Victorian brewery Killer Sprocket make ‘BRAVE NOISE’ joining a global initiative with the purpose of creating a safe and discrimination free beer industry.

Killer Sprocket is proud to be the first Australian Brewery to join a global collaboration towards creating a safe and discrimination free beer industry. By releasing a “Brave Noise” beer, participating breweries commit to transparency, starting by sharing their code of conduct, and long term work towards creating a diverse and inclusive industry. The beer will be launched on International Women’s Day, the 6th of March 2022, at the Fox Hotel in Collingwood, with profits being donated to South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault.

The collaboration was started by United States Brewer Brienne Allan in response to the hundreds of stories of harassment she received after asking her Instagram followers “Have you ever experienced sexism in the beer industry?” Sharing the stories shone a light on the prevalence of discrimination and harassment faced by women BIPOC and LGBTQI+ people in the beer industry. “The Brave Noise collaboration is meant to provide awareness and create action for safe and inclusive environments in the beer industry,” says Allan. “I hope breweries join us in advocating for change and develop resources to best support industry professionals and customers for a better (beer) world.”

Killer Sprocket is a small brewery in the Eastern suburbs of Victoria owned by Sean and Andrea Ryan. Andrea explains “We realised that even though we are small, we can make decisions now about how we want to grow our business. Participating in brave noise is a way for us to join this important conversation and publicly make a commitment to transparency and growth.” Andrea and Sean brewed the beer along with their assistant Brewer Chris Martin.

“Having us all there was symbolic of our commitment as a team to create a safe and respectful work environment,” says Andrea.

The Australian beer industry faces similar room for improvement with a recent industry survey highlighting significant rates of discrimination and harassment along with a lack of women in senior roles and a lack of ethnic diversity. The survey was conducted by Beer Agents For Change (a collective of 5 women with more than 60 years beer industry experience between them) with the intention of sparking challenging conversations in a respectful manner and to facilitate meaningful industry changes around diversity and inclusion.