Hailstorm Brewing co-owner fired after groping at festival

South suburban Hailstorm Brewing fired its head brewer and said it would remove him from its ownership group after he confirmed in a Facebook post over the weekend that he groped a woman while in Wisconsin for a beer festival this summer.

Steve Miller, who became a minority owner at Hailstorm last year after working at the award-winning Tinley Park brewery since 2018, said in an interview Monday that he chose to publicly confirm the incident because, “I believe in accountability and taking responsibility when you do something wrong.”

Hailstorm’s majority owner, Chris Schiller, said he learned of the incident from the Facebook post and chose to fire Miller after a brief investigation that included speaking with the victim.

“We found out from the same social media post that everyone else did,” Schiller said Monday afternoon. “We were just shocked initially and questioning and angered and all the things you would feel in that situation. The first thought was, ‘Let’s try to figure out what really happened,’ and we did, and it’s not good.”

Schiller said Miller has been cooperative and put him in contact with the victim.

“He’s been very upfront and admitted to everything that happened,” Schiller said.

The beer industry has grappled with allegations of sexism and sexual misconduct in recent months, leading to departures of an owner at suburban Pollyanna Brewing who the brewery said was facing “numerous allegations” of sexual misconduct, and an employee at the Chicago-based Cicerone beer certification program, who was accused of drunkenly soliciting multiple women for sex after administering an exam in 2013.

In a private Facebook group, Chicago Craft Beer Alliance, which has more than 5,000 members, a person posted a screenshot Saturday of a message in which Miller was accused of approaching a woman from behind at a bar and putting “his hands down her pants” the night before Great Taste of the Midwest, a large beer festival in Madison in August.

People were drinking heavily at the event, the message read, which Miller confirmed in an interview.

The woman “started crying, and looked at me and said, ‘Steve keeps touching me and I don’t want him to touch me,’ ” the message read. The author of the screenshot is unclear, and the Tribune does not know the victim’s identity.

Schiller said the victim was the relative of an acquaintance of Miller’s and not a Hailstorm employee.

Miller said in the same Facebook thread Saturday that the allegation was “an accurate portrayal of the night.”

“It happened, I’m still incredibly ashamed by it and it’s something that never should have happened,” Miller wrote. “I misread the fun our group was having and acted terribly.”

Miller said in the post that he was “not denying any of this. It was one of the worst things I’ve ever done.”

Miller owns 3% of Hailstorm and will sign away his stake this week, Schiller said.

“He’s fine with it and he understands,” Schiller said.