COLUMBUS, Ohio — Wolf’s Ridge Brewing in Columbus posted on social media a screenshot of an email they received from an upset customer. The customer was upset with the company’s decision in supporting Black Lives Matter.
After mentioning the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd, the customer said in the email, “For the life of me, I can not understand why for profit, businesses have chosen to take sides in such weighty issues.”
The person went on to say the brewery should support something everyone can get involved with and that they will no longer do business with them.
The brewery answered back saying, “We stand by this beer and our support of King Arts Complex, who champions performing, cultural and educational programs that highlight the contributions of African-Americans to America and the world.”
Wolf’s Ridge Brewing company is constantly working with organizations and nonprofits in the city.
“We’ve worked really hard to bridge gaps in our community through different initiatives and events. For instance, we’re doing our 4th annual International Women’s Day project this week and we’ve been working with the YWC Columbus for that, for four years now,” Jenny Hauck with Marketing and Communications said.
Last year, they made the decision that they wanted to have more conversations about the Black Lives Matter movement and bridging the gap.
They began working with King Arts Complex. On the King Arts Complex’s website, the organization’s mission is to “engage Central Ohio through performing, cultural and educational programs of high artistic merit that increase and disseminate knowledge regarding the vast and significant contributions of African-Americans to the culture and history of America and the world."
The King Arts Complex created, the Heart of Protest, last year in honor of the Black Lives Matter movement and the death of George Floyd.
The movement included 30 art and cultural organizations throughout Columbus who would participate in 46, non-sequential, days of artistic protest.
With that, Wolf’s Ridge Brewing decided to create a beer called, “Heart of It.”
The social media post went on to say, “100% of proceeds from Heart of It will be donated to their organization, they are a transformative non-profit in the Columbus community, and to minimize their impact through such a myopic, misunderstood lens is reductive.”
Jenny Hauck, who works in marketing and communications for Wolf’s Ridge Brewing, is behind the social media post.
She said as a business, it’s common to get constructive feedback and they appreciate that because it’s how they grow.
“When we get feedback that’s crude or unfair or vulgar, we just ignore it, but I saw this as an opportunity to engage and use our platform on social media and engage our community,” Hauck said.
Hauck said they received a lot of support from that post, in the form of messages, people buying the Heart of It beer and people even donating directly to the King Arts Complex.
The company wants this to be a focus on them working with their neighbors, the people who make up Columbus, supporting one another.
