The uncertainty surrounding the proper procedures these breweries should take isn’t out of the ordinary. Sheerine Alemzadeh, co-director and co-founder of Healing to Action, a non-profit that mobilizes worker-leaders to combat gender violence, says that small businesses regularly struggle with these issues. Employers may not be focused on or aware of details related to employee engagement and safety when it comes to gender harassment or violence. Even long-tenured organizations can have trouble with the importance of those discussions if not regularly reinforced.

“In some ways, it’s an opportunity because when you’re starting a culture from the ground up, it’s easier to start with certain shared values, principles and training than to change the culture of a workplace when there are entrenched dynamics,” says Alemzadeh. “Particularly when people don’t feel confident if they come forward to complain about something or feel confident their issues will be taken seriously.”

In recent memory, the beer industry has been host to numerous self-made controversies that run the gamut from the political to the racial. Last September, Atlanta's Monday Night Brewing held a town hall for local journalists to address negative public reaction after a PAC hosted an event at the brewery in support of the then Republican gubernatorial candidate (now Governor) Brian Kemp, who is known for his efforts to suppress voting in the Peach State and for his vocally xenophobic statements. In January, Tacoma, Washington’s Dystopian State Brewing spurred an online backlash when owner Shane McElwrath responded to a patron’s dislike of the company’s beer with a series of homophobic and violent comments.

This fall, Ronkonkoma, New York’s Lake Ronkonkoma Beverage bottle shop stepped in it, advertising the resale of Root and Branch Brewing’s beer, despite the brewery saying publicly it wasn’t meant to reach consumers through that store. Lake Ronkonkoma Beverage then posted a racial slur meant to mock the heritage of the brewery’s two owners.

It was only a few days into 2019 when Portland, Oregon's West Coast Grocery Company (a brewery) received ample local backlash after it said an employee was a victim of sexual harassment. The incident played out over Facebook and Instagram, where the victim, Sarah de Noyo, said a brewer asked her to "show your boobs" and argued about why she shouldn't be upset about such a request. West Coast Grocery eventually issued a response, but not before public backlash and additional details were supplied by commenters—and shared widely.

These kinds of situations have consistently grown out of either naivete, ignorance, or hate, depending on who you talk to. They represent companies’ enduring blind spots regarding who they serve and how they react, creating schisms between management and clientele.

And again, none of this is necessarily out of the ordinary, Alemzadeh says. Small businesses, she notes, are often built around ideas of close-knit teamwork and family. This can make it difficult to publicly identify problem areas, and can create difficult situations for employees who may not feel comfortable raising concerns for fear that they’d be interpreted as disloyalty or attempts to undermine the company. “There’s a lot of pressure to stay quiet or laugh things off that aren’t OK,” Alemzadeh says of uncomfortable or inappropriate workplace behaviors.

Those fears resonated with Chrystean Deck, who didn’t report her experiences with her New Belgium supervisor until leaving the company. Deck says she first went to John Gamlin, the company’s human resources director, and Brian Callahan, the brewery’s director of co-workers and culture, before sending her “exit interview” email to Joe Davis and Jenn Vervier, and ultimately reporting the incidents to the Colorado Civil Rights Division in November 2017. When contacted by GBH to verify status of mediation between Deck and the company, a state representative confirmed the case’s existence but cited confidentiality as a reason not to provide any documentation.

In her conversation with GBH, Deck says that worries about reporting her complaints, and even raising them in the first place, consumed her. She felt compelled to make equivalencies to other forms of harassment or gender violence to tell herself it wasn’t so bad.

“I don’t want to by any means say this is something that is in line with other atrocities, but for me,” she trailed off. “I’m still processing it.”

In a statement to GBH, New Belgium says a final decision from the Colorado Civil Rights Division was reached and that there was insufficient evidence to support Deck’s claims.The state office wouldn’t confirm the case’s outcome and in terms of the brewery’s legal responsibilities, and this verdict is effectively the end of the road. However, the company and its leadership tell GBH it also creates a chance to double-down on efforts to create a safe and welcoming work environment.

In a statement to GBH, New Belgium emphasized that the company cares deeply about all of its employees, and that “cultivating a safe and caring community has been as important to us as making beer.” The company, which has women in positions of leadership, says it has “the utmost compassion for any women or men who may experience workplace harassment, and we are committed to fostering a caring, respectful environment where our co-workers feel safe and supported every single day.”

The company did confirm that Gruber no longer works at New Belgium, and Gruber says his last day was Sept. 4. He lists a new job at Utah’s Park City Mountain that began in November 2018 on his personal Facebook page. Former colleagues tell GBH that he left the company after additional complaints for inappropriate workplace behavior, but New Belgium couldn’t confirm specifics around his departure, citing privacy laws. Gruber also declined to elaborate, but says that he had “positive and professional relationships with most everyone I worked with or interacted with at New Belgium.”

“We do everything we can to make that process open, empathetic and caring,” says New Belgium in an official statement. “In this case, action was taken based on the available facts, yet we are prohibited by law from disclosing the specifics even to the person who filed the initial complaint.”

Speaking on his own behalf, Gruber says instances related to giving unwanted shoulder rubs to Deck or others were a misunderstanding, noting New Belgium's "strong culture of friendly, platonic physical contact." For example, he says that hugs were a common way to greet co-workers, and that morning sessions at company-wide retreats included group shoulder massages during which participants all faced in one direction in order to massage the person in front of them.

"None of the shoulder rubs I gave had any intent, and I would have ceased them immediately if I had been made aware they were unwanted," he says.

He also denies or opposes complaints made by Deck. He says he never touched her butt or made lewd comments toward her, and that showing her nude images on Instagram was a misunderstanding. Both he and Deck practiced yoga in Fort Collins, and he asked if she had seen the instructor's Instagram account, which has more than 800,000 followers and posts "more artful, non-pornographic, images."

The challenge that faced New Belgium then and now—despite a focus on harassment in orientation and three pages of policies in its employee handbook—was creating and maintaining a culture in which employees felt safe reporting these occurrences.