Black Star Line Brewing Company is a grassroots, family centered brewery launching a movement and nation building by inspiring self-determination, incubating social enterprises, practicing collective economics, and embodying healing and liberation. We are proud to be the first OUT, Black, queer woman owned and operated brewery.

Just in case you don't scroll down, here are some key takeaways:

1. We will be launching a new location in the DMV featuring a larger brewing system and increased brewing capacity.

2. We're looking to raise some additional funds to make the transition in to the new space.

3. We need your help!

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The funds received will help us not just sell great beers but also advance our social mission. Our distinctive apprenticeship program connects with the most marginalized, disenfranchised, and vulnerable in our communities by creating pathways out of poverty. Our unique programming aims to authentically cultivate community with our people. Our social mission focuses on building within underserved communities and partnering with folks who are often naturally manufacturers, culinary artists, and brew creatives. These untapped resources are our partners in the pursuit of emancipation and liberation.

We plan to utilize our brewery as a platform for real social transformation while providing liberation libations and resiliency drinks. Our aggressive social mission will creative opportunities, impact lives, and transform communities.

With your help, and over the course of the next year, we’ll be able to address issues of blight head on with collaborations in urban farming, developing sustainable food programs and the Black brewers supply chain, connecting with direct trade, and building the Black Brewers Guild. 

We supposed you want to know about our beers too, eh? Our beers are created with intentionality, prayer, and ritual; on the ground research, and refinement through our tasting team. We have 5 year round brews, 4 seasons, and 3 non-alcoholic botanicsl. We’ll also have pulque, a Afro-Mexican indigenous brew. Our beers are sweet and less hop forward which lead to enthusiascatically positive reviews. All beers were named and inspired by ancestors, spirit guides, community, friends on the journey, and family.

So who are the Brew Creatives? We are healers and organizers with a solid support council of those who have experience in brewing, startups, marketing, business development, and programming. We are resilient and self-taught. We are: magic, driven, passionate, devoted, and most of all, family.

Up to this point, we’ve bootstrapped and have been able to refine our recipes and our skills. We taught over 70 folks how to brew. It should be noted that these folks did not previously have experience with beer or even like beer or craft brewing. That’s part of the magic of Black Star Line Brewing Co. We’re a family and a nation. In order to truly realize our full potential, it is critically important that we raise these funds ASAP. We’ve leaned on the counsel of our ancestors and spirit guides (shot outs to James Baldwin!), and now need y’all to help us build.

We learned a lot from our experiences in Hendersonville, NC. As we move to the next phase, it's imperative, for our success, that we're fully capitalized. We'll use the funds to buy our malts, brewing ingredients, inventory, and necessary market (such as tap handles, nothing fancy friends). But most importantly, we’ll be able to hire apprenctices and create 5 living wage jobs over the next 6 months. If we were fully capitalized (at $275K), we could create over 15 living wage jobs. Living wage for us means at least $15/hr with benefits and centering healing and liberation.

Where will we be? Everywhere and anywhere there’s opportunities to serve liberation libations and resiliency drinks. We started in Hendersonville, NC. It's time to bring #blackstarlinebrewing "home" to the DMV. We're growing in cities where there are Black and Brown people so that are brewery can continue to be a ministry site, healing station, and community space. Some folks say its aggressive but we have to be aggressive, unrelenting, focused, and devoted when it comes down to pursuing our liberation.

We’ve been in the process of building the ship. Now, we’re in the ship. We need you to help us set sail. Here’s some ways you can be involved:

•          Be a DONOR. Please donate whatever you can, whenever you can, as much as you can.
•          Be an AMBASSADOR. Hit us up and let us know that you’d like to help us create a successful campaign.
•          Be an AMPLIFIER. Amplify this crowdfunding campaign through your networks, including social media.
•          Be an CONNECTOR. Help us secure some major gifts, corporate donations, and match sponsors. Thanks in advance!
•          Be a CONSPIRATOR. Wouldn’t it be great if Blichmann donated our pilot system to reduce cost? Interested in having that conversation? Think about how many costs could be reduced or even, completely eliminated, if we could get some corporate support. If this is your strong suit, let us know so we can get ya to work.
•          Be a COLLABORATOR. Clearly, there are some services that we need and if you’d like to offer your services for free, that’d be totally rad. Would you like to build with us?
•          Be a TEAM MEMBER. We’re looking for folks who are excited about brewing and want to join our team and family. We’re looking for folks who would be interested in interning with us this fall, incubating their social enterprise, and becoming a brew apprenctice.

Let me be clear: We need your help! We need your help not just building a great brewery, but launching this #sweetbeermovement. We need your help building a legacy and nation building, one beer at a time.

It is super vulnerable to be asking for your assistance. We carry the weight of our generational trauma and it is ever present with us. There is class shame that rises to the surface. However, we are excited and optimistic that we are being held lovingly in community as we launch and grow. We know that all of the resources that we need are already present and it’s now time for the harvest.

We are Brew Creatives and Innovators making our way in to the industry, carving out space for the “least of us,” developing our own distribution network, creating really fresh ways to access beer (such as our Community Supported Brewing – think: CSA but for beer), we’ll have private label accounts, beer catering, scholarships, and more. Y’all, this is fresh! We’re so blessed and we are so humbled and grateful that you’re going to be a part of our story, and a part of history.

Thank you, thank you, thank you in advance. 

Cheers!