Los Angeles-based, Black-owned brewery Crowns & Hops has partnered with BrewDog, the Scotland-based international brewery with a Pendleton taproom, to release “8 Trill Pils.”
The beer is aimed at driving awareness around racial equity in the brewing industry.
“The craft beer industry provides a perfect vantage point for steps needed to create a racially equitable society based on the current lack of diversity in brewery ownership. Crowns & Hops hopes to inspire others to start conversations and take action in their respective industries to drive racial equity and to support Black entrepreneurs,” says a release from BrewDog.
The beer is named for a statistic from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation study Business Case for Racial Equity that states “if we focus on racial equity now, by 2050, we stand to to realize an $8 trillion dollar impact to our national GDP,” says Teo Hunter, co-founder and head of beer operations at Crowns & Hops.
To help close that equity gap, the report says to focus on five pillars: healthcare, education, criminal justice, housing and employment/entrepreneurship. So Crowns & Hops has also created a $100,000 8 Trill Pils Fund with a grant from BrewDog to help fund and develop Black-owned and minority-owned breweries.
“We want to ensure the funds raised will benefit organizations that are actively pushing to eliminate disparities in areas that affect quality of life and productivity,” says Hunter.
Crowns & Hops received their own BrewDog grant in 2018.
Sales of the 8 Trill Pils beer — in cans designed by three different BIPOC artists in three different countries (Upendo in the U.S., Kingsley Nebechi in the U.K., and Baketownin Germany) — will benefit “organizations focused on driving sustainable change and create immediate actionable steps toward accomplishing racial equity around the globe,” says BrewDog, with 100% of beer proceeds going to those initiatives.
“Racial inequity is everywhere and one way for BrewDog to help make an impact is to use our voice and our channels to put a spotlight on what our friends at Crowns & Hops are doing to drive change in our industry,” says BrewDog co-founder James Watt in a release. “We know the craft beer community is strong — and with the launch of the 8 Trill Pils beer, we’re making it easy for people to get involved by doing something they love: drinking beer.”
Shop online at shopusa.brewdog.com/products/8-trill-pils, or visit the Pendleton taproom to purchase the brew.
And learn more about the 8 Trill Pils initiative and find resources and tools at 8trillpils.org.
This article appears in The Meaning of Monuments.