USA, PA: Harris Family Brewery to become Pennsylvania’s first wholly black-owned brewery

While the historically white craft beer industry has made strides over the last few years in welcoming females into the ranks of equity owners, beer has a long way to go in terms of racial diversity. But in Pennsylvania, one hurdle has been cleared as Harris Family Brewery just successfully raised money for their GoFundMe, Forbes reported on June 23.

“I gotta take medicine to take my blood pressure down,” says Tim White, one of the brewery’s three passionate owners. “It was dry for months. Then this week, it took off.”

When it opens, Harris Family Brewery will be Pennsylvania’s first wholly black-owned brewery. The second, Philadelphia’s Two Locals Brewing Company, isn’t far behind. And Mack Brewing Co., while not technically a licensed brewery, often showcases their products around Philadelphia.

“We have a location,” says White. “Slowly but surely, it’s happening.”

Harris Family Brewery is a brewery-in-planning in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, founded by Shaun Harris, JT Thomas, and Tim White. When it opens, Harris Family Brewery will be Pennsylvania’s first black-owned brewery.

“We’ve been working on the project for four years,” says White. “Honestly, I thought we’d be open by now. I was going to apply for a Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) license three months ago, but COVID-19 shut everything down.”

Currently, White says Harris Family Brewery is “Eight-five percent ready.”

“As soon as the government office open back up, we’re going to submit our application for the PLCB,” he says.

As White tells it, brewmaster and owner Shaun Harris started homebrewing in 2014, after his wife got him a home-brew kit for Christmas. JT Thomas, Harris’s wife’s cousin, joined him not long after. Around late 2015 or early 2016, White entered the picture by marrying Harris’s wife’s sister.

“Because I was family, I got invited to the cookout,” White says. “They had tons of food, but no beer. So I was the MVP because I’d bring these 30-packs of Budweiser. But then, one cookout, Shaun brought out this brown liquid in a dirty glass and was like, ‘Yo, try this.’ I was like, ‘What?’ But I drank it and it wasn’t bad. In fact, it was really close to good.”

When Harris revealed that he’d made the beer in his kitchen, White was shocked.

“I had no idea what home-brewing was,” he says. “I didn’t know what craft beer was. But that night, we stayed up and drank his entire home-brew stash.”

A born entrepreneur, White suggested the three men turn Harris’s hobby into a business.

“I was like, I’m going to figure this out,” says White. “YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. YouTube taught us everything.”

Although there’s a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge amongst white craft brewers, that information doesn’t always make its way to historically marginalized business owners.

“We self-taught ourselves how to brew,” says White. “On Facebook, we tried joining a craft beer group, but it was one of those undercover racist places. Literally, people were like, ‘Ya’ll are trying to appropriate our thing.’”

Because Shaun Harris and his business partners didn’t have a traditional business mentor, they formulated their own recipes. So expect the ubiquitous stouts, IPAs, and lagers, but also products that speak directly to the black experience.

“As a whole, the black community drinks liquor,” says White. “The cheap stuff, the expensive stuff, you name it. So what liquors are black people drinking at an all time high? Let’s see if we can match that to beer and go from there. Or let’s try food pairing. What are black people eating that we could pair with?”

The beer industry needs more diverse voices and Harris Family Brewers is a step in the right direction. As they become better established, they’ll be able to share their knowledge and experience with other up-and-coming breweries that will bring their own experiences and creativity to the table.

“We’re just the beginning,” White says.

24 June, 2020