EPISODE S.5, E.12

Heather (00:09):
Welcome back to another episode of the BrewDeck podcast. I am your host, Heather, and I am joined by the amazing Cheyenne. Welcome Cheyenne.

Cheyenne (00:17):
Thank you very much. How are you doing Heather?

Heather (00:19):
I’m doing really, really good because today is one of my favorite episodes that we do every year. It is our pride episode.

Cheyenne (00:27):
Happy pride. Woohoo.

Heather (00:29):
Happy pride, everyone. Here at Country Malt Group, we are proud to be part of a global family of brands. Together we are committed to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout all of our organizations. We strive to create and uphold an environment where everyone is safe, welcomed and has a sense of belonging regardless of gender, identity, ethnicity, or their personal beliefs. Today we are very excited and very lucky to be joined by our guests who are consistently advocating and creating safe spaces for LGBTQ plus individuals in the craft brewing industry. We are joined by Betsy Lay co-founder and owner of Lady Justice Brewing, as well as Lindsay Malu Kido, founder and executive director of Beer is for Everyone.

Cheyenne (01:14):
We’ve got some really awesome guests, so excited to get into that. But before we jump in, a little bit of housekeeping. This is some exciting housekeeping. In honor of Pride Month, Country Malt Group is giving away the first Rainbow Strap Pink Boots Malt Bountiful bag. I’m so excited for this. They’re so cool looking.

Heather (01:35):
They’re so cool. They had them at CBC when the ladies from Bountiful Bags pulled this out. I was like, oh my God.

Cheyenne (01:42):
I need one.

Heather (01:42):
I want that.

Cheyenne (01:44):
You get the bag, and it’s also filled with goodies from some of our very favorite diversity, equity, and inclusion brands within the industry. We’ve got a gift card to Beer is for Everyone. They have amazing merch. As you will hear in the episode. You get a signed copy of Em Sauter’s, Beer is for Everyone book and a matching enamel pin, a coffee mug from the human rights campaign, and a beer baseball hat from Women Invented Beer, along with some amazing stickers. Heather, you and I have quite the sticker collection from Women Invented Beer.

Heather (02:15):
May or may not have went a little crazy on ordering stuff from Women Invented Beer. Along with stickers, we got some really cool shirts, so you should definitely go check out.

Cheyenne (02:24):
Some amazing stuff.

Heather (02:25):
I love our beer Barbie shirts.

Cheyenne (02:27):
Yes, they’re amazing. We’ve got some amazing stuff to give away. To enter the giveaway, you can go ahead and order the Pink Boots Malt from your local CMG distribution center during the month of June and you will be entered to win. If you haven’t heard, the Pink Boots Malt is our seasonal craft-based malt product. It’s appropriate for both brewing and distilling, which is really exciting. It was born from the idea to involve more members of the industry in our efforts to uplift women and non-binary colleagues. With each bag purchased, a donation is made to the Pink Boots Society Scholarship Fund in the US and Canada to support their mission, to assist, inspire and encourage women and non-binary individuals in the fermented and alcoholic beverage industry. Go get your hands on some Pink Boot Malts. It’s very exciting.

Heather (03:14):
It is.

Cheyenne (03:15):
We’re chuffed to have it.

Heather (03:16):
Super, super cool.

Cheyenne (03:18):
And you can be entered to win a fun goody bag, so go ahead and go do that. And without further ado, we will jump right into our episode.

Adam (03:28):
And a good day. We’re super excited today. We have with us Betsy Lay, co-founder and owner of Lady Justice Brewing in Englewood, Colorado.

Heather (03:39):
You almost said California.

Betsy (03:42):
It’s a very, very different Englewood.

Heather (03:45):
Not the same.

Adam (03:47):
This is why I don’t usually do the intros to these things.

Cheyenne (03:50):
We put you on the spot right before we pressed record, didn’t we?

Heather (03:52):
We really did.

Adam (03:54):
Betsy co-owns Lady Justice with her wife, Alison Wisneski. I pronounced that properly, I hope. Betsy, can you tell us just a little bit about yourself, your trajectory in the industry and how Lady Justice came to be?

Betsy (04:09):
Sure. I was a home brewer, but not a very good one. And then I served in AmeriCorps, which is a program that’s basically you’re a professional volunteer for up to two years with an organization that the grants are paid for by the federal government for a non-profit, to bring in folks to do capacity building, fundraising, very community service oriented work. And so the idea is that you live and work at the poverty level of the city in which you serve. And so Kate, my friend, Kate Power and Jen Cuesta and I were serving together in our AmeriCorps stint with a non-profit here in the Denver area during the recession between… We were there 2009 and 2011, which was like smack dab in the middle of this recession we were having down here in the States. I don’t know if Canadians have recessions, I’m sure that you do, but we certainly do in the US. And so it was really hard to do fundraising for non-profits. Grants had all dried up.

(05:38)
Our major donors were having to scale back quite a bit, so there wasn’t a lot of money to raise. And so when that’s how you spend most of your day at work trying to basically find money that doesn’t exist, we would go to a brewery sometimes after work and just talk about how much our job sucked. And so we got to this conversation one night at this brew pub that we went to that was basically like we’re sitting here, we live at the poverty level, which for us in 2009, 2010, we each made $10,000 a year.

Heather (06:17):
Oh, wow.

Betsy (06:18):
And in this program, you’re not allowed to have a second job or another form of income, so you use government assistance for food. It’s like, okay, so we’re here, we’re using food stamps. We’re pretty broke all of the time, but yet we find ways to save money so that we can spend time with each other very specifically at this brew pub. And this place is always busy, so it’s not just us doing this. What is it about people needing, even in financial hard times, people still want to gather and be with each other very specifically over food and drink. And how is it that we’ll spend money on this, but we won’t donate to a nonprofit. And so the conversation was about how do we get people to funnel beer money back into the community and is that possible? That was in 2010 and I honestly didn’t really think about it after that. But Kate went to law school. Kate and Jen went to law school after our AmeriCorps stints were over.

(07:24)
They both left the state and Kate was in Maine and she was in a law class learning about different tax designations and business law basically. And she had to write a business plan for this class and got in touch with Jen and I and was like, “Hey, do you mind if I write a business plan about that brewery idea we had about being a philanthropic brewery that gives money back to the community?” And I was like, “I don’t remember this, so sure, go for it.” And she did it.

(07:55)
She got a lot of really good feedback and she came back around to Jen and I and said, “I really think that we can do this. I think this is a good idea.” After they graduated from law school in 2014, they both moved back to Colorado and I happened to have just been laid off from my job. And so we had a lot of time on our hands because they were looking… We were all job searching. And so we started home brewing together again and just brewed all of the time and wrote this business plan and talked about what Lady J could be. And then we did fundraising throughout 2015 and then opened for business in 2016. And we’ve been at it ever since.

