An Exit Interview with Bell’s Brewery EVP Carrie Yunker

Carrie Yunker ended her more than two-decade run at Bell’s Brewery on a high note Monday – Oberon Day, the annual release of the company’s spring-summer seasonal wheat beer.    Yunker, who started at the Michigan craft brewery as a part-time receptionist and ended up leading the company as founder Larry Bell’s handpicked successor, kicked off the festivities at the brewery’s Kalamazoo taphouse and event space by raising an Oberon flag.    Hundreds of Michiganders and fans from neighboring states, many wearing costumes, lined up and waited for hours for the taphouse to open and to drink this year’s Oberon and several special variants.    For Yunker, Oberon Day was a fitting way to say goodbye as employee No. 50.   “This day is the best of everything,” she says in this week’s episode of the Brewbound Podcast. “It’s the best of Kalamazoo, which is a city that I love so much. It’s the best of craft beer, which if you throwback craft beer to its heyday, it’s really about bringing people together and community. And what you will see is the streets of Kalamazoo, lined with people wearing teal, wearing orange, drinking Oberon, lighting up not just our account but accounts all over Kalamazoo.    “It really is this wonderful amalgamation. .... It’s food and fun and family and community and this day represents that, not just here in Kalamazoo, but you see that spotlighted across the Great Lakes.”   Yunker described her time as EVP as “the privilege of my life to lead such an amazing, amazing team and brand.”    So why step away? Yunker explained that she and her husband became empty nesters last fall, which led to more time for reflection.    “The silence created some space for me to really think about what’s next for me, what’s next for our family,” she said.    “I have lots of dear friends and people that I love who are living in a place where they are fearful,” she continued. “When I think about what I could do and take some of my leadership and my business acumen and potentially apply that in a different way to go do work either in politics or nonprofit to really make sure that people can live and love the way that they like.   “That’s something that really motivates me.”   In the conversation, Yunker discusses taking over for Larry Bell and how their leadership styles differed, guiding the brewery through several milestones and her favorite moments, including an off-the-cuff comment during a TV interview that led to 300 people showing up at the Comstock brewery for an impromptu job fair.    Full Disclosure: Bell’s Brewery covered airfare and hotel accommodations for the Brewbound team to record this interview during Oberon Day.