Feeling disappointed in himself for not participating in the local protests, Marcus B, Founder and Head Brewer at Weathered Souls Brewing Company in San Antonio, Texas, decided to use his brewery platform to start the Black is Beautiful Beer Initiative.
Challenged by his friend and mentor, Jeff, Co-Founder of Jester King Brewery, to turn his recipe into a collaboration, over the next 24 hours, that’s exactly what he did.
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The Black is Beautiful Beer Initiative is Born
“This platform and collaboration is about understanding and supporting people of color and inclusion. It is a collaborative effort to raise awareness for the injustices people of color face daily and raise funds for police brutality reform and legal defenses for those who have been wronged.” (Black is Beautiful)
As someone who has personally dealt with the abuse of power by the police, this recent turmoil the country is facing has hit home for me. As I write this, I contemplate how the country can move forward, how we as the people, can create change, and what it will take for everyone to move forward with a common respect for one another. For us, we feel that this is our contribution to a step.
Marcus B. (Founder and Head Brewer, Weathered Souls Brewing
The Black is Beautiful Conversation
Today there are over 1,000 breweries, 50 states, and 19 countries participating in the Black is Beautiful Beer Initiative.
We brought a few of these breweries together in one place to talk more about why they joined this initiative and what they are doing to keep this momentum moving forward.
Be part of a movement, not just this moment.
Dr. Colette Pierce Burnette
From our conversation, we also gained a little insight into the diversity, or lack there-of, in the brewing industry.
While these topics need to be talked about – from tension and strife comes change – as humans, we also need a way to decompress and find joy. So we even got a chance to talk about cooking, playing Dungeons and Dragons, and how simply enjoying a good beer can be joyful.
The brewing industry will continue to build community and provide the much needed space to continue to talk across the aisle, to listen to each other, and to learn from each other. Will you?
Black is Beautiful Beer Initiative Participants
We were honored to be able to speak to representatives from the following breweries:
| Weathered Souls Brewing Company | Marcus Baskerville | San Antonio, TX |
| Green Bench Brewing Company | Khris Johnson | St. Petersburg, FL |
| Jester King Brewery | Debbie Cerda | Austin, TX |
| Goldspot Brewing Company | Kelissa Hieber | Denver, CO |
| St. Elmo Brewing Company | Tim Bullock | Austin, TX |
| Fogtown Brewing Company | Jon Stein | Ellsworth, ME |
| Sedona Beer Company | Kali Gajewski | Sedona, AZ |
There are over 1,000 breweries participating in this initiative. For the complete list, click here, and be sure to pay a visit to a few of your favorites and order a Black is Beautiful.
We would like acknowledge the complex reality of two white dudes brewing an Export Style Stout particularly as part of the Black is Beautiful Stout campaign.
The variation to the base recipe is the right choice for our climate and service model. However, this only serves to highlight the problematic history of this beer. Please take a moment while sipping this refreshing beer in the shade of one of our patios to think about why a hearty classic English style was adapted to hotter climates; who would have been sitting, as you are, in the shade drinking this beer two hundred years ago and more importantly who wasn’t?Beer has always been close to the heart of “Western Society” and as such can be a lens through which we understand the injustices of our pasts. We hope to pay homage to the brewers who took this imported style and made it their own. Maybe, in some miniscule way this beer can shine a light on the way forward.
Mac and Tim, Brewers – Sedona Beer Company
The Black is Beautiful Homebrew Recipe
For complete details on the recipe for brewers and home brewers, along with everything you need to know about the Black is Beautiful Beer Initiative, click here.
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