Beer Fest Features Six BIPOC Breweries
Tarik Moody and Sugar Maple will present Brown, Black & Brews: The 5th Ingredient on Dec. 3.
Sugar Maple. Photo taken May 29th, 2013 by Nastassia Putz.
Milwaukee, home to more than 25 craft breweries, is an obvious standout in the world of small-scale, traditional and experimental brewing methods. Even so, the city’s ever-expanding and evolving craft beer scene is consistently lacking in one area — diversity.
In response to the underrepresentation, The Sugar Maple and Radio Milwaukee‘s Tarik Moody will partner with six Black- and Brown-owned breweries from across the Midwest for a beer fest entitled Brown, Black & Brews: The 5th Ingredient.
Representatives from Illinois-based Brewer’s Kitchen, Funkytown Brewery, Azadi Brewing and Moors Brewing Company; Indiana-based 18th Street Brewery; and Milwaukee’s Soul Brew Kombucha, will pour samples and share stories at the event, where attendees will be encouraged to look beyond the components of traditional beer — water, yeast, grain and hops — and consider a fifth: culture.
Moody’s role in the fest was driven by a love of food, beer and culture, as well as a desire to inspire and support a new generation of brewers, according to a Facebook post from The Sugar Maple.
A news release for the event adds that “Tarik hopes this is just the beginning and would love to see this representation grow to encompass wine and spirits produced and owned by Black and Brown entrepreneurs from all over the country.”
Three of the breweries, Funkytown, Azadi and Brewer’s Kitchen, were launched by Pilot Project Brewing, an Illinois-based brewery incubator that will soon open its first Milwaukee location at the former Milwaukee Brewing Company production facility, 1128 N. 9th St. A representative of Pilot Project will be in attendance at the event.
The event will be the first of its kind for Wisconsin, though the state was once home to People’s Brewery, one of the first Black-owned breweries in the nation.
More information will soon be available on The Sugar Maple Facebook page.
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