America’s oldest operating brewery is facing one of America’s oldest problems: Having an unpopular political opinion.  On Monday, Yuengling brewery owner Richard Yuengling Jr. told Eric Trump: “Our guys are behind your father,” when the junior Trump toured the company’s plant, and the reaction was predictably swift.  Brian Sims, a Pennsylvania state representative from Philadelphia — and the state’s first openly gay legislator — rallied a cry for bars in the city’s “Gayborhood” to remove the beer from their taps. “Everybody understands that the dollars that we now put into the marketplace have the potential to come back at us,” Sims told The New York Times. “I want my dollars spent in a way that at the very least doesn’t hurt me, and hopefully supports me.”  RELATED: Politicians and Fast Food: A Love Story in Photos  At least one bar owner in Washington, D.C. recorded a video of himself removing his bar’s Yuengling tap, and reactions from non-bar-owning citizens to the same effect poured in on Facebook and Twitter.  Reached for comment by Forbes, Yuengling said he would also be happy to welcome Hillary Clinton for a tour of his brewery, but declined to comment further, simply stating, “I’ve said enough.”  “Enough” maybe have been too much, but whether to weigh in at all is a difficult query for business owners. The Times cited a report by New York-based public affairs agency the Global Strategy Group that found 78 percent of Americans polled in 2015 believe corporations “should take action to address important issues facing society.”  RELATED: Melania Trump and Bill Clinton Square Off In What Used to Be Called the ‘First Lady Cookie Contest’  That said, Ivo Welch, a UCLA professor of economics and finance, told Freakonomics Radio earlier in 2016 that, “Boycotts almost surely will never work… Boycotts are basically just part of the population. They’re not really enforced. They’re not really legal. They are very leaky. So those have never worked, as far as I can tell.”  Whether or not the boycott being called for “works” on Yuengling, the company’s social media managers are certainly in for a rough few days.
After Yuengling Brewery’s owner endorsed Donald Trump for president, many fans of the beer are crying for a boycott