Pay It No Mind: All Up in Your Business with Closet Brewing

SL: Closet Brewing is both a nod to queer identity and a reference to your humble beginnings. Tell us about those early days?

CB: Closet Brewing really began in 2018. We’d just moved to Scotland and were broke. Lizzie was studying for her Master’s degree, and Lucy had just taken on a new job. We started brewing because we couldn’t afford to go out, and—having just moved hundreds of miles away from our families—we needed a new hobby! Our early brewing kit was so rudimentary. It was all buckets and supermarket cool boxes with holes drilled through. We were able to make maybe five or 10 litres at a time? It’s kind of wild to look back on now that we’ve brewed 2000L+ batches!

We’ve collaborated on a beer for Pride! Studio Lutalica designed the label; you brewed the beer. Named, Pay It No Mind, it’s a tribute to the late trans activist Marsha P. Johnson. Tell us what you like about the name.

We like to find ways for our Pride beers to reflect our connection to the queer community. ‘Pay It No Mind’ is such a beautiful quote from Marsha P. Johnson because it speaks to queer resilience and reminds us that we needn’t take criticisms from those we wouldn’t take advice from. However, it also captures how queer people, and especially trans people, are often expected to take it on the chin. To take the high road, to not rise to the bait, can be a heavy burden in the face of constant critique. We like this name because on the surface it is an homage to an icon, but if you sit with it a little while, it can take on a deeper meaning…

Our collaboration is about more than just good beer. 10% of all profits are going to our Designing for Trans Futures campaign. Why are community partnerships like ours important to you?

Before Closet Brewing even had a name, we used to throw around this phrase at home: “Drink Good Beer With Good People.” Good people and community have always been at the forefront of what we’re building. Collabs not only allow us to share our brewing space with lovely people for a day while making beer, but also to get involved with our community. Whether donating profits or holding events, we love anything that lets us lift others up.

The craft beer world can be bro-heavy. How does it feel to be a queer-led brewery in the industry? What has the reception been like from both the beer and queer communities?

There have definitely been a few moments we’d like to avoid repeating over the years… but those are far outweighed by the positive experiences. We’ve been met with great enthusiasm by the queer community (there are plenty of queer craft beer nerds). The community has also really rallied behind our queer artist programme, which connects us to Scotland’s queer artistic community.

For the most part, the beer community has also welcomed us, no doubt helped by Queer Brewing paving the way for visibility in the UK craft beer industry. It isn’t all sunshine and rainbows… There have been occasions where we’ve been the first openly queer people some folks have interacted with, and those interactions can be challenging.

Tell us more about the queer artist programme you mentioned.

Our queer artist programme is central to how Closet Brewing is brought to life. For every beer, we work with different queer artists and designers to develop the name, label, and keg badge. We’d noticed that, even for events created for queer people, including Pride, queer artists are often overlooked.

We might not have a huge platform, but we could create paid opportunities for queer artists to showcase their art to an entirely new audience. In the past 12 months, we’ve collaborated with 16 queer artists across 25 beers, and the programme is now one of our most treasured parts of the business. We want artists to feel like part of the Closet team even once the artwork is completed, so as well as the initial payment, we pay a ‘thank you’ fee every time we re-print their label. All of our artists also retain the license to use the art they’ve created to sell merch, prints or stickers.

We’re launching our beer together at a Pride event in Leith, Edinburgh. How do you find the queer community here?

The queer community in Edinburgh is so broad that it’s difficult to share how we feel about it in a way that does it justice. Instead, we’re sharing just some of the fantastic organisations and community groups that are based here!

We’re part of an LGBTQ+ Founders group for queer business owners that developed out of the OutBritain network. Lucy plays in a queer football club, PQFC, and we try to attend Fri-Gay, a monthly bouldering social at The Climbing Hangar in Portobello, whenever we can. Queer by Nature has lots of outdoorsy events if you prefer to get outside but be active a little more gently. We’ve never really been part of the club scene, but we’re big fans of Dyke Bar, Edinburgh’s roving, pop-up lesbian bar and love their Ceilidh events. Last summer, we ran a queer craft afternoon as part of Gayz Onely at Dreadnought in Newhaven, which was super wholesome. We’ve attended marches, protests, and celebrations held by and for Edinburgh’s queer community. What are we trying to get? No matter your interests, you’ll find your people here.

Besides our event, what’s next for Closet Brewing?

We’re planning something really special for our fourth birthday. It’ll be the biggest event we’ve ever put on! Lizzie, in particular, is very excited about this one… She’s been working quietly behind the scenes for months already to get things in motion. We aren’t ready to share details yet, but we’d suggest marking 18 July in your calendars…

Find out more about Closet Brewing here. Get tickets to the Studio Lutalica x Closet Brewing Pride fundraiser here.