American Craft Beer The Best Craft Beer, Breweries, Bars, Brewpubs, Beer Stores, And Restaurants Serving Serious Beer.
(Courtesy Terrapin Beer)
There’s no avoiding the lack of diversity in the brewing industry. It’s overwhelmingly white and largely male, but Molson Coors. small brewery division Tenth & Blake is the latest of many initiatives which hopes to change all that.
Here’s the deal
In an effort to increase diversity in brewing professionals, Tenth & Blake is launching a new scholarship programs in Tennessee, Oregon and Colorado.
The idea was born at Terrapin Beer in Athens, Georgia and grew to include, Hop Valley Brewing Co. in Eugene, Ore., and A.C. Golden Brewing Company in Golden, Colo.
Confronted the difficult topics involving race across the nation, Dustin Watts and his colleagues at Terrapin Beer began exploring what they could do to increase diversity in the brewing industry and decided that education was key…
Watts and Team Terrapin reached out to Middle Tennessee State University to explore establishing a scholarship for underrepresented students in its Fermentation Science program.
The university jumped at the idea, and now is one of three schools that are part the Tenth & Blake Brewing Education Scholarship Fund.
“It’s an exciting unique way to try and drive change inside of our industry,” Watts told Beer & Beyond…
“Diversity is extremely important in the workplace. In craft beer, we’ve always joked that if you go to a craft beer conference, you see a lot of beards and tattoos on white people. We hope to change that by making education and a career path more viable for underrepresented students.”
Announced on September 24 by Molson Coors’ craft beer arm Tenth & Blake, “ the annual program matches students at Middle Tennessee State University, Oregon State University and Colorado State University with scholarships worth $10,000.
Each recipient will also earn a full-time, paid internship between their junior and senior years at the Tenth & Blake brewery near their universities.”
Tenth & Blake’s new initiative is but the latest effort by big breweries to increase diversity in the brewing industry…
Brooklyn Brewery’s brewmaster, Garrett Oliver, masterminded the Michael Jackson Foundation for Brewing & Distilling, which aims to support Black, indigenous and people of color in the beer industry.
Constellation Brands, home to brands such as Corona and Modelo in the US, has pledged $100 million to improve minority representation in brewing through a series of investments over 10 years.
And on September 23, Anheuser-Busch announced that it would fund 30 annual scholarships over the next five years to grow Black representation in the brewing industry.
