(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — During Black Business Month, two Black Chicago craft brewers are collaborating on a new beer to promote inclusivity and fund scholarships for brewers of color.
Jay Westbrook, better known as The Black Beer Baron, said he cried when he found out he received the Illinois Diversity in Brewing scholarship from the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild, which sent him to Siebel Institute of Technology’s World Brewing Academy.
“Trying to dodge these feelings of, you know not belonging, and you know being, you know an imposter in a place that you don’t fit…. So, now I feel like it’s my house.”
Now he and Zack Day of Funktown Brewery, who received a scholarship from Michael James Jackson Foundation to attend the Siebel Institute, are paying it forward.
Day said less than 1% of breweries are Black, all and less than 4% of brewery employees are Black.
They are using a new beer …