Online backlash over Fresno brewery’s ‘El Jefe’ beer made for mayoral event is all foam
A couple of weeks ago, representatives of Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer made a request to one of the city’s leading microbreweries:
The mayor’s State of the City event is coming up soon, and we’d like for you to brew a special batch of beer for the occasion.
In fact, we already have a concept that you can use.
“They came with the whole package,” Full Circle Brewing Co. owner Arthur Moye said as he and I sat in the F Street warehouse that annually produces 10,000 barrels of craft beer, sour and cider.
Thus, El Jefe cerveza lager was born. On the label is a cartoon portrait of Dyer, drawn by Full Circle’s in-house graphic artist. Fresno’s mayor and former police chief is wearing a blue suit and has his right index finger pointed skyward. Dyer’s hand is silhouetted by the Pacific Southwest Building.
Moye told me he was “enthusiastic” about being involved in Thursday night’s State of the City soiree at Chukchansi Park alongside nine other locally owned restaurants, breweries and cocktail bars.
But when images of El Jefe beer cans began to circulate on social media, the reaction on Twitter was decidedly less so.
“Insanely cringe stuff here by full circle lmao,” one user wrote. “This is 100% a hate crime wtf,” tweeted another. “Sell out ass drink,” tweeted a third.
Detractors accused Full Circle of cultural appropriation, offended they would put a white man on a beer can labeled el jefe and cerveza.
“This is downright insulting,” one of them tweeted. “Stop appropriating Spanish for your failed efforts to seem ‘edgy.’ ” Followed by two vomit emojis.
Gotta say, seeing the firestorm of negativity by Fresnans against a pretty cool downtown Fresno business caused me to do a real-life version of a different emoji: the head slap. (Perhaps I should’ve been on Instagram, where the reaction was quite a bit more favorable.)
Sticking up for Full Circle
I get that Dyer is polarizing. As popular as the mayor may be overall — check the March 2020 election results for proof — there remains a vocal minority that will never forgive some of his past sins or the oppressive tactics the Fresno Police Department frequently employed while Dyer was chief of police.
Let’s be real about something else: In five years of writing opinion columns for The Bee, I’ve found several occasions to be critical of him too.
But on this one, I’m inclined to stick up for Full Circle and tell those outraged by El Jefe cerveza lager to lighten up. Fifteen cases of 4.5% alcohol light beer brewed and packaged per special request for a special occasion doesn’t merit such vitriol.
Yes, 15 cases. Since each case contains 24 pint-sized cans, we’re talking 360 cans of beer. That’s less than three kegs.
“Just enough for the downtown event,” Moye said. “That is the only reason the beer exists.”
Besides, what was a downtown Fresno business owner in Moye’s position supposed to do? Tell the mayor’s people to find someone else? Great way to make friends at City Hall.
In this respect, Full Circle is simply following in the footsteps of Brewery District neighbor Tioga-Sequoia, which in 2016 produced a strawberry blonde ale in honor of then Mayor Ashley Swearengin. And got little flak for it.
Moye doesn’t have much to say about the negative backlash to El Jefe cerveza lager, preferring to stay attuned to those who gave their thumb’s up.
“It is what it is,” he said. “People will say negative things, and people will say positive things. We tend to focus on the positive. …
“How do you grow and be successful while you focus on the people who may not agree with you about something?”
‘Most diverse’ Valley brewery
Built on a unique business model (1,000 individual investors have infused nearly $1 million dollars), Moye can speak about growth. Full Circle’s products are now sold at 2,000 distribution points across eight states. Twelve months ago, the brewery moved into a 7,500-square foot taproom and event center on Fulton Street while continuing to use the old F Street location for production.
Moye, who is Black, describes Full Circle as the fastest growing African-American owned brewery in the country.
“We are the most diverse brewery in the Central Valley and possibly all of California,” he said.
Full Circle’s logo, a skull with three hop leafs sprouting from a crack in the cranium, symbolizes the rebirth of the brewery the Victorville native purchased in 2016, and of downtown Fresno itself.
“Ernie” the skull is named after Ernst Eilert, who in 1900 founded Fresno’s first and largest brewery in the decades before Prohibition.
A century and change later, small-business entrepreneurs like Moye are helping revitalize downtown Fresno while at the same time blazing a trail for breweries that are both Black-owned and crowd-funded.
Those are the things that matter. Not a one-time batch of beer branded with Dyer’s cartoon portrait.
