Atlanta-based craft beer lifestyle brand Draught Season, in collaboration with Atlanta Influences Everything and Monday Night Brewing, will debut a new beer called “Beer Starts With Us” Saturday. The brew was crafted, themed and timed to coincide with Black History Month and those who enjoy celebrating with a cold pint.
The beer, a 13.5% ABV imperial stout, will be available on tap and in bottles. “It’s going to be very limited,” warns Draught Season cofounder Kevin Irvin, who also serves as operations manager for Atlanta’s Atlantucky Brewing.
Credit: Jessica Miller
Credit: Jessica Miller
“It will more than likely sell out that day or soon after that. So anybody who is a beer aficionado, and really into stouts and wants something like this, you definitely want to get there on time.”
The launch event will be held from noon to 4 p.m. at Monday Night Garage on the Atlanta Beltline’s Westside trail. It is the latest in a line of collaborations the company has executed around beer since forming in 2020.
Draught Season has targeted craft beer enthusiasts with clothing and apparel, while highlighting Black and women-owned breweries and brewers. To date, Draught Season has collaborated with more than 40 Black-owned craft breweries in the United States and Canada, including Atlantucky and Hippin’ Hops, both based in Atlanta.
The group intentionally promotes the often-overlooked contributions of Black people in the brewing industry.
According to the National Black Brewers Association’s 2024 “State of The Black Brewer” report, out of the 9,761 craft breweries in America, 86 are Black-owned. The numbers show that Black-owned breweries account for less than one percent of market share.
In addition to stout sipping, the afternoon will include a conversation around the state of Black beer brewing.
The panel will feature craft beer writer and personality Dennis “Ale Sharpton” Byron; Christina “Craft Beer Chris” Hughes, cofounder of Craft Women Connect, a women-led group of beer connoisseurs and collaborators; and Peter Kiley, Monday Night Brewing partner and head brewmaster.
The group plans to discuss the history of Black people in beer and the current state of the business. There will be plenty to talk about.
Recent reports show headwinds for the brewing industry, potentially complicating inclusion of Black people entering and sustaining a business in beer. Local breweries are closing, craft beer’s popularity has been declining, more people are seeking nonalcoholic beverages, younger audiences are drinking less and many of Georgia’s restrictive brewery laws remain on the books.
“There’s been a lot of doom and gloom headlines about the craft beer industry but what the average consumer has to understand is that whenever you have any industry where there’s a huge boom, there’s going to be market correction at some point,” said Peters, noting the drastic change since craft beer’s rapid rise going into 2020 compared to now.
“When you look at the data across the board, it’s not crazy compared to any other consumer goods, or any other beverage. So yeah, there’s not a brewery on every corner doing big numbers anymore. However, there are still breweries that are doing well, and it is still a viable business.”
Atlanta Influences Everything became officially active in the beer world during the summer of 2021, when they partnered with Sandy Spring’s Pontoon Brewing to release Lemon Pepper Wet, a sour fruited Berliner Weisse. The hyperlocal brew’s aluminum can featured a design by Atlanta artist Tuki Carter and quickly sold out in retail shops around the city.
AIE brought the recipe back in 2022 with now-defunct Atlanta brewery Second Self for another limited run. With this new venture, AIE hopes to take what they learned from those previous experiences and deepen relationships with the beer community, especially among Black drinkers.
“What we found out in the process was how serious the beer community takes beer and how overlooked Black brewers and enthusiasts are,” says Tory Edwards, cofounder of Atlanta Influences Everything.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
“We found out that’s a community that’s grossly overlooked, and I think for us to do the collaborations and get the kind of love that we got, it made us feel like it was something we would love to revisit again.”
Bem Joiner, cofounder of Atlanta Influences Everything, believes if they had collaborated earlier with Draught Season and received subject matter expertise when the Lemon Pepper Wet sour beer launched, it would still be around today.
“Hopefully this event jumps off a more consistent partnership with us — Draught Season and other people in the beer space. Because the one thing that we all have in common, besides liking the taste of beer, is that we all want Atlanta to win and continue to prove the statement of our influence, be it in beer, sports, music or whatever.”
“Beer Starts With Us” puts a new spin on Draught Season’s “Beer Is Black History” initiative, which in previous years has seen the collective drop new products, including beer and apparel, for Black History Month.
“We don’t want to do the same things over and over again because that can get a little stale,” explains Draught Season cofounder Branden Peters when asked why they’re pivoting the slogan and messaging this year.
While there will be commemorative T-shirts and hoodies on sale as part of a collaborative capsule collection, the star of the show will be actual beer, which was aged for three years inside 19-year-old Fitzgerald bourbon barrels, which Kiley said he’d been “saving for the right reason.” The recipe also includes Ugandan vanilla beans, Ghanaian cocoa nibs and roasted macadamia nuts.
The ingredients are a geographic nod to a historical nugget that inspired Draught Season to exist: The first beers were reportedly brewed by Sumerian women in ancient Mesopotamia.
“I really love their interpretation of the idea that they’re trying to highlight,” said Kiley, who holds prior and personal relationships with both brands.
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Monday Night and AIE are partners in the 404 Collective which hosts one of the larger 404 Day annual events in Atlanta. Kiley also appeared in Draught Season’s initial “Beer Is Black History” campaign lookbook of clothing and apparel in 2021.
“It just kind of felt like a really, like a fun challenge to use ingredients from that area and just give it a sense of intentionality,” he added.
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