San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
This beer helps serve social justice.
Mixing hops and conscience, brewer makes world better place
Marcus Baskerville didn’t set out to become a role model, but a year after launching the Black Is Beautiful beer initiative, the 36-year-old co-founder of Weathered Souls Brewing Co. has found himself in exactly that position.
Black Is Beautiful started last June as little more than a recipe for a potent imperial stout and an idea: that brewers could make a beer and donate the profits to a charity or organization working toward racial equality. Since then, that concept has grown to include more than 1,200 participating breweries in all 50 states and more than 20 countries around the world.
And Baskerville, who’s generally a soft-spoken and introverted person who prefers pitching yeast over public speaking, has become the face of social justice in the brewing world.
“It’s crazy that you have situations where younger black brewers look up to me as a brewer, because I’m still, in my mind, new to the game,” he said. “It’s amazing how life just completely flip-flopped off of trying to do something positive.”
It’s hard to understate how rapidly Black Is Beautiful evolved. The movement has raised at least $2 million — and probably quite a bit more than that. As of May, Baskerville said
about 400 of the 1,200 participating breweries had reported their donations, noting that it’s been challenging to get accurate numbers from all the participants. The Black Is Beautiful beer can now be found in 330 Walmart stores across the country. And Baskerville has done about 60 interviews, podcasts, television appearances and other media spots promoting the cause.
‘Making strides’
All of which has been overwhelming for a guy who, at the end of the day, really just wanted to make great beer but along the way became a champion for inclusivity and equality in the brewing world.
Baskerville’s path toward Black Is Beautiful started at the peak of U.S. racial tensions in 2020. Protesters around the country were speaking out about police brutality and racism after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. In April, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted on two counts of murder in the case.
For Baskerville, a father of two young girls, sitting on the sidelines simply wasn’t an option. He repeatedly experienced racial profiling growing up as a young Black man in a predominantly white neighborhood in California, and wanted to help give his daughters a different future.
“We’re at such a prolific point in history. We’re making strides to another civil justice movement in the United States and not making an effort didn’t sit well with me. As my kids get older,
they’re going to ask, ‘What was my daddy doing at that time?’ ” Baskerville said. “My kids are going to be able to look at this and see the efforts that their father and this brewery made to make some type of change, and it’s transcended well beyond beer at this point.”
For all the accolades and attention, Baskerville’s proudest moment in the wake of Black Is Beautiful doesn’t have anything to do with his newfound and reluctantly accepted celebrity status.
What’s making his heart sing
right now is news of a completely Black- and woman-owned brewery named Kweza Craft Brewery opening soon in Kigali, Rwanda. Not only is it Rwanda’s first craft brewery but Baskerville’s Black Is Beautiful beer will be one of the first brews to hit taps there. And he had nothing to do with it — Baskerville only learned of the brewery and their version of his beer from a social media post by the upstart business.
“That’s just amazing,” he said. “All the way across the world this resonated so much with them that one of the first beers they’re
going to produce is Black Is Beautiful.”
Movement’s next steps
It’s not just Black brewers taking up the Black Is Beautiful mantle. More than 250 breweries signed on to the campaign within the first 48 hours of its launch last year. Baskerville is one of what he guesses to be roughly 30 Black head brewers in the more than 8,500 craft breweries in the country.
For Peter Caira of People’s Pint Brewing Co. in Toronto, Canada, signing on with the Black Is Beautiful
initiative was an easy choice.
Caira made a version of Baskerville’s beer — breweries are welcome to riff on the original recipe — spiked with salted caramel, mango and habanero chilies that raised about $1,600 for a Black-focused health care organization and a racially diverse theater company in Toronto.
“Look, I mean our motto is ‘beer for the people, by the people,’ ” Caira said. “This has been something that has been an injustice for way too long and any opportunity to be an ally and make a difference is something we believe in.”
Moving forward, Baskerville said he sees Black Is Beautiful becoming more of a wide-ranging banner supporting Black entrepreneurs in a number of ways, be it breweries partnering with Black-owned restaurants or other businesses. He’d like to pursue partnerships with national brands focused on health and wellness that focus on the Black community. And critically, he aims to have much more transparency with the money being raised in the Black Is Beautiful name.
He also hopes to see Black Is Beautiful become a vehicle for opportunity in the brewing industry — which remains populated predominantly by white males.
“The real power is ownership,” Baskerville said. “Until we start seeing more women and people of color in leadership roles and ownership roles we’re not going to see a lot of change.”