City Brew Tours has announced the launch of its annual Talent on Tap Scholarship program to support women of color who have a “desire to make a lasting impact in the beer industry.”
Applications open Monday, October 5th, and will be accepted until December 1st. The first program award will be made in January 2021.
“Beer is one of the most diverse products in the world and has always been that way. There are limitless ways to combine the many unique ingredients to produce something great, something unforgettable,” says Barry Hansen, the company’s Chief Operating Officer.
“As an industry, beer has completely missed out on a lesson it could have learned simply from looking in its own glass, and we at City Brew Tours want to do anything in our power to correct that. The Talent on Tap scholarship is the first step in supporting those who are underrepresented in the industry because we know they can only make it better.”
Black women are grossly underrepresented in the beer industry. Last year, Celeste Beatty, the owner and head brewer of Harlem Brewing Company, made history by becoming the first Black woman to own a US brewery.
“Even though we brought our traditions from Africa, and we brewed beer for Thomas Jefferson and various people that enslaved us, we were never able to actually open the brewery, we were never able to actually be the entrepreneurs early on,” she told Business Insider at the time. “So, there is no tradition of owning breweries, of owning bars, because of that discrimination. And I don’t know if I would say the discrimination continues that blatantly today, but I think the biggest barriers is the lack of capital. We just don’t have it.”
The Talent on Tap Scholarship will be open to all women of color 18 years or older interested in pursuing education related to the beer industry. It will provide financial support for a wide range of educational pursuits such as Beer Science programs, Cicerone® Certifications, and other hospitality certifications.