Cheyenne (08:39):
Wow, that’s amazing. It sounds like it went from just chat over beers to becoming something that was actually tangible and real and that was the starting point, huh?

Betsy (08:51):
Yeah, I had zero plans to be a business owner or that’s not what I was looking for jobs in, so it really did. It was this progressive thing that just every step along the way that we were taking, we were like, I think we can do that, so let’s do it and then let’s take the next step. And then it just became real.

Cheyenne (09:12):
Wow, that’s so cool. And so for those who don’t know the mission of Lady Justice, your mission is to function as a community focused brewery and you’re dedicating your time, space, and money to nonprofits and community partners that support and empower women, girls, and non-binary people in the state of Colorado. That is the mission that you have stated on your website, which is awesome. Can you tell us how do you build and maintain a community and a customer base that is supportive of queer and women focused causes?

Betsy (09:43):
Well, I think a big part of it is just being authentic to who we are. I identify as a queer person and my wife and I co-own the brewery now, and we have a number of staff folks who also identify as queer. And then we, hilariously, I think for the first time in about five years, we actually don’t have any male identifying staff right now. Adam, we’re kicking you out of the recording.

Adam (10:12):
Well, that was quicker than usual.

Betsy (10:22):
But so I think part of it is just we believe in this mission and we’ve run the business every day making sure that we’re aligning with that mission. And that’s something that Alison and I ask ourselves quite a bit when we’re making projections and trying to figure out what’s next is, does this align with what we’re trying to do? And so I think part of it is just being authentic to the mission. And I talk about sometimes that if I wanted to go and make a crap ton of money in brewing, LOL, and then not have this philanthropic piece to it, I would have to close Lady J and open an new brewery. Lady Justice exists to be community focused. It can’t not be that. It’s a lot of things. There’s a lot of stuff that happens here in events that aren’t exactly mission focused, like happy hour from the painters down the street. But at the same time, if we found ourselves in a situation where we didn’t feel like we had the capacity, the ability, or the want and need to do this work, we would simply just have to stop.

(11:41)
And I think people can see that. I think they can see that when they’re in the taproom. Our biggest goal here in the taproom is like we just want people to feel good about who they are when they’re in here. We want this to feel like space that means a lot to them. There’s a lot of beer spaces that queer folks don’t necessarily feel comfortable in or women, just women going in and we have a lot of older women who come in here who weren’t raised in this generation, that women were allowed to enjoy beer. We do a lot of beer education with older folks in our community, and that’s not always available when you go into another brewery that’s focused differently. And so I think a lot of it is just being who we are and trying to very specifically make sure that we stay aligned with what our mission is doing. And I think people can see it. People can sniff out bullshit pretty easily.

Cheyenne (12:41):
I completely agree. And I think that you definitely live your authenticity. I was poking around on your Instagram page as one does, and I thought it was interesting, your very first pinned post on your Instagram is your house rules. Can you tell us about the house rules?

Betsy (13:00):
We sat down, it’s been about two years now, I think we flew Ren Navarro in from Beer Diversity, now B. Diversity.

Cheyenne (13:12):
Shout out Ren.

Betsy (13:12):
She’s the best.

Cheyenne (13:13):
She’s amazing.

Betsy (13:14):
I love her a whole lot. And so because what we were wanting to do was have a more formal focus discussion around diversity, equity, inclusion at Lady J and about how do we make sure that from what I’m doing in a leadership position all the way to our brewer, our beer tenders, our salesperson, our distro, all of it, how do we make sure that we’re actually having very specific conversations about this? Because a lot of times, just like Lady J and who we are as people can fall into being pretty DEI friendly naturally, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t get to skirt having the hard combos and really taking a look at who we are and the work that we’re doing every day.

(14:04)
We brought in Ren very specifically for that. And Ren basically was like, “Well, you’ve got your mission statement.” She was like, “Let’s take a look at what your value statement is.” And I was like, “Oh, we don’t have a value statement.” She’s like, “You’re Lady Justice Brewing, why don’t you have a value statement?” I was like, “That’s a great question.” Those are the conversations we were having. And so we started there. She was like, “Let’s take a look at what your values are.” And so as a staff, it was a whole staff meeting. Everybody was there. We sat down and we all individually wrote what we think Lady J’s values are and should be. And then we took those and looked at the areas that we were focusing on the most, and we wrote that house rule statement so that we could hang it up.

(14:55)
It’s on a big poster. The first thing you see when you walk in the door here is, this is what Lady J’s about and this is our expectation of our community here, and we expect you to align with this. And if you don’t go find somewhere else to drink, and that’s fine with us. It’s basically a way to signal to folks like, hey, this is who we are and this is what we’re about, but we actually really mean this. And if you don’t believe in these house rules, this simply is not a place for you.

Heather (15:26):
Oh, I love that. Can we pivot a little bit to talk about all the organizations that you’ve been donating to? Because there’s over 30 of them. How do you choose to send to your business around this charitable giving?

Betsy (15:41):
And I think we need to update our website because now it’s closer to 50.

Heather (15:47):
Wow.

Betsy (15:47):
It’s a lot. And the reason that it’s a lot is because when we moved, we were production only when we first opened, we were very small membership, a membership only model because we started very small. We opened Lady J with like $20,000, and you can’t build a tap room with that. And so when we finally moved into our own brick and mortar taproom in 2020, we had to really think about how does this shift… How does our mission shift? What does it mean for Lady J to have a physical space and how does that play into the work that we’re doing? And so part of what we set up was we dedicated one of our tap lines as our pouring goodness tap line is what we call it. We do a dollar of every pour from that tap line goes to a different non-profit every month.

(16:42)
Right there, that’s 12 non-profits a year. And we’ve been doing this program now for two, three, it’s 2024, Christ, for three years. And then on top of that, we select a few organizations to give two during pride month every year, so we give on top of that. That ends up being about 15 or 16. And then on top of that, we still stay with our original community supported brewery membership model, which is how we originally started selling beer in 2016. People buy a membership every year, and we allocate all of the profits over cost from that membership sale, that goes out the door. And we do a different non-profit quarterly, so it adds up pretty quickly. I can look back over a year and be like, oh my God, we donated to 20, 25 different non-profits this year.

