Local breweries sell ‘Black is Beautiful’ branded beer, raising funds to fight police brutality
July 3, 2020 | WSPA
GREENVILLE, S.C. (WSPA) – Breweries here in Greenville and across the country are making efforts to stand in solidarity with the Black community and with those who have lost their lives to police brutality.
As of Friday afternoon, Liability Brewing Company, Birds Fly South Ale Project and Fireforge Crafted Beer are the only breweries in the Greenville area that are participating in the ‘Black is Beautiful’ beer campaign.
After seeing protests nationwide and in Greenville, owners at Liability Brewing Co. said they reached out to their friend in the Black community to ask about ways they can help support those fighting against police brutality.
They came across the campaign and decided it was something they wanted to participate in and used their own money and resources to print labels and package their Black is Beautiful branded beers.
“We want to help, we want to amplify your voice. We want to amplify the voices of other people of color, of locally owned black businesses and we started to think about all the different ways that we could do it. Participating in the Black is Beautiful collaboration brew was just one of those ways,” Kathy Horner, co-owner at Liability Brewing Company, said.
The campaign was initiated by Weathered Souls Brewing Company in Texas and aims to bring awareness to injustices that Black people and people of color face daily, and to raise funds to help win the fight against police brutality.
Birds Fly South is located in an under served community and is just minutes away from West Greenville. Lindsay Johnson, co-owner at Birds Fly South, said this cause is near and dear to her heart and she couldn’t just sit on her hands and do nothing.
“Over here in our community we’ve been trying to advocate for under served communities since the beginning, especially the neighborhood that we’re in. We’re in a very under served community here in our neighborhood and it’s been important to us to do whatever we can as a brewery,” Johnson said.
She said they also participated in a fundraiser for Black Lives Matter a few months ago.
The featured recipe for the beer is intended to be an entirely new stout-based beer, each brewer participating in the campaign is asked to put their own twist in their beer recipes.
All proceeds from every beer ordered will be donated to black organizations in the community. Owners at Liability Brewing and Birds Fly South Ale Project said they will be donating their funds to the Urban League of the Upstate.
As of today 946 breweries across the nation are participating in the campaign, nine of those are in the state of South Carolina.
To see all participating breweries, and to learn more about this campaign click here.
Find the article and video at WSPA.