OnTap Magazine

ontapmag.co.za | Summer 2024 | 47 O ne cool Denver evening at a local brew pub, three friends engaged in a familiar ritual: sipping beers and complaining about their jobs. At the time, the women were all in AmeriCorps, working for a local nonprofit called Peace Jam, and while they believed strongly in the mission of the organization – with Nobel Peace Prize winning individuals such as Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama on the board – there simply was no money. Grants had dried up. Fundraising efforts bore little fruit. The cash crunch wasn’t limited to the cause; the women themselves were living at the poverty level, using food assistance to supplement their incomes (a practice common for those serving in AmeriCorps). Despite their tight financial circumstances, Betsy Lay, Kate Power and Jen Cuesta scraped money together to go out and enjoy those shared beers and a burger at Vine Street Brewing, whenever they could. That evening, the friends reflected on this fact, and then looked around at a packed pub. They were not alone in prioritizing gathering over food and drink, even amidst a recession. How, they asked each other, can we get people to spend their beer money in a way that also gives back to their community? And that, Lay says, “was the spark of Lady Justice; it was that conversation.” CONNECTING TO SOMETHING BIGGER Betsy Lay grew up in St. Louis in a social justice-oriented household. Her mother’s family is Lebanese, and her grandmother was a Palestinian rights activist. The emphasis in Lay’s childhood home was on working in support of social justice causes in a very physical, active sense. Lay moved to Colorado in 2000 to attend the University of Denver, where she received an undergraduate degree followed by a master’s in theology. She spent the first 10 years of her career in nonprofit work, mostly in churches and youth and family ministry. Lay is quick to point out that she herself is agnostic, perhaps even an atheist, but deeply curious about the ways that people find connection both to their communities, as well as to something bigger than themselves. “That is essentially what the theology work is,” Lay says, “It doesn’t really have much to do with higher powers, or anything like that.” A few years after that conversation in Vine Street, Power and Cuesta were both attending law school. For a class assignment intended to teach different tax designations, Power had to draw up a business plan. She used their fundraising brewery idea to do so. After receiving encouraging and helpful feedback on her plan, Power returned to Lay and Cuesta and told them: I think this is something we could actually do. Denver’s craft beer boom began around 2012, so when Power and Cuesta graduated from law school and moved back in 2014, the industry was newly on the rise, with breweries popping up around the city. The three friends got busy solidifying their business plan and attempting to answer a core question: ‘How do you set up a brewery whose mission is to not turn a profit?’ They spent a year sorting through tax and state liquor laws, and looking for any existing breweries with a philanthropic business model they could learn from. They had heard that there might be a philanthropic brewery in Texas, and Ex Novo, a nonprofit brewery in Oregon was also starting up around this time. But ultimately, they were carving their own path. “We didn’t know if this idea would work,” Lay says. “We started with $20,000 and opened a one-barrel brewhouse in a 300-square foot room inside of an old car garage that we subleased from a guy who ran a coffee catering company.” They didn’t have a taproom and so coming up with a way to sell their beer became the next frontier. Here, another AmeriCorps experience provided an answer. A community-supported agriculture (CSA) model is popular in Colorado; during their service they participated in a farm share and split the produce amongst themselves. What if, they thought, they developed a community-supported beer (CSB) model where people could buy a membership to receive a share of beer once a month? “We had to ask the state of Colorado if that was even legal. And they were like, ‘What are you talking about? What's a beer membership?’” The team eventually ironed out the legalities and launched Lady Justice Brewing (“Lady J”) with the support of about 75 memberships. ...they were carving their own path. Photo credit: TruBlu Images