Beer of the Week! 03/01/22
Beltway / Cajun Fire / Black Viking
Black Is Beautiful Beignet Stout
Regularly $14.99 / Now on Sale for $13.96
Stout Brewed with Beignets
This week’s Beer of the Week starts with the monumentally disruptive year of 2020. One of its most striking occurrences was when centuries of both non-fatal and fatal police violence against people of color were cast onto the world stage with the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Among the flood of activism that swelled up in response, Weathered Souls Brewing Company in San Antonio, TX decided to see what good they could do with a good brew.
Thus Weathered Souls created the Black Is Beautiful stout and dedicated 100% of its sales to 100 Black Men of San Antonio. They then released the recipe and the label art encouraging other breweries to remake or modify the original stout as long as they also donated some or all of their sales to similar organizations. A staggeringly impressive number of breweries took up that charge. Even more impressive (and moving) is that, two years later, breweries are still making Black Is Beautiful stouts having raised over $3,000,000 so far, which brings us to this week’s Beer of the Week.
Sterling, VA’s Beltway Brewing Company has collaborated with Black Viking Brewing Company (the first black-owned beer brand in Montgomery, Co. Maryland) and Cajun Fire Brewing Company (the first black-owned brewery in Louisiana) to make the Black Is Beautiful Beignet Stout. The brew trio have taken the core Black Is Beautiful Stout and have added Madagascar vanilla beans and beignets from Meaux Beignet in Bentonville, AR.
Where some beers hit you all at once, the Black Is Beautiful Beignet Stout takes you on a journey in taste. First it’s toasty-roasty on the nose, preparing you for a deep, dark dive. It starts creamy on the palate with the bitterness of dark chocolate following behind. Finally, the dark chocolate notes and the hops linger together in the aftertaste. It’s a resolutely complex beer, like you’re biting into a beautiful chocolate bar. Finally, a portion of this beer’s proceeds are going to the Harriet Baskerville Incubation Program — a Weathered Souls initiative (in Charlotte, NC) that works to provide opportunities for people of color and for all women to receive hands-on training in brewing.
Bonus Beer of the Week (‘Cause we were concerned that you couldn’t get no beer satisfaction!)
Alewerks Irish Cream Spiced Ale
Regularly $14.99 / Now on Sale for $13.96
Cream Ale with Espresso, Coco Nibs, and Vanilla
When we first ran into beers that were made to taste like other drinks, we were skeptical. (Hey, sometimes even we fear change.) However, after having some of said brews that did just what they said they would do (in an ever so tasty way), we kind of just gave in to the concept. It’s good that we did, ‘cause now it’s definitely a thing. What can we say? Craft beer continues to be ever-changing. So, welcome to Alewerks’ Irish Cream Spiced Ale!
Inspired, of course, by Irish Cream, Alewerks starts with a cream ale. After adding lactose to up the sweetness, they then get down to business dialing in the flavor. Vanilla beans, espresso, and coco nibs enter the mix and roll up their sleeves. The espresso provides a subtle bitterness that balances out the sweetness from the lactose allowing the vanilla to complete a light, creamy, “Cookies and Cream”-type treat. So, you can put your fears aside as Alewerks delivers a taste profile that would make Bailey’s proud. ;)
Remember!
You can see our entire beer inventory on Untappd.com!