(17:35)
And we do repeat sometimes we have some folks that we’ve given to annually, and then we try to shift up our CSB membership giving. We try to pick a different non-profit with them. Really it’s just about getting to know the needs of our community, listening to our own folks. We have a lot of people in the tap room who are like, “Oh, my gosh. I am on the board of this nonprofit. I think you should look at it.” Or, “Hey, every year I donate money to this nonprofit, I think Lady J would be a great fit for them. Would you please check them out?” We get a lot of inquiries from nonprofits in the area, and we have a lot of relationships that we’ve just built over the last eight years doing this work. And so we have a pretty long list of folks that we can take a look at and be like, all right, let’s give to them this month and really see what our community wants and is asking for in terms of our giving.

Adam (18:35):
This is pretty awesome, by the way. I’m blown away by this business model, for lack of a better term, but my question to you on that would be how do you balance keeping the lights on in your brewery having a successful-

Betsy (18:54):
Oh, how do we make any money out of them? I don’t know.

Adam (18:55):
How do you do both Betsy? That’s the question.

Betsy (18:59):
Honestly, very carefully. It took us a long time to get to a place where we felt like… We had to move slowly, so when we first opened doing the membership model, we started with 75 members, I think in our very first membership run. And what it looked like was folks paid a membership fee. I think at the beginning we did either a three or six month membership round, so people paid for it up front. And we already knew immediately what our overhead was going to be and how much this beer was going to cost to make. And also Kate and Jen and I all worked full-time jobs during all of this. And so our overhead was very low when we first opened. And we did that on purpose, and that’s why we kept it small. That’s why we didn’t open a tap room. That’s why we didn’t go into distribution. And so we knew immediately what our giving would look like. And so in our first year in 2016, I think we gave $800.

(20:05)
And so every year we were able to grow a little bit more with that. And now looking at it, now we moved into our taproom in 2020. We eventually were able to start hiring at the end of 2020, beginning of 2021. And then the conversation had to be like, okay, we’re employing people, we’re providing employment in our community, and that’s something we take seriously. But also that means that cuts back on what profit looks like at Lady J. And that’s part of why the pouring goodness tap line, we just know automatically that a dollar from every pour is just going to go out the door to a nonprofit and you have to do the math and price accordingly. We have to make sure, are our beer prices high enough to be able to give this money away and will our people… Where’s the limit that people are like, this beer is too expensive, even though it’s helping my community. And there is a limit, right?

Heather (21:10):
Oh, yeah.

Betsy (21:15):
You have to do a lot of math and you have to get to know the community well enough to know what’s fair here and what isn’t. We still price ourselves competitively within the market. We had to really do a lot of thinking and move pretty slowly on how do we pay the bills? How do we pay our folks? When do I start paying myself? I only started paying… I left my full-time job in 2021, and I only started paying myself within the last year. And so how do we-

Heather (21:50):
Oh, my God.

Betsy (21:52):
There’s a lot of privilege behind it too, because Alison has a full-time job, and so we weren’t going to be homeless if I made this move, so we have to look at our own privilege and decide what hits we’re going to take where. And then there were a couple of years… We had a year where we went into the red knowing that this is going to happen. We took the risk and we’re like, we have to go into the red this year, but we still donated all the money we said we were going to donate. You just have to figure out… For me, part of my job is to figure out where’s the line between this is just us dumping money out the door and it’s not doing anybody any good to, oh, we’re actually able to still do this. We’re actually turning a profit beyond what our giving is. We can pay people. I can pay myself.

(22:47)
We started working on that business plan in 2014, so this is 10 years in the making of figuring it out. And I feel like we’re just starting to figure it out, but we’ve been lucky enough to be able to just keep doing it and keep making those baby steps towards something bigger. And so now we’re at a place where, oh, this is very viable. But there were some very skinny years in there where we were in the red, and that was just a conversation I really had to have with me and our leadership team about are we okay with this? And it turned out to be okay.

Cheyenne (23:30):
Wow, that’s so cool. And I think going back to what you were saying earlier about living authentically as a business and adhering to your values, I think that your customer base can see that. And they know that going in, so they know exactly what they’re getting into when they walk into Lady Justice, and they know that that’s maybe why some of the prices are what they are, because you’re donating as much as you do. We had looked at the website before we started the interview. It said $50,000 to over 30 organizations, but if it’s upwards of 50, that’s got to be so much higher now.

Betsy (24:04):
Yeah, we hit our 50K mark in December of last year, and I’ll tell you, we moved into a new taproom March 1st, and that turned out to be a really good idea. And we’re making more money here in our new spot, and so we’re on track to give away the most money we’ve ever donated this year, which will be really exciting.

Cheyenne (24:28):
That’s so cool.

Betsy (24:29):
And part of that too is our first three or four years of operation, our giving was low. It was our profit, but our profit was low, so we were given 800 bucks. I think by the time we opened our taproom in 2020, we had given away 3,500 bucks total. And then we move into the taproom and we were selling more beer, we have more cashflow. And so just every year we were able to give what we could and opening in 2020, we opened three… I signed that lease three days before COVID hit.

Heather (25:04):
Oh, geez.

Betsy (25:06):
Even then, we still had to say, no, we’ve done this. We’ve done beer to go. That’s the only model we’ve known. We have a membership base of people who will buy this. We sold 375 memberships in April of 2020. It was just a four pack of crowlers that we just sent… Literally, we had a garage door and we opened it up and just handed people. It was madness that day. We were just giving people crowlers, four packs of crowlers left and right. But from that, we were able to donate six grand. And so once you understand that we’re a social enterprise, our whole mission, our whole reason for existing is to give money away. And when you start from that expectation having a profit after that, you’re like, oh, that’s kind of cool. But I never have the expectation that I’m going to walk away from this a millionaire, that’s not… And that other people are different, which is fine. It’s totally okay to open up a brewery because you want to make money, so I wouldn’t recommend it right now.

Heather (26:13):
I was going to say.

Cheyenne (26:18):
Wow, that’s amazing. You mentioned earlier that you choose some specific organizations during Pride Month to donate to, do you know who you’re going to donate to this year for Pride Month?

Betsy (26:30):
Yeah, we’ve made some decisions. We have a really wonderful, wonderful friend of Lady J named Lala Queen, and she’s a drag queen in Denver who’s just lovely. And we’ve partnered with her on a number of things. But last year we partnered with her to make her own beer, and it’s called Strawberry LaLager, and it has this awesome, just the coolest label ever that friend Miles drew for us. But what we do with Lala is we have Lala gets to pick a non-profit during Pride Month that the sale of, very specifically the LaLager gets to go to, and then she gets to take it. She’ll take a case or two to all of her drag events that she goes to throughout the month. And so this year we’re giving to Black Pride Colorado, which has a youth component called YouthSeen that most of that money will go to.

