Citizen Spotlight: Celeste Beatty And NC Based Harlem Brewing Company

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By: Ms Jheri Worldwide

Staff Writer

I’m excited to share our next citizen to spotlight, Celeste Beatty the first Black woman to own a brewery in the United States. You will be thrilled and inspired by the story of Harlem Brewing Company, particularly their North Carolina division, Harlem Brew South. As soon as I walked into the historic space, I was captivated by the size and the architecture. This space was the location of ‘Operation Dixie.’ On this same site, women were treating the tobacco, picking leaves, tying it up, hanging it up to dry processing, all of that here, where Celeste will soon be brewing beer. More than 10,000 black women, black leaf tobacco workers, cast a vote right in this area. In 1946, pay was bad, and so were the working conditions. So they cast a vote through a unionized process that allowed them to get better working conditions and better pay. The historic marker indicates that this was a “precursor to the civil rights movement.”

After dropping this knowledge on me in this overwhelming beautiful and historic space, Celeste offered me the best beer I’ve ever had made from coffee and chocolate, and we had a memorable conversation. As we explored the building, Celeste highlighted more history, “This whole area was tobacco and cotton. So all the stuff you see here helped dry the tobacco, helped process the tobacco, and there was an auction. Auctions continually that happened, people would walk through and evaluate the condition of tobacco. They would purchase it based on whether they thought it was in the appropriate condition. So during the day, this was auctions. It was processing. At night, music was on! Everybody who came through the Apollo came through here. I don’t know if it was this exact building yet, because we still haven’t found out, but some tobacco warehouse and Rocky Mount. Everybody that was on the stage of the Apollo came through there.” This made perfect sense, being that the location is not far from interstate 95.

I was excited to learn about the brewing process. At the moment, Celeste and her team are brewing in Harlem. Soon they’ll be brewing here in eastern North Carolina thanks to a game changing donation, “Not quite a year ago, this equipment that you see here was actually donated to our project. Yes, donated! We were in the middle of raising capital to renovate and to get equipment. Through the National Black Brewers Association, which I’m a founding board member of, along with Kevin Johnson (KJ), also, Marcus Baskerville, who created the Black is Beautiful beer campaign that raised more than $5 million during the George Floyd movement to support black organizations around the world. Denise Ford-Sawadogo and Leo, they own the brewery, Montclair Brewery in New Jersey. Nappy roots out of Atlanta, they are part of our board as well, Atlantucky Brewing. So there’s a group of about 15 members of our board. One of our members, Garrett Oliver, is the brewer for Brooklyn Burley. He showed up at a meeting, I think we were in Sacramento at the time, he said, look, guys, I have a brewing system we don’t have room for, we got to figure out what to do with it. I was sitting right behind them at the time. I said, I’ll take it! They did a vote right at that moment, the motion was put on the table by KJ. And everybody voted for us to get the system. It was moved in here from Princeton, New Jersey.”

What a savvy entrepreneur! I inquired about the actual brewing process, “So now it’s sitting here. We can’t do anything with it, because the plans are now with the city. They’ve got to approve the plans for the electrical, plumbing, and mechanical stuff that has to be put in place to support this.”

Celeste had mentioned that breweries are not exactly the most lucrative investment these days, because quite a number of them are closing, but there is a bigger play. She elaborated, “Now that we have black brewers, black and brown brewers are on the rise, but we have problem getting funding for our projects. Even though it’s been shown that black and brown breweries, have the greatest potential for success. The environment, in terms of the brewing industry, is not favorable to invest in breweries. So, to convince people to invest in our products, we’ve got to really go overboard to show them why what we’re doing is culturally unique from what the other brewers are doing that are closing. Fact is, we don’t have gathering places. McDonald’s, all those fast food places are not the environments where work or deals happens. When you gather, you communicate, people fall in love when they gather. Today, 9,500 locations exist in our country that allow other communities to do that. They don’t allow our communities to do that. So, it’s not just about drinking and getting a little saucy. Historically, from the women that I met in Africa, that brew beer, they were part of the ceremonies, having been there for thousands of years. It was part of that. We’re trying to bring the same thing to our communities now that we legally can actually brew beer and sell it, historically, weren’t able to do that.”

Already impressed with the flavors and the space, I wanted to know more about Celeste and her background. She shared with me about her career in international relations and her experiences in New York and abroad. I was excited to learn that brewing was in her blood, “Farm to table is something we grew up with. My grandparents grew stuff on the farm. I was in Future Farmers of America at RJ Reynolds High School. I grew hops. I grow stuff, and I brew it. That’s just what I do. The combination of the land, the gardening, and the history pulled me deeper into what was a hobby. The meaning and purpose of what that represents to me go me deeper into it and I fell in love with it. There is so much history in brewing to ceremonial and cultural elements. … My mother used to make Ginger Beer for the early Kwanzaa celebrations in Winston-Salem. The process of making it we would help cut the ginger, crush the ginger, boil the ginger. It wasn’t beer, but it made me think about the process. When I started connecting the dots, remembering those things had an impact and the gatherings we had were positive.”

On October 1st, 2024, Harlem Brew Soul, A Beer Infused Soul Food Cook Book by Celeste Beatty will be released! Harlem Brew Soul shares over 80 beer-infused soul food favorites with a beer-infused twist. With more than two decades of brewing history and tradition, Harlem Brewing Company has been crafting beers that satisfy and excite beer drinkers everywhere. Moving beers into restaurant after restaurant and onto shelf after shelf, Harlem Brewing Company is one to follow and find for your bar.

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