BUSINESS PROFILE

PROUD Beer’s Ethan Spibey & Sören Scharf

Boyfriends Ethan, 27, and Sören, 28, launched the UK’s first queer beer, PROUD, about a year ago. They have worked around their day jobs to create LGBTQIPA and take a message to the business community: if you want to be part of the LGBTQ community put your money where your mouth, or rainbow logo, is.

Tell us about PROUD Beer?

Ethan: We got fed up with people slapping a rainbow flag on their brand once a year and pretending they cared about the community. We thought, why don’t we start a beer company that benefits the charities we have worked with for years? PROUD is a beer company but it’s also a platform for everything we do relating back to the charities. That’s what an inclusive brand should really be doing. All we had t o do was work out how to start a big company, which it turns out is very difficult. How did you set it up? E: We didn’t have any backers. It was just how much beer can we buy? How would we do it? And could we sell it? So the first step was buying 5,000 bottles. Where is the beer brewed? Sören: We started by sampling beers from 20 breweries, which was fantastic.

E: We were careful when it came to choosing the brewery. We picked one up north near where I grew up. It’s made with proper Yorkshire water, it’s crafty and flowery with a note of elderflower.

S: I designed the bottles and we call ourselves the original queer beer. We have aspirations to open the UK’s first queer brewery but we don’t currently have backing to achieve that. How many bottles have you sold? E: 25,000 bottles in just over a year.

S: Which is more than twice what we forecasted by this point. What are your roles in the company? E: Not to stereotype a German, but Sören is very good at all the logistical stuff, whereas I talk a lot. You know on The Apprentice where they walk into a shop and try to sell more products to the shop owners? That’s essentially how we’ve managed to build a business. How is PROUD Beer supporting charities?

E: We send a direct donation from every bottle to charities and people. It’s not about a percentage of profits and as a business model, it’s very difficult. If you said to someone, you have to add this donation on to every single sale, they would probably find a way around it. But that’s exactly why we did it. It’s tough because we are competing against people with multi- million- pound marketing budgets and we are just two guys who love each other and love the beer.

What have you done with the money so far? E: We have supported the creative community, sports clubs, LGBTQ veteran charities and Pride events across the country. We try to support as many people as possible. How did the two of you meet? S: Three years ago at a party in London.

E: And when I met him, I knew he was g oing to be my man. What’s it like having a business partner who’s also your boyfriend?

E: I’d never had a business meeting at work in bed with my director. That does make it easier.

S: We can be more honest, saying what we really think, things we wouldn’t be able to say to a boss otherwise. Has been being gay ever affected you in the workplace?

E: Massively. It’s as if you have to come out over and over again. I think a third of people go back into the closet when they start work. I also run an LGBTQ network called InterComms and we work with companies on creating better workplaces for everyone. We have about 1,500 members and work with a couple of hundred companies. Outside work, we’ve been attacked for holding hands, we’ve been shouted at, we’ve both had some pretty awful experiences. And that’s in London in 2019. There are even issues within the LGBTQ community whether that be on social media or people essentially being racist.

S: I can’t believe how much transphobia there is coming from the L, G and Bs. I can’t fathom it. It just shows how far we have to go. What has been your proudest moment in the past year?

S: Becoming the official sponsor for a women’s rugby club in Rotterdam. They contacted us on Facebook, asking if we can support them. It was so cute t o see our logo on the back of their kit.

E: For me, it was when Layton Williams from Everyone’s Talking About Jamie sent us a video, with him doing the splits while holding a bottle of our beer. Is there anything you wish you had known when you started?

E: It’s been a huge learning curve. But I wouldn’t say there’s anything I really wish we’d done that differently.

S: That delivering beer until late into the night will result in us dropping many cases of beer. And that if we wanted t o be the beer that people drink at one of the big Prides we would have to pay £ 10,000. How many venues are you actually in currently?

E: We are available in 70 venues across the UK, but mainly in London. It’s a really cool mix of West End and independent theatres, cinemas, burger joints, LGBTQ venues and even the ping pong bar, Bounce. It’s closer to 150 if you count all the events where PROUD is ser ved. What’s next? E: We have big plans. It is not a queer product, it’s a product to support the queer community. It’s a statement. It’s a message. If we can do this in one year, imagine what can we do in five...

“I’d never had a business meeting in bed with

my director”