The MAGA craft beer company that Glenn Youngkin gave $300,000 of our tax money to lure to Norfolk in 2023, then closed barely 15 months later because people in Norfolk – which is 70 percent Democrat – didn’t think much of either the company or its beer, is now suing the local “woke mob” that it claims led to its failure for $50 million, because why not.
“This lawsuit is about coordinated and intentional economic destruction – not free speech,” said Alan Beal, the CEO of Armed Forces Brewing Company, which closed its Norfolk taproom last spring, though it lives on with a still-active company website and Facebook page.
The website lists its beer selections, but I don’t see any ability to order it online, or a list of locations where it would be available.
You can, apparently, still buy Armed Forces Brewing Company swag online, if you’re into that kind of thing.
“The defendants didn’t merely criticize our company, they admittedly conspired and worked together to pressure our customers, vendors, sponsors, charitable partners, event operators and business associates to sever ties with our company. They continuously spread false and defamatory narratives designed to damage our reputation and destroy our business,” Beal said.
A press release on the company’s website tells us that the suit was filed against “multiple defendants, including local activists, social-media operators and affiliated individuals” –specifically named are Andrew Coplon, the founder of Craft Beer Professionals, an industry community connectivity group; his wife, Stacie Coplon; Robert “Butch” Bracknell, an adjunct faculty member at the College of William and Mary Law School and a retired U.S. Marine officer and lawyer; freelance photojournalist Zach Roberts; and an unidentified Reddit user.
Reading through the suit, it looks to me that Beal wants a jury to buy into the idea that people speaking out against his business at planning commission meetings, talking with vendors about the company’s various social misdeeds and commenting on social media is somehow tortious.
That’s going to be a tough sell.
The bigger issue with this business failure: the company never appeared to be anything more than a PR stunt aimed at gullible conservative bros.
A story in the gullible conservative bro online publication Outkick, published as the company was making its big move into the Norfolk market in 2023, highlighted increased sales resulting from “Bud Light’s stupidity with Dylan Mulvaney,” referencing the generated outrage from the far right over the brief brand sponsorship deal between the nation’s #1 light beer and Mulvaney, a trans influencer with millions of followers on social media.
Beal told Outkick for the story that sales of its beer increased six-fold in the immediate aftermath of the fake controversy.
The telling line in that story is this quote from Beal:
“Communists obviously won’t like our beer or company values, but who doesn’t want to tribute a service member?”
Beal seemed to think this would work against the heavily pro-military backdrop in Norfolk, but he misread the local scene – Norfolk voted 69.7 percent for Kamala Harris in the 2024 cycle, and 75.7 percent for Abigail Spanberger in the 2025 cycle.
The locals chafed immediately at the “stupidity with Dylan Mulvaney” and “communists” jabs, and the company’s choice of brand ambassador, Robert O’Neill, the SEAL Team 6 member who claims to have killed Osama bin Laden.
O’Neill stepped further into it with local critics for his social media posts criticizing the Navy for using a drag queen in a recruitment ad and mocking transgender people, and a tone-deaf online video in which O’Neill poured a can of “p— water” into a toilet, destroys it with a grenade, attacks a hipster-looking man who wants a “hoppier” brew, and calls in a drone strike on a “pretentious foreign brewery.”
This was never going to work in a local market that is 70 percent Democrat.
That reality didn’t sink in until too late; Beal wrote in a fundraising email before closing in April 2025 that the plan was “to relocate to a city and a state that actually loves American values and is pro-business and absent of any woke mob mentality.”
Why Glenn Youngkin recruited this to Norfolk is anybody’s guess, but let’s revisit the victory-lap quote from the governor from the press release from 2023 announcing the big economic development pick-up for the state.
“We are proud to welcome Armed Forces Brewing Company’s headquarters and first brewing facility to the Commonwealth,” Youngkin said then. “Armed Forces recognizes that Virginia’s strategic location, business-friendly climate, and strong military and veteran presence in Hampton Roads will lead to success at its new home in the City of Norfolk, and we look forward to a successful partnership.”
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Chris Graham
