Democracy Brewing Community Events

Democracy Brewing Founder & Reluctant Community Organizer at Bell’s in Kalamazoo

👋 Hi, I’m Tom, founder of Democracy Brewing.

I come from a working-class family and have spent much of my life as a proud union member for almost 40 years— including driving trucks as a Teamster and performing gigs as a union musician 🎸. Through all of these experiences I’ve met hard-working people in just about every state and abroad and listened to their story and they listened to mine – usually over a few beers.

To be honest about it, I never thought I’d be starting and organization and then organizing community events —Honestly, I’d rather be doing other things. But watching elected officials ignore the people they serve while communities feel paralyzed by the constant barrage of awful has alarmed me. This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for our democracy. Nobody is coming to save us—not politicians, not the courts—it’s up to us and we collectively have more power than you can imagine

So that’s why I founded Democracy Brewing a grassroots, nonpartisan series of civic engagement events held in local breweries. Just people together for real conversations—no speeches, no scripts—just honest dialogue about the future of our communities. We’ve already hosted many local, state and federal leaders and we’re just getting started!