(27:32)
We’re doing YouthSeen for Queen Lala. I’d have to look it up. We’re doing a number of them. We usually do one that’s focused very specifically towards the BIPOC community, which is what YouthSeen and Black Pride Colorado will do. And then we usually try to give money to non-profits that’s focused very specifically on the trans community because that’s a big part of our community here at Lady J. And then we’ll usually do one or two others just as events pop up throughout the month. My guess is we’ll have three to four non-profits that we give to. I don’t off the top of my head know what the last two are.

Heather (28:16):
Are you guys hosting any events during Pride Month?

Betsy (28:21):
Yeah, it’s going to be bonkers. We have an event almost every day, so Alison just posted about them last night, but it really is, I think, out of the entire month. I think only two or three dates don’t have an event. And so we’re doing everything from Lala, she’s going to come and do drag story time with the kiddos, which is, she’s done it a couple of times with us, and it’s so fun. But also this year we’re also adding on, my friend Laura Goldhammer, she has a really fun band now called Laura Goldhammer and the Rainbow Show, and it’s the coolest kids’ music I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

(29:05)
And they played at our opening weekend last month and just, it was the most fun I’ve ever seen a kid show ever be. And so we’re going to have a big fun family day with Lala and Laura Goldhammer, we’re doing just a massive patio. We have a very large patio here at the new location, so we’re doing a big post-Pride Parade party. We got our Pride shirts this year say, Gayest Patio in Englewood, and we’re going to do a tie-dye party. We ordered the shirts in white, and there’s a shop a block away from here that very specifically does tie-dye, so the owner of that shop’s going to lead a tie-dye-

Cheyenne (29:48):
Oh, that’s fun.

Betsy (29:48):
… with our pride shirt. We’re just doing as much as we can do with that. And then we have a couple of nights where we’re just like, we’re about the introverted gays, and how do we get them to hang out? We’re just doing just a game night. Come play games. Let’s just hang out. If you don’t have a community and you’re looking for friends and you just moved here, let’s do some puzzles together. That’s all we’re going to do. We’re going big and we’re going small and everything in between. My friend Brett is going to do a Pride Puppy photo pop-up, he’s a photographer and he does dog portraits. And I was like, “Will you do Pride dog portraits?” And he-

Cheyenne (30:29):
That’s such a good idea.

Heather (30:32):
Excuse me, while my dog and I get in our car.

Adam (30:33):
Heather and Cheyenne on their on the way.

Heather (30:37):
June, get in the car.

Betsy (30:39):
June 25th, 24th. 24th, my birthday. June 24th, he’s coming to do it. You’ll be able to, you can put a little rainbow bandana on your dog and get a formal portrait of your dog taken. Alison had this vision where she was like, “I want an event every single day of Pride month.” And I was like, “That sounds absolutely insane. Why would you do that?” And then she did it. She and Jess, our events’ manager are just going hard.

Cheyenne (31:10):
Well, it is Pride Month and you are Lady Justice, so I think it definitely suits you well.

Adam (31:15):
Is there a time during all this, Betsy, where you guys just sit back and go, maybe we bit off too much again. Is that a conversation?

Betsy (31:26):
It doesn’t necessarily happen. It happens with me all of the time in terms of my time and capacity and what I have to focus on day to day. I ask myself that constantly. We also have to ask ourselves that in terms of our beer production here… It’s really funny. We moved from a seven barrel brew house with five fermenters and three bright tanks to a seven barrel brew house with five fermenters and two bright tanks. We are doubling our production, but we have the exact same production capacity, and that is absolutely insane. There wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it. We did a turnkey operation, so all of this equipment was already here. And I was like, I’m not going to try to sell this off and go buy big stuff. We need to be open and make money. And so now I’m like, how am I going to… We’re just flying through beer at this new tap room. And so part of that is how are we balancing beer in-house versus beer we do in distro?

(32:40)
We have one salesperson who also does our deliveries. We’re still pretty small, and a lot of people don’t realize that. We have a very large following on social. We have a pretty decent following just within the beer industry itself, but we did 250 barrels total last year. We’ll surpass that by leaps and bounds this year. But we have been small and we have two full-time people on staff. That’s something that people don’t totally understand is that we’re tiny and we’re nimble and we’re going to have to grow. There are steps we’re going to have to take to make sure we’re not totally drowning in work back here to make this work. But part of it is what does work-life balance look like here when so many people who come to work for Lady J, love Lady J? And it’s sometimes hard to be like, hi, please don’t come to work tomorrow. Keep working. Stop working. And so that’s something that we think about. In terms of events and what we’re doing, we haven’t said that yet, but maybe after Pride Month we’ll be like, no more events ever. Nobody come here anymore.

Cheyenne (34:00):
Or at least you’ll have a break because that’s a lot of events.

Betsy (34:03):
We’ll have a break, and I think we will probably do some fun stuff in the winter to bring people in when it’s cold and all of that stuff. But I think we knew going into this that from when we opened mid-March to the end of Pride Month, that this was just going to be completely bonkers in here. And that so far has been very true.

Cheyenne (34:30):
Well, it’s a good problem to have, for sure.

Betsy (34:32):
You’re just like, oh, I’m tired.

Cheyenne (34:36):
And it’s funny to hear you say you’re a small and nimble brewery. You have such a huge presence, I mean a huge presence. You are a beacon for women and queer folks in the beer industry and the beer community. How do you handle the pressures that can come along with being so unwavering in an industry that might not always be accepting?

Betsy (34:58):
That’s a good question. Part of it is we do it as a team. There’s a leadership team here on the backside of Lady J that nobody really gets to see happen, but it’s Jess, who’s our taproom events manager, Meg, who’s our brew house brewer and production person, and then Alison and I own it. And Kate, our co-founders on the leadership team, Jen works, they’re both still lawyers, so Jen’s like, “I need to do my day job.”

Cheyenne (35:32):
Day job.

Betsy (35:35):
But our friend Laura does our bookkeeping and data collection and all of that stuff. And so the five of us on this leadership team really take a lot of it on. And I really think Alison takes the most of it on because she’s behind the scenes on social and gets all of the shitty messages that we get, and she deletes them before anybody else can see them, but she reads them all. And so part of it is just recognizing this is hard and this sucks and it sucks that we have to do it and it should be better, and we shouldn’t be doing this. Maybe all the straight white men could try to do something.

Heather (36:13):
Can we have this louder for the ones in the back, please?

Betsy (36:20):
There were times during, after the rap magnet stuff where beers going through this Me Too movement where people were wanting to do interviews with me because I had set up a community meeting with the brewing industry in Denver to talk about it. And part of that was I see this need, this thing hit a lot of my friends in the industry, women, non-binary folks and men, there were people I knew who had experienced assault, harassment, abuse in the industry here in Colorado, just like everywhere.

