“Black is Beautiful” collab beer to support racial equality

USA | Since the death of George Floyd, who was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, craft brewers have come together to launch a new beer in support of equality for people of colour.

Named “Black is Beautiful”, the beer is a 10 percent ABV imperial stout. The first beers are expected to come out in July.

Weathered Souls, a black-owned craft brewery in San Antonio, Texas, created the recipe and put up a website for downloading it: blackisbeautiful.beer/

By mid-June more than 900 breweries in all 50 states and in 17 countries had joined the initiative, each producing a stout whose proceeds will raise funds for organisations like Black Lives Matter.

While the profits from the beer will go toward social justice causes, the product is also a marketing opportunity for breweries. As said Marcus Baskerville, a co-founder of Weathered Souls, the hope is that the message behind it will help them reach the industry’s millennial consumers, as well as new beer drinkers who are now giving craft beverages a try.

Brewers Association supports diversity

The Brewers Association has long tried to promote diversity in the craft brewing industry by creating grant programmes, partnering with minority organisations and hiring a diversity ambassador. But its latest data, published in August 2019, show that 76 percent to 89 percent of brewery employees are white. Additionally, 62 percent to 92.5 percent were male, excluding service staff positions.

“Anyone scanning [the 2019 data] will conclude there is work to be done, and we as a craft beer community can do better,” Julia Herz, the Brewers Association’s craft beer programme director, wrote in an accompanying note.