either—it's a pattern among small businesses in general. This is why so many of us fought for and supported the rise of local breweries and other small businesses—we wanted them to be connected to us and our communities in more ways than the liquid in the taps.

So when it comes to those businesses speaking out on behalf of their friends and neighbors, fighting for protections of their civil liberties and constitutional rights, protecting the natural resources they rely on, and encouraging their customers to be aware of threats to all of the above, why in the actual fuck are people suddenly pushing back on the idea that these businesses should “shut up and stick to beer?” You know who shuts up and sticks to beer? All the breweries you claimed were faceless, corporate, money-hungry, and unworthy of your dollars all those years—that’s who. And even then, you'd still be wrong.

Long before someone is a brewer, they're a community member. Before that, they're a family member. And before that, they're a human being with needs and hopes for a quality existence. Together, we create an ecosystem where people are either supported or not. Our breweries and small businesses are part of that ecosystem. And some of the ways they can contribute in more than a transactional, commercial sense is through volunteering, political contributions, donations to causes they believe in, and voicing their opinions and concerns to their customers to raise awareness. If you can log on to Yelp and leave a scathing review for a small business because your order was five minutes late, or leave an Untappd review slamming a hoppy beer for being hoppy because “you hate IPAs, actually,” then sure as fuck a business can let you know what they think of a policy, a law, or a government official who is working against their best interests—and possibly yours.