Brewers Worldwide Are Making A Stout Beer Called ‘Black Is Beautiful’ To Support Equality

Protests about the racial inequality in America have reached areas of the world far beyond the United States, and the movement has reached the craft beer community. Brewers worldwide are joining an initiative called Black is Beautiful by selling stout beer with the same label to raise awareness around the injustices Black people and people of color face daily and to help raise funds for organizations that support them.

Marcus Baskerville, the founder and head brewer of Weathered Souls Brewing Company in San Antonio, TX, started this initiative. “As a father and Black business owner, I wanted to figure out a way to give back,” Baskerville told Delish. “I didn’t participate in the protests, and so I kind of felt disappointed in myself that I wasn’t able to get out there and be there for the cause.”

So Baskerville decided he wanted to brew a beer and release it to support those who were protesting. He took the drink to Jeff Stuffings of Jester King Brewery to talk about the label, and Stuffings then challenged him to turn the beer into a collaboration. Within 24 hours, Baskerville developed the initiative, enlisted designer Kevin Dyer of KD Designs to create the label, and released the campaign into the world.

On the campaign’s website, Weathered Souls offers a recipe for a 10 percent ABV stout that any brewery can use and make their own. The labels for the beer, called “Black is Beautiful,” are available to download on the website in various can and bottle sizes. The logo on the label was inspired by protestor signs that feature black letters on white and vice versa, but Baskerville also wanted a label that was entirely representative of the black community. Dyer took that idea, combined with an image he had in his head of the paint swatches you find at stores like Home Depot, and created an interlocking gradient with hard lines. “I thought the idea of locking pieces showed that they are all different but one–the solidarity of it,” Dyer told Delish.

Brewers can add their logo and other information to the right corner of the label to make it brand-specific. Any brewer who prints the labels through the digital agency The Creative Mango will get a discount. Recognizing that not all breweries have the funding to print labels, Dyer created stickers in three different sizes–all downloadable on the website–so people can use those to spread the campaign via anywhere, whether on a wall, bike, bottle, or car.

The campaign asks breweries that want to participate to donate all of the proceeds to local organizations that support police brutality reform and legal defenses for those who have been wrongfully incarcerated. They also ask that brewers commit to the longterm work of equality and choose their own organization to donate to as well. Weathered Souls is donating part of its proceeds to the Know Your Rights Campaign and is still deciding where to donate the rest locally, Baskerville said.

The initiative is inspired by the brewing industry’s recent All Together beer campaign to support the hospitality industry during the COVID-19 crisis and the Sierra Nevada beer campaign that developed after the devastating California wildfires of 2018. Stout Collective, a branding, marketing, and design studio, helped build the All Together campaign website and reached out to the “Black is Beautiful” founders to do the same for them.

“I didn’t plan for it to turn into all of this, but the response has obviously been amazing as far as the support we’ve gotten from everybody,” Baskerville said. So far, 249 breweries have signed on in 35 different states and across seven countries—the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Germany, Japan, Rwanda, the Netherlands, and Brazil.

The only backlash the campaign saw in the beginning is when they had the word “Black” in quotes on the logo, which became confusing to viewers, so they removed the quotes. The word was in quotes to emphasize Black culture.

Some online retailers have already reached out to the campaign, but for now, Baskerville is focusing on local distribution. “I’m thinking at this point, we’re going to do a release of Black is Beautiful probably once a year around the same time, and we’ll also be starting a barrel aged program,” Baskerville said.

From here, Baskerville hopes that the craft beer community can be at the forefront of change. “The whole entire initiative is about supporting equality and inclusion and having a common respect for everybody,” Baskerville said. “It would be awesome if the craft beer community put their best foot forward to show the rest of the word that if we can do it, anybody can do it.”

https://www.delish.com/food-news/a32783547/black-is-beautiful-beer-initiative/