(36:54)
That’s what it showed. It was everywhere. It was prevalent. And so part of me was like, shit nobody else is going to do this except for me. I sent Alison a message, I was like, “Hey, I have to call a community meeting about this and we have to do it really soon.” And she’s like, “All right, let me know when I’ll post about it.” And then we had to move locations because we got like 100 RSVPs on our taproom because we can hold 45 people, so we went to the theater down the street in Aurora and had those talks as a community. But that was part of it when we talk about is this mission-driven work, I understood very clearly that if Lady J did not lead the conversation-

Heather (37:40):
It wasn’t going to happen.

Betsy (37:41):
… about what’s happening in our industry, we would have to close. That was just the way that it would have to be because this was part of our mission. This is why we’re here. Part of it is there’s a sense of responsibility that we feel. We try to be as transparent and authentic as possible, so if that means that we have to be the ones to voice… We have to be the ones to voice stuff going on that we don’t like to see, it is just part of what I signed up for. It doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s very hard. And I get very tired. There’s times I don’t want to do interviews with people about it. I got to the point after I met Maggie that people were wanting to write about me, and I was like, no.

(38:24)
This is just, I’ve hit my limit. And so same thing with Craft Brewers Conference last year when we saw it going on and experiencing for ourselves at the conference that this just doesn’t feel right and this is not what we want for the Brewers Association, it was like, who else is going to do it? We can’t sit here and complain about it if we’re not going to try to fix things. And that was a very long process. We had conversations with the BA starting in May of 2023, and we did not finish them until February, March of 2024.

Heather (39:03):
Right before we went to Vegas.

Betsy (39:06):
Exactly. And part of that was because our capacity as a leadership team, we just got tired. We did not touch it during Pride Month last year. We’re like, this is our month, it’s gay Christmas. I don’t want to talk to you right now. And so part of a lot of why it took us so long is because the Brewers Association was waiting for us to follow up and say what we wanted to do next. And it took us a few months in between each meeting for us to feel like we had the capacity and the energy to talk about it. And I think that’s part of coming from a… I did nonprofit work in my career before I was a brewer. And so Kate and Jen were also very heavily in nonprofits, and so is Alison. We’ve all done work on the nonprofit end that was work that was having really tough conversations with each other.

(40:02)
And so I was used to having hard conversations and having conversations within a community that was struggling and learning how to do work that’s effective and productive and isn’t just putting a bandaid over something. And so I feel more comfortable in that space than a lot of people in the beer industry do because that’s not something that happens a lot in the beer industry. And so part of it is just knowing that I know how to do it and I can, and I’m not going to get fired for it because I own the company.

(40:37)
I think that also has helped. I just have a different career training and background that allows me to have those conversations in ways with a little bit more experience than maybe some other folks in the industry. And then on top of that, just having the patience for it. That’s really what a lot of this is, is so many people see something wrong and they want it fixed and they want it fixed right away. And almost all of the time, I would say 99% of the time, if you want something to change systematically, you have to wallow through all of that crap for-

Heather (41:13):
It’s slog.

Adam (41:13):
That leads to another question actually, is how do you take care of yourself? You’ve got a lot on your shoulders. You’ve put a lot on your shoulders, but this is big work that you’re doing. It’s more than just beer. And how do you take time to take care of yourself throughout all that?

Betsy (41:37):
I think working within the leadership team, there are times… And when Lady J was first starting Kate and Jen and I had this rule, lady J is not allowed to ruin the friendship. Lady J is not allowed to get in the way of us caring for each other and caring about each other. And so we made that pact very early on, and we had a rule that as long as two out of the three of us were on it, we were okay. That allowed us to give each other permission to be like, if you need to take a step back and take some time, the other two of us, we’ve got you. And so that just stuck with us as we grew. And now when I need a vacation and when Alison and I we’re going to Italy for 10 days because my cousin’s getting married in Italy and Alison’s officiating the wedding-

Heather (42:35):
Oh, fun.

Betsy (42:38):
… how do we make sure that we can leave and everybody here feels good? They feel supported. If there’s an emergency, Kate or Jen or Kate or Laura know that they’re going to be the ones who receive the phone call when I’m on vacation. We work it out ahead of time where it’s like, “Hey, I got to go for a little while. Are you cool if shit hits the fan and something burns down, are you good with me telling staff that they can call you, Kate or Laura?” And they’ll say, “Yes, of course.” And so part of it is just being really honest about, “Hey, I need to take Friday off.” And I just had this conversation with one of our staff where I was like, “You’ve accidentally worked overtime a lot lately. I need you but I do not want to see your face here on Friday. We’ve got a three-day weekend coming up. You’re going to make it a four-day weekend, and I don’t want you to step foot in this brewery.” Part of it is just, again, that’s the value. Those are the part of the values of Lady J.

Cheyenne (43:47):
Well, it definitely sounds like it’s a group effort on everyone’s behalf. And you know what? I think it’s a good problem to have that you have folks who are so invested in what you’re doing as a business that you have to tell them to go away. You have to tell them to take a break. And not everyone can say that.

Heather (44:05):
You’ve been open for eight years now?

Betsy (44:06):
Yeah, we sold our first beer in 2016. We founded the company in 2014, so we’re technically in year 10 of this, but our first two years was planning and raising money.

Heather (44:19):
Well, to have people that have gone that far with you and are still that invested in it, that’s pretty amazing. I think that’s saying a lot about the business that you’ve built.

Betsy (44:28):
It was really cool when we moved into this new location, we moved from the east side of town to the south side of town, and it takes a long time to get from there to here, especially in traffic in this city. What was interesting is that our regulars from our Colfax location, so many of them still come down here. They stuck with trivia nights. Our trivia hosts, they’ll come from the east side of town to still be a part of their cute little trivia community that they’ve made here. But what was really cool is during our opening weekend, we saw so many people who were our very first CSB members in 2016 who live on this side of town. And to see them hanging out at the bar again together and having a great time, I was like, this is so cool to have our old school original community and customer base still stick with us and be so excited about what we were doing here, that they’re coming back and still a part of our community.

(45:43)
We have folks that have been beer members every year since the beginning who, they’ve become friends and we get invited to their birthday parties. And we have folks who, they have their wedding receptions here. And it feels good to be able to just be like, this means something to people. It’s hard sometimes when we’re in the thick of it and trying to fix the entire beer industry and also turn a profit and do all-

Heather (46:15):
Just little things.

Betsy (46:18):
Turn tanks fast enough to get beer through them. It’s a good reminder to step back and see that we’ve created a community here that’s really important to people and means something. It’s not just the closest place in the neighborhood to grab a beer before you go to the show because we’ve got a music venue right behind us, and it is that for some people, some people don’t give a shit about us. And that’s fine. Not everybody needs to, but they’ll grab a beer here before they go see a show at the Gothic, but then we have people who will show up in every way, shape and form that they can when we ask them to and when we don’t ask them to.

