Collaboration between 2 Black brewers will support other brewers of color

(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 as the catalyst for change, which will raise money for the Michael James Jackson Foundation scholarship and Illinois Diversity in Brewing scholarship.

"I had an idea based off of a church sermon. And basically it was like, ‘Who in the hell left the gate open?’" Westbrook said.

The beer is called "Who in the Helles Left the Gate Open?" and it is a traditional Munich Helles Lager.

"Beer is the conduit to people having conversations. So what can we do to bring people to have those conversations? And how can we have beer that serve as that?"

Day said money made from selling the beer will help send brewers of color to the Siebel Institute.

"My goal is to make sure that we put a spotlight on diversity,” Day said.

“I think that that can be done by letting all the rest of the breweries know in Illinois what we're doing right, and then have that ultimate holistic support from all around so now we start to change the landscape one brewery at a time."

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