Yes, Black People Brew Beer, Too

Pittsburgh’s beer-drinking identity is either the scruffy steel worker with drops of I.C. Light splattered across his ZZ Top beard, or the Cupertino-transplant tech wizard swilling an Imperial IPA through a not-plastic straw so as not to get froth on their salon-coifed mustache. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle, and includes a group often erased from that beer-chugging identity: African Americans. Two black men in Pittsburgh—comedian/podcaster Day Bracey and event promoter/brewer Mike Potter—are hoping to change that picture when they launch the “Fresh Fest” this weekend, which they are billing as the first African-American beer festival in the nation.

The name is inspired by the early 1980s “Fresh Fest” hip-hop tour that exported the then-mostly New York City-brewed brand of street culture to cities across America. Bracey and Potter are hoping to do the inverse with their “Fresh Fest”: Import the various black-owned brands of beer breweries from around the country to one central location for a weekend—and show the world some black brew magic.