(47:02)
That’s the stuff that is like, okay, this still means something to people. Because if it didn’t mean anything to people, I would just stop. I don’t have an ego about this. If it doesn’t work, it won’t work. That’s fine. I’ll find something else to do. But it’s working and people want to be a part of it, and it seems to be important to people that Lady Justice exists and continues to do the work that we’re doing here. That’s nice. It’s nice to have had an idea actually turn out to be a good one.

Cheyenne (47:29):
That’s amazing. You’re definitely building a community. And again, like you said, small but mighty. You have a huge community of followers. I myself have never been to Colorado, but I consider myself a fan, so you’ve definitely got a huge community, so that’s awesome. Well, and with one last question for you. What legacy do you hope to create in the brewing industry?

Betsy (47:53):
I think that I just want… It would be really awesome if other people did this work too. And I’m not saying Lady J’s not the only kid in town trying to make a difference, but there are enough breweries… It would be awesome if we could see more social enterprise breweries that are focused deeply on doing community work and giving back to their communities. And the brew industry really is pretty naturally philanthropic. When you’re in an industry that has people, part of the business model is that people gather in a space around the product that you make. You automatically become a part of that community. And what I would love is for people to see that you can do a philanthropic brewery, you can do social enterprise and it can work. And Lady J, like they did it. They’re able to make beer and make money and also be a part of changing the community around them, hopefully for the better.

(49:03)
I would love to see more Lady J’s happen, and I would also love to see some of these systematic changes happening in the industry. I’d like to see them stick. So I’d like to see that the changes that the Brewers Association made over the last year to make CBC a little more inclusive and meaningful to folks on the margins. That’s great. If that lasts forever, that’s really cool. And also on the beer side of things, I want more people to drink ESBs, and I think I’m pretty good at getting them to do that too.

Cheyenne (49:41):
They’re fantastic.

Heather (49:42):
I love an ESB.

Betsy (49:45):
I got ESBs in the Whole Foods down here, and I was like, this is the bet. This is the greatest thing we’ve ever done. The good suburban people of Denver, Colorado are walking into the grocery store in drinking ESB. And that’s kind of also, that feels really good. We have the community focus and I love that, and that’s why we exist. But I also want to make really good beer and I want to make people happy when they drink it and feel nice things about themselves.

Heather (50:15):
That’s amazing, Betsy. Thank you so, so much again for joining us at our Pride episode. It’s always my favorite episode to do in a year. And again, we are really, really excited that you came on. So thank you very much.

Betsy (50:27):
Yes.

Heather (50:31):
We are back. And we are extremely lucky to be joined by the one and only Beer is for Everyone who is Lindsay Malu Kido. Did I do it right?

Lindsay (50:42):
Yep. Yep.

Heather (50:44):
The founder and executive director of Beer is for Everyone. Welcome, Lindsay.

Lindsay (50:49):
Thank you so much for having me.

Heather (50:50):
Oh, so excited to have you here. Before we jump into talking about what Beer is for Everyone is, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Lindsay (50:59):
Sure. My name is Lindsay Malu Kido. I’m a mixed indigenous demifemale from Hawaii, but I currently live in Las Vegas as a professional poker player. And in my free time I founded and am executive director for Beer is for Everyone as well as a couple other social entrepreneurship businesses. Oh, I’m also in my final semester of my PhD in indigenous education, so I should be getting my doctorate in fall.

Cheyenne (51:34):
You’re only just kind of busy.

Heather (51:37):
Just one or two things on the go.

Cheyenne (51:40):
Professional poker player, founder of an organization, PhD candidate.

Heather (51:45):
And is that the University of Las Vegas that you’re-

Lindsay (51:45):
University of Hawaii, yes.

Heather (51:49):
Oh, cool.

Lindsay (51:50):
And yes, I’m also the leader of Craft Beer Girls, which is the world’s largest group of craft beer-loving women.

Cheyenne (51:57):
That is so cool. Every ounce of free time that you might have, you’re doing something, aren’t you?

Lindsay (52:03):
You try to stay busy while you’re young, so you can rest when you’re old.

Cheyenne (52:08):
That’s amazing. That is so cool. Well, can you tell us a little bit about Beer is for Everyone what it is, how and when did you start it?

Lindsay (52:18):
Beer is for Everyone is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. I started it back in 2020. We had a lot of time in the pandemic, so that’s when your passions flourished. I’ve been a part of the craft beer industry or in the community since I was 21, I’m 33 now, so for almost half of my life I’ve had a passion for craft beer. But I always noticed that in the breweries or at festivals, there was really nobody that looked like me and it felt really discomforting and almost like I didn’t want to feel like an outsider in a place that I love so much. I started this organization in order to advocate for more diversity within the craft beer industry and community because I feel like the more diverse we are as a whole group, just the better that we can be.

(53:20)
I started it at first as a repost account on Instagram where I would showcase and advocate and promote diverse faces within craft beer so that we could create representation in a way that was healthy and it didn’t subject people to feeling like they’re being commodified. I started as that, and then since my background is in education, I transformed it into a diversity education hub and advocacy space. That’s where we started to create articles and different educational content. And so I gathered and found amazing writers that were also underrepresented within craft beer, and they were allowed to have their voices shine and they were allowed to speak their truth, which a lot of times are silenced in these types of spaces, so really excited about that.

Cheyenne (54:33):
Wow, that’s so amazing and so necessary. And it’s funny that you mentioned 2020. We’ve interviewed quite a few people recently. We interviewed Betsy Lay over at Lady J Brewing, and 2020 was also a catalyst for her as well, just with the changes that were happening in the industry and everything. That was really interesting. I think 2020 was a huge catalyst for a lot of us to look around and decide to make some change in the industry, so that’s amazing. And so you have some resources on your website and you said you’ve got some contributors, so who are the contributors? Can anyone contribute? How does that work?

Lindsay (55:15):
Right now, unfortunately due to the lack of funding, we are not currently publishing right now. After 2022, it seemed like the funds and a lot of the money that was coming in through diversity resources and stuff like that, they diminished. And so I feel like everybody in general is just strapped for money. And so we’re trying to allocate our resources in ways that are directly benefiting people such as our grant programs. But in general, I would like for our writing to continue because I think it was really pivotal to what we did, but that requires more resources than we have currently.

Cheyenne (56:00):
Yeah, no. That’s totally understandable.

Lindsay (56:03):
But the writers that we did have, they came from all around the world and they all had a passion for craft beer, but also that they wanted to make and wanted to see changes within our space, and that was the most important thing. We were very lucky to have a lot of passionate advocates and people who were not afraid to speak up.

