Olin Beer and Mead Society
The answer to that question has been comprised of events with multiple formats, including a propensity for hybrid participation fueled early on by the realities of Covid. The “Diversity in Beer” series has had two installments featuring speakers virtually participating from Texas, Colorado, and Florida; the first, a collaboration with The Consortium and the Olin Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Association, featured several Black craft beer industry professionals (including members of a business group opening the first Black-owned craft brewery in Dallas). This year’s event was a collaboration with Olin Women in Business and Olin Branch Out, featuring a head brewer and entrepreneur whom both identify as queer women. “We also procured food from a local LGBTQ-owned business, and I created a beverage pairing for each item with bottles from my personal cellar,” says Hawkes. “It’s great to be able to highlight a diverse range of voices from the industry, but also meaningful at the local level to use our funding to patronize minority-owned businesses.”
“One of the core reasons I wanted to start this club was that St. Louis is one of the most historically significant beer communities in the United States. And now, a couple of centuries later, you can still see so much influence from that – not the least of which is just how robust the direct and adjacent industries alike are here. You also see it in the styles that some breweries focus on, which they’ve leveraged into being central to their brand identity and business growth strategies. That’s a major aspect we explored last spring with our event at Urban Chestnut Brewing Company, collaborating with the OEVCA again, interviewing Brewmeister Florian Kuplent about how UCBC came to open the first American craft brewery in his native region of Bavaria.”
On what’s in store during Hawkes’ final months at Olin before graduating in May, he shares, “I think we’ve established an effective, thematic, series-driven model that brings a wide range of stakeholders together – both from inside and outside the Olin community. We’re going to Side Project Brewery in February – one of the most internationally reputed craft breweries in the world, 11 minutes straight south of campus on Big Bend – to have a tour and discussion with Cory King, its owner, and founder. It’s one of my favorite breweries in the world, so I’m particularly excited about this one! Consider it my love letter to OBMS before handing it over to the ’24 cohort.”