MONROE — Earlier this year, Weathered Souls Brewing in San Antonio, Texas brewed a beer to bring awareness to social injustices happening throughout the country. An oatmeal-style stout, brewed with classic dark malts, created a dark-as-night beer. The beer was named Black is Beautiful. Proceeds from the sale of this beer are donated to organizations that assist with social injustices among minorities and communities of color. 

By putting the recipe available for public use, they challenged other breweries to put their own spin on it. Nearly 1,200 breweries across the world have participated in brewing their own variant. Wisconsin-area breweries Central Waters, Giant Jones, and Third Space being were just some that rose to the challenge. 

Weathered Souls, in creating the beer, stated “The Black is Beautiful initiative is a collaborative effort amongst the brewing community and its customers, in an attempt to bring awareness to the injustices that many people of color face daily. Our mission is to bridge the gap that’s been around for ages and provide a platform to show that the brewing community is an inclusive place for everyone of any color.”

Weathered Souls’ challenge extended beyond commercial breweries and included homebrewers as well. The Cheese City Brewers and Vintners Homebrew Club, located in Monroe, wanted to answer the call and brew this recipe as well. Several challenges to brew this recipe arose, including scaling the recipe to a wide audience and availability to sell the beer in accordance with state and local regulations. The club approached Bullquarian Brewhouse owner Ethan Kister, a frequent supporter of homebrew enthusiasts, with their idea. Planning began with how to tailor the recipe to have a Green County spin. Club members suggested that they include petit fours from Colony Brands, one of Green County’s largest employers, in order to highlight local community business leaders.

“A lot of thought goes into making a beer recipe like this one,” Kister said. “Our aim was to balance the extreme dark and roasted malt flavors, with the sweetness of the high alcohol, and bitterness of the hops. We chose a yeast strain that could handle the high alcohol content, while maintaining a high fermentation temperature, keeping the neutral flavor.

“The addition of Swiss Colony petit fours adds a nice bit of fermentable sugar and a hint of vanilla.” 

Bullquarian Brewhouse and the Cheese City Brewers and Vintners plan to age the beer in a Wisconsin-distilled bourbon barrel, to add yet another layer of complexity, as well as to coax out more of the vanilla flavor. A release date is planned for early next year and will be available in the Bullquarian Brewhouse tap room, as well as limited availability of crowlers and growler fills to take home. 

“The Black is Beautiful initiative is a fantastic cause for the Cheese City Brewers and Vintners and Bullquarian Brewhouse to collaborate on,” said Logan Cisewski, president of the home brewing club. “Celebrating diversity and inclusivity in the brewing community is a big focus for our club, and we hope that everyone comes out to support our efforts.”

Bullquarian Brewhouse has been in business since early 2017, brewing beer on site as well as offering many different choices for dining. The Cheese City Brewers and Vintners homebrew club is located in Monroe and meets on the first Wednesday of every month.