Introduction: Researching Craft Beer

Privileging Passion: How the Cultural Logic of Work Perpetuates Social Inequality in the Craft Beer Industry

“…One emergent pattern in the data for this larger research project (but not fully explored here) is that a number of workers who are women and people of color may be accessing alternative career pathways within the craft beer industry less dictated by pure passion and the privileged statuses that frame it. Expressing different relationships to their jobs—for instance, by voicing social justice advocacy through their employment platform—could be a source of strategic advantage for some workers in an era when more organizations are publicly signaling their support for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives (see Chapman and Brunsma 2020; Wilson 2022; Wilson and Stone 2022). As an alternative cultural logic of work that highlights social identity issues, especially those that are underrepresented, the popularization of this narrative could potentially support the upward mobility of workers from marginalized social groups.…”