Women in Beer with Melissa Walter

Strong Feelings

The craft beer scene has plenty of bros waxing on about hops, but more and more women are making beer, too. And if they’re Love City Brewing’s Melissa Walter, they’re making change while they’re at it.

Melissa is the co-founder of Philly’s own Love City Brewing, a vocal supporter of getting more women into the beer industry, and an advocate for safer, more inclusive bars everywhere. She joins us to talk about how she went from therapist to brewery owner, why she prioritized covering employee benefits and creating a philanthropic program from day one, and what it looks like to build a bar where everyone feels welcome.

Yes, of course, we need to make money, we need to keep the doors open, we need to keep the lights on. But beyond that, I’m like, why do you need five million dollars this year? I’m not saying that making money is terrible, but I’m saying you can build these things in, grow a little more slowly, be a little more conscious... You live in this place, you should take care of it.
—Melissa Walter, co-founder of Love City Brewing

We talk about:

• How she’s creating community for women in beer. “There are women in the industry, we just have to find them and bring them together.”
• Why diversity always matters. “I think any industry should look like the community in which it is involved.”
• What it looks like to make accessibility a foundational requirement. “Our front entrance is a ramp; everybody comes in the same way: you go up the ramp, done. So, people who use a chair or don’t use a chair, same entrance, same accessibility as everybody else. All of our bathrooms are gender-neutral, so anybody can use any bathroom whatsoever.”
• Why all Love City staff go through sexual harassment intervention training. “The things that I’ve read from other places are that if they do take advantage of this training it’s like they’re admitting something is wrong. And I’m like, ‘ah…no? You’re doing the thing to make sure things don’t go wrong!’”
• Why Love City decided to give back from day one. “You live in this place, you should take care of it.”

Links

• Lovecitybrewing.com
• Love City on Twitter and Instagram
• Melissa on Instagram
• Pink Boots Society
• Safe Bars Philly