Black Is Beautiful collaboration beer helps our community

Milestone: This article is our 500th post since beginning the blog in 2015.

There could easily be $12,000 in total donations to local West Virginia community organizations from the Black is Beautiful beer collaboration project. Maybe even more. Each of the three West Virginia breweries participating in the project have committed to donate the entire sales proceeds—not just the profits—from the sale of Black is Beautiful stout to local groups that work for social and racial justice.

That’s an outstanding display of citizenship from Weathered Ground Brewery, The Peddler, and Bad Shepherd Beer Company. We’re guessing each of the three will be taking in somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,000 to $5,000 from the sales of their BIB beer.

Remember, all this is happening in a year when our breweries, themselves, are fighting year-over-year sales declines due to their taprooms having been closed by COVID-19 for several months and now operating at 50% capacity, often with reduced hours, and the same goes for their on-premise customers (bars and restaurants). For brewers to step up to the plate and donate 100% of the sales revenue is incredible and commendable. What a great industry we have. It gives me hope for our society and nation.

Taking a stand for racial justice

Weathered Ground plans a donation to the local chapter of West Virginia NAACP. The Peddler is committed to helping the Fairfield Community Development group in Huntington. Bad Shepherd Beer Company will donate to Charleston’s 2nd to None Giving Circle.

Check out our podcast

Check out our West Virginia Beer Roads podcast about the Black Is Beautiful stout talking with folks from The Peddler and Weathered Ground.

Buy the beer

Black is Beautiful beer from Weathered Ground is out now in 16-oz. cans, available at the taproom, and going into distribution at all their regular outlets. Bad Shepherd’s beer is all draft and currently being sold at their Charleston taproom. The Peddler’s beer will be brewed in early August, packaged as draft, released in September, and then available at their taproom and in distribution.

Watch for the Black is Beautiful brews and try them all. While they are all imperial stouts based on the same recipe, each brewery put its little twist on either ingredients, brewing process , or both. It will be fun to see how they turn out.

Around 1,000 U.S. brewers are participating and many more in 19 other nations. That is a strong showing for brewing. What a great move it was by Marcus Baskerville and his Weathered Souls Brewing in San Antonio to initiate this meaningful project. Read more about this project here.