Heather (56:25):
There’s a lot of amazing articles up in the website.

Cheyenne (56:30):
There are.

Heather (56:31):
The recipes I found incredibly cool as well. That was just such a fun resource on there.

Cheyenne (56:39):
It’s cool because some people, you just need a little creative boost sometimes. I love going to look at recipes even if I’m not brewing currently, just to what are people doing?

Lindsay (56:49):
And I think that craft beer, it goes hand in hand, obviously with gastronomy and being able to connect beer with food and to create these amazing amalgamations of just cuisine, I get so excited about it.

Heather (57:06):
Beer and food pairings is one of my absolute favorite things to do, and that’s how I got started in the industry. I started, I was serving and worked at a beer bar.

Lindsay (57:15):
Awesome.

Heather (57:16):
And that’s how I got there. And I feel like the more people we talked to on the podcast, the more people we see have come up that way and how they got started, both industries just go so hand in hand with each other.

Lindsay (57:28):
Absolutely.

Cheyenne (57:28):
They do. Well, you had mentioned the grants that you have. Can you tell us about the grant program?

Lindsay (57:35):
Yeah, so we collaborate with a couple of different organizations. One of our biggest ones is working with Women of the Bevolution, and we have our Bevolution Creators grant that we have, and we do that. We try to do that a couple of times a year depending on how our funding goes, but it is to create a funnel and a mentorship avenue for up and coming creators within the beer space that are typically underrepresented within our field. We think that creating content is the new way of disseminating information within our world now, since we’re such a digital world that we wanted to make sure to prioritize the people that are at the forefront of giving out that information. We have done, I believe now three iterations of our grant program for that, and we’re going to be doing our fourth after the summer concludes. And I’m really excited about that. We are partnering with Athletic Brewing to be able to fund that round of grants, and so we’ll be able to do a lot of good for the future of our crafter creators.

Cheyenne (58:46):
That’s amazing. Who can be eligible for a grant?

Lindsay (58:50):
For that specific grant, we typically prioritize women and non-binary individuals that are from underrepresented communities within the craft beer industry. And so we just like to see people who are strong advocates for change and who are going to use the grant money as well as the mentorship part of the program in order to not just advance their own careers, but to also help the next generation as well.

Heather (59:22):
Absolutely. Just help to better the industry.

Lindsay (59:25):
Yes.

Heather (59:26):
Speaking of bettering the industry, can you tell us a little bit about the Brave Noise Brewing collaboration?

Lindsay (59:35):
We weren’t actually directly involved with that, but we collaborate with them and obviously advocate for them all the time. Brave Noise is a worldwide initiative to create safe and discrimination-free spaces, and so they are very adamant on creating spaces that all people can thrive in. And so that involves training as well as preventative measures such as codes of conduct and their funds are used many times to help people who were unfortunate victims of abuse and discrimination within craft beer.

Heather (01:00:17):
One thing that we really, really want to touch on, because as I had mentioned before, Cheyenne and I got to attend both of the annual Pride events that you have-

Lindsay (01:00:25):
That’s awesome.

Heather (01:00:27):
… put on starting in Nashville and of course in Vegas last year, so coinciding with the Craft Brewers conference. Tell us a little bit about the Pride event, how it got started, why Nashville was the kickoff location.

Lindsay (01:00:40):
The Pride event started in Nashville, Tennessee last year. There was a lot of concern by our queer community that it would not be a safe space and safe location to hold the conference because of the very, very anti-LGBTQ legislation that was happening in the state at the time. We were very concerned for our trans community because of the anti-drag laws that were happening at the same time. There were many people who vocalized that they were not comfortable even going to the city, despite Nashville actually being quite liberal within the state.

(01:01:24)
For some random reason, I decided that it was time to not have advocacy, but to celebrate and to truly celebrate queer joy because we can’t just continuously fight. We need to be able to celebrate with each other and to remind ourselves of why we’re doing this and why our community is so important. Within a month’s time, I gathered amazing folks within our community to help me rally for this party, and we found a brewery, Fait La Force, that was willing to host us and to contribute to the donations that were happening to the Tennessee Pride Chamber. And within a month, it turned out to be an amazing event, even through torrential storms that were happening.

Heather (01:02:14):
It was a downpour that night.

Cheyenne (01:02:14):
It was a downpour. I remember that.

Lindsay (01:02:18):
It was downpouring, but we were having an amazing time, and I remember at the end of the night, just in tears because despite all of the bad things that are happening in the world, we have so many people that are showing up and just not afraid to truly live in their most genuine selves. And I think that it gave us all some hope and it made the rest of the conference a little bit easier, especially because the bodies that be were not very supportive of our fears and our concerns. And I know that there were a lot of people within the organization that were really trying to make us feel safe, but as a whole, it was not necessarily something that was tolerable.

Cheyenne (01:03:17):
As an event goes, it was amazing. Like Heather said, we were there, we had a group of our co-workers with us, and it was absolutely packed wall to wall. People were drenched from the storm.

Heather (01:03:30):
Standing outside of that big patio. It was amazing. We were just watching the thunderstorm.

Cheyenne (01:03:35):
That was such a great event. And then same with Las Vegas. Las Vegas, we ended up accidentally showing up late because we went to the wrong location.

Heather (01:03:44):
Oh, my God.

Cheyenne (01:03:44):
That’s a separate story.

Heather (01:03:45):
That’s a whole other story.

Cheyenne (01:03:45):
Everybody, it was so stressful.

Heather (01:03:45):
Our Uber driver was such a save.

Cheyenne (01:03:45):
That was amazing though.

Heather (01:03:46):
The dueling pianos though. Oh, my God. That was amazing.

Cheyenne (01:03:58):
And very Las Vegas.

Heather (01:04:00):
Yeah.

Lindsay (01:04:00):
Yes. This year the turnout was a lot smaller than we would have hoped, but it was a good reminder that it wasn’t necessarily about how many people attended. It was about creating a safe space where people could come and be exactly who they are and celebrate that, and to truly enjoy each other. Even if only one person showed up, that was still amazing.

Cheyenne (01:04:27):
And it’s so important, like you said, to hold space for people to be themselves. And I think it’s also such a wonderful opportunity for people who might not see folks who are representative of what they are and getting to meet those people in the industry because so often the industry can feel a little bit isolating, and so being able to gather with people who are like you is so exciting.

Lindsay (01:04:51):
Oh, absolutely. And I think we underestimate how powerful that can be. Just to feel that connection with people is the basic of human nature, so I think we need that all the time.

Heather (01:05:08):
Absolutely.

