This feature is part of our 2023 Next Wave Awards.
Rich Bloomfield, Greg Williams, and Zack Day were in seventh grade when they forged their lifelong friendship, bonding over their shared love for music that eventually became a shared love for beer.
Returning back to their home city of Chicago after graduating from Grambling State University, an HBCU in Louisiana, the trio gravitated toward beers that were mainly made from malt liquor. “Mickey’s Steel Reserve, Olde English,” Bloomfield explains. “Pretty much all of the stuff that was $1.70 or less.”
Credit: Barry Breichesen
Living in Chicago during the craft beer boom, though, the three soon started experimenting with other beers, trying new styles and flavors, and learning the nuances between beer labels. But they realized they were the only ones in their friend group doing so.
“We would go out, to birthday parties or barbecues or whatever, and we would bring craft beer, but we were the only Black people there actually drinking it,” says Bloomfield. “All the other Black people, the women, the Hispanic people around us, they were kind of confused, but they were also curious.”
It was at this moment that the trio knew they had an opportunity to welcome a new group of drinkers to craft beer. Their first order of business? Actually talking to consumers to learn more about what they were looking for in a beer. They discovered that while the aromas of an IPA were appealing, many consumers actually found the taste to
