Cigar City Brewing is proud to participate in Weathered Souls Brewing’s Black is Beautiful initiative, a joint effort by more than 1,000 American craft breweries to shine a light on social justice and systemic racial inequality.

Launched in June 2020 by San Antonio, TX craft brewery Weathered Souls Brewing, Black is Beautiful was developed as a platform for American craft breweries to “raise awareness for the injustices people of color face daily and raise funds for police brutality reform and legal defenses for those who have been wronged.” To date, more than 1,000 craft breweries have committed to participate in this amazing program, each of which has dedicated to donate their beer’s proceeds to a local organization that supports equality and inclusion.

The beer itself is a bold American Imperial Stout clocking in at 10% ABV. While other participating breweries chose to add adjuncts and additional ingredients to the recipe created by Weathered Souls, CCB decided to let the nuance of the base recipe shine through and eschew additional ingredients. The resulting beer shows off the trademark qualities of chocolate malt and chocolate rye malt, the caramel sweetness of 120 Lovibond Crystal malt, and the roastiness of traditional black patent malt. Coupled with the clean bitterness of Cascasde and CTZ hops, this recipe delivers dark chocolate, fresh ground espresso, and a rustic woody hop quality and finds balance between bold flavors.

Cigar City Brewing has committed all proceeds to the Hillsborough County Chapter of the NAACP, an organization that’s been executing the vision of the NAACP in the Tampa community for many years. Their mission to “ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination” fits seamlessly with the spirit of the Black is Beautiful initiative and the ethos of Cigar City Brewing.

Learn more about the Black is Beautiful initiative
Learn more about the Hillsborough County NAACP chapter