Cheyenne (01:05:09):
Most definitely. Well, you’ve only done two so far, and I hope we get to see more coming down the line, but with your Pride events, have you seen any improvement in the craft beer industry or any opening for you there?

Lindsay (01:05:29):
Yeah. I think that in the previous years, I also presented at the Craft Beer Conference, so with the party complimenting my talk, I know that there have been people who have stated that they are making changes within their own breweries to be more inclusive and to be conscious of the fact that there are different needs and implement the strategies of creating more inclusive environments and supportive environments for everyone. And so I think that even if it’s not necessarily something that I can personally see, I do believe that it is making a difference. And so I would like to hopefully continue it.

Cheyenne (01:06:11):
I definitely hope that it continues because it’s definitely something that we look forward to every single year. And I will say that within the industry, I definitely do think that there are small incremental changes that are happening. We were talking a little bit earlier about codes of conduct for breweries, for businesses, for beer festivals, for large events like CBC. I think that’s such a good starting point, and it’s such a small gesture to show that we care about how people feel and the safety of others. I think that even seeing more of those out in the industry is really fantastic.

Lindsay (01:06:49):
Yes, absolutely.

Heather (01:06:51):
How have you seen Beer is for Everyone evolve since 2020?

Lindsay (01:06:58):
Oh, wow. It turned into something that I could have never imagined. I truly cannot express how grateful I am for all the people who support the work that is being done. And I think that without that support, I think that I would’ve quit a long time ago. And that the people who are a part of our teams, whether they’re currently with us or not, I think that in order for them to have progressed in their careers, I think that Beer is for Everyone has been an important platform for that. And I think that in general, I think being able to see that even though our growth has been actually quite fast, there’s still so much to do and that’s both terrifying and exciting. But it’s also, I think it gives me hope that we are making a difference, even if it is extremely slow.

Heather (01:07:59):
I don’t think change ever happens overnight, so the patience is a tough one.

Lindsay (01:08:06):
And I think especially after particularly Nashville, I know that there was a lot of people who were very burnt out from everything that happened. And I think that even I am still feeling that even though it was over a year ago. Being able to have a network of safe people who will support you is critical to doing this work. And so I think that one of the things I’m most proud of, even if it’s not necessarily explicitly part of the work that we do, is that just being part of the network of people who we can rely on to advocate for others.

Cheyenne (01:08:53):
No, most definitely. And I think that the work that you’re doing, it extends far and wide into the industry for a lot of people, even if it maybe doesn’t feel like it is right at that moment. And when we were in Nashville attending the Pride event, you guys have fantastic merch, by the way. One of my favorite parts of the event is getting to go and buy all the merch, but I got myself the trans flag beer pin, and I take that with me everywhere I go now, especially to any beer industry events and I wear on my lanyard or the whatever I’m wearing. And I have so many people who comment on it and who are like, where did you get that? Or who are saying, thank you so much for wearing that. It’s something that’s small but mighty, so I think that the change is happening for sure, and it’s very exciting to see in the industry.

Lindsay (01:09:45):
That is awesome. And we are so grateful that we get to collaborate with so many different amazing artists for the Trans Pride pin, we worked with Stay and we were able to manufacture those and bring those to Nashville, and I think that was the perfect thing that we could possibly show representation and support.

Cheyenne (01:10:08):
It’s so amazing. I’ve had people try to buy it from me, and I’m not joking. I’m not joking at all. I was at the Pride Parade in Seattle, I think maybe two years ago, and I had someone straight up try to buy it from me, and I was like, “Oh, I’m so sorry. No.”

Heather (01:10:27):
No. Let push you to the website where you can go buy it.

Cheyenne (01:10:33):
Definitely, I think that having the representation, even in small forms like that, is so important for everyone in the industry and outside of the industry. I think it also is wonderful to show people who are outside of the industry also, that despite appearances, we are working so hard to become an inclusive environment for everyone who wants to get into beer. And we want everyone to… Beer is for everyone.

Lindsay (01:10:56):
Beer is for Everyone. Where have I heard that before? I do want to do a little teaser on the merch for anybody that’s listening and it’s like, oh, no, I got to go check it out. There may or may not be a little gift certificate in our lovely bag that we’re driving for, so just saying.

Cheyenne (01:11:18):
Little giveaway.

Lindsay (01:11:19):
Little giveaway in there to go and purchase a merch.

Cheyenne (01:11:24):
Yes. That’s amazing. Well, we don’t want to keep you too long, but before we wrap up, can you tell us how folks can get involved and support Beer is for Everyone?

Lindsay (01:11:36):
We’re always looking for volunteers and just anybody that really wants and supports the mission behind Beer is for Everyone. I’m available by email and love anybody that can provide support in any type of way, whether it be through volunteer work or monetarily or just to simply spread the word. Because a lot of what we do is advocacy, and so people need to know about us in order to know about what we’re doing. And so just shout out and hopefully we can continue to do the good work.

Cheyenne (01:12:15):
Definitely wear your trans pins.

Lindsay (01:12:17):
Wear your trans pins.

Heather (01:12:21):
Well, thank you so much, Lindsay. I really, really hope we get to see you in Indianapolis next year at the next Pride event. I’m just going to say it’s happening and then we’re going to be there because it gets put on our calendar as soon as it gets announced.

Cheyenne (01:12:35):
Yes, it does. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Lindsay. We really appreciate you joining us.

Lindsay (01:12:41):
Thank you so much for having me, guys.

Cheyenne (01:12:43):
Well, thank you so much to our amazing guests, Betsy Lay, the co-founder and owner of Lady Justice Brewing and Lindsay Malu Kido, the founder and executive director of Beer is for Everyone, what an amazing episodes. We’re very excited to get to chat. And thank you for celebrating Pride Month with us again, our very favorite episode to record and chat with these folks. We’re very lucky to get to do this. If you’re looking for more of our Pride episodes, you can go back and listen to our previous seasons, Season three, episode 10 was Liquid Pride with a Purpose, and season four, episode 14, Follow The Grainbow, so go check those out.

Heather (01:13:24):
I forgot about that. Follow the Grainbow. What a great title.

Cheyenne (01:13:28):
Amazing.

Heather (01:13:30):
And don’t forget to order your Pink Boots Malt throughout the month of June to be entered into win our Bountiful Bag giveaway. And we’ll be back in two weeks to chat with some of our barley farmers about the current growing season that is underway, super important for everyone. Just a quick reminder, Filson Vest Gold Medal Program is underway. The Canadian Brewing Award, Vest Request will close on Friday, June 28th, so if you won gold with Great Western or CMC Base Malt, make sure to let us know so we can get you that vest. Thanks everybody. Cheers.

Cheyenne (01:14:03):
Bye.