The Rise and Fall of Modern Times Beer Co

Founder and CEO Jacob McKean stepping down amid controversy with regards to sexual harassment, discrimination issues and more. IMHO, there is far more to the story, maybe most importantly a failed business plan fueled by hyper aggressive expansion and sub par beers. I quit buying MT beers a couple years ago as they fell off a cliff quality wise. This will be interesting to follow, other San Diego breweries in hot water too apparently as these issues continue to blow up nationwide in the craft beer industry.

Cheers,

Bud

Great observation Bud, couldn’t agree more.It seems to be a business model that companies repeat over and over again.Even Starbucks fell victim to over expansion a few years back.

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Had Star Cloud the other night and it wasn’t bad.

Wasn’t aware of the news above :frowning:

There is a national (international really) reckoning with sexism/racism/homophobia going on. In my backyard, the owner/operator of Tired Hands has stepped aside. FWIW, I don’t think there are issues with their beer or business model (not saying that’s not the case with MT).

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Despite being historically profitable, I don’t see how Tired Hands survives this mess.

Seriously?!? That puts us back in the first half of 2019 — I could have sworn you were still liking them back then, no? I was digging them up to the pandemic, and then stopped buying because it was more work than I wanted it to be, except for the ones that could be found on store shelves, which I kept buying, and am still buying. I do think the current batch of Star Cloud is odd — not like previous batches. I thought Caliban was pretty good, but that batch is getting long in the tooth at this point.

I’ve been worried they were going to fall victim to the pandemic, largely because they were pushing their aggressive expansion right when it hit, and also because I wasn’t too impressed with the manner(s) in which they (kind of) tried to continue selling their beers throughout.

The CEO news is news to me. Thanks for posting.

It might not be exactly two full years but pretty dang close. I vividly recall the quality deteriorating mid-late 2019 when I couldn’t justify buying any longer, It was a batch of Dinosaur World that was so cloyingly sweet and syrupy that became the preverbal straw that broke the camels back for me, I gave them several chances hoping it was batch or can variations but unfortunately it wasn’t, bummer because when they were on with beers like DDH MT5! they were at the top of their game.

Cheers,

Bud

Brienne Allan IG @ratmagnet is a brewer for Notch Brewing in Salem Ma. While touring a new location currently under construction she was subject to sexist comments by one of the construction workers so she posted on IG and asked if any other women in beer have had issues with discrimination and sexism on the job. The floodgates opened.

Here is an Eater article:

This has hit quite a few notable places and it seems a few more stories will come out. The issue of course is that many of these accusations are anonymous and not vetted so there have been differing reactions from the accused.

The beers are good but the one time I went there I basically waited 4hrs in line for 3-4pks of beer and I was tip shamed when I picked up my cans so I basically swore them off other than an occasional draft here and there in NYC. It’s too bad because that’s a great little town, they have a beautiful brewpub and it’s a great place to pregame before shows at the Music Hall.

I usually went to Fermentaria rather that the original brew pub. I found it a little less precious - I could fit in despite no ink and piercings, though i was conspicuous for not wearing a tee-shirt from another brewery.

I think they finally got the distribution figured out and lines for can releases were minimal.

The Brew pub was doing some really cool dinner popups, including with Kalaya (a Beard-award downtown Thai restaurant).

Everything I know is pre-pandemic

Oermf. That’s tough. The original MT5 is one of my all-time favorites of theirs, but I liked the DDH version even more. IIRC, my number one from them was in the “Now Open in” series, but not sure which one it was.

My two cents: Modern Times mostly handled this correctly. The main offenders who were called out by name have stepped down or been asked to leave (or potentially terminated). Nearly every “we messed up” post that has gone out in relation to this sexual harassment call out event has come under scrutiny for wording and inaction. MT deleted comments (this is a bad look and I’m hopeful it doesn’t happen again) and they also didn’t really do a legitimate “I’m/we’re sorry” from the get-go. 1-2 days later they laid out a plan and did the main things people wanted from them. The fact that MT has been vocal for a long time about their progressive politics really needed some quick and effective response and I believe they did that in the end. The world needs a lot less hypocrisy. The world needs a lot less “do as I say not as I do”. All people in positions of power need to be held accountable for their actions.

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The " Now Open Series " were very similar in both their appearances and flavor/texture profiles to DDH MT5!. I don’t think I had an “Open” series that wasn’t very good to excellent.

Cheers,

Bud

I would say Modern Times is booming… There Modern Times Brewery in Anaheim CA is amazing.

+1 - love that spot.

Haven’t seen any drop off in quality (but then again, I’ve only had it a few times since the pandemic)

Thank you for sharing this link, Kevin. I applaud Brienne Allen for her courage in coming forward about the harassment she has experienced in the brewing industry, and hope that the stories that she and other women have shared lead to major changes in the beer industry.

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Modern Times sucks ass. I was in the first year of their membership. They put out a VERY flawed beer. They refused to admit it was flawed. After more and more people brought it up publicly they finally stated if you bring the bottle in they’ll give an exchange. Since a lot of members did not live in San Diego, that didn’t work. They refused to give a refund. They said the ABC wouldn’t allow it. I wrote to the ABC and inquired (cause I knew it wasn’t true) then forwarded it to multiple people in their chain. They rested on the “our attorney said we can’t”.

I didn’t say the “i’m an attorney too” line but I just quit after that year. Pretty much every decision they made and every interaction with Jacob just reeked of privilege. So I’m not surprised to hear any of this.

Several of the posters recounted McKean responding insensitively to an internal discussion about antiracism last summer after the killing of George Floyd. McKean described the incident in his blog post, noting that he “left the door open indefinitely for future dialogue on the subject.”

“About a year ago, I had a contentious interaction with an employee via Slack that badly missed the mark,” McKean wrote. “It was a personal and professional failure, and I take full accountability for that. A brave group of MT employees helped me see how I had come up short, which allowed me to overcome my defensiveness around this interaction. I spoke directly to the employee involved, and I apologized personally and profusely.”

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I can never follow the threads when the lawyers show up en mass. Sucks Ass… what does that even mean? Let’s keep it to the layman’s jargon ‘round here [rofl.gif]

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