A month after its launch, the 8 Trill Pils Initiative now has a namesake beer in the market.
Inglewood, California-based Crowns & Hops Brewing and Scotland-headquartered BrewDog have teamed up for an international release of 8 Trill Pils pilsner within Crowns & Hops California footprint and at BrewDog locations in Ohio, the U.K. and Berlin, Germany.
All proceeds from the beer’s sales will benefit organizations fighting racial injustice in three different countries: Race Forward in the U.S., Kwanda in the U.K. and Black, Brown, Berlin in Germany.
In each country, the breweries tapped a different artist of color for can designs. Upendo created the U.S. can and Kingsley Nebechi created the U.K. can. Artists from Berlin studio Baketown designed the German can.
The 8 Trill Pils Initiative takes its name from a paper Ani Turner wrote for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation that found the U.S. economy could expand by $8 trillion in the next 30 years if not for racial disparities baked into social and economic structures.
Crowns & Hops, owned and founded by Beny Ashburn and Teo Hunter, is just one of about 60 Black-owned breweries in the U.S. In Turner’s paper, she wrote that racial inequity in five categories needs to be vanquished before economic growth can be attained. They are healthcare, education, housing, criminal justice and employment/entrepreneurship; the funds selected to receive money from the sales were chosen accordingly.
“We want to ensure the funds raised will benefit organizations that are actively pushing to eliminate disparities in areas that affect quality of life and productivity,” Hunter said in a press release.
Hunter and Ashburn linked up with BrewDog in April 2018 when the BrewDog Development Fund invested in Crowns & Hops. That fund helped launch 8 Trill Pils last month with a $100,000 donation.
Along with the release of the beer, the breweries have named Tuesday, September 8, a day of action. They are asking drinkers to share the beer on social media and learn about each beneficiary organizations’ missions.
“Racial inequity is everywhere and one way for BrewDog to help make an impact is to use our voice and our channels to put a spotlight on what our friends at Crowns & Hops are doing to drive change in our industry,” BrewDog co-founder James Watts said in the release. “We know the craft beer community is strong — and with the launch of the 8 Trill Pils beer, we’re making it easy for people to get involved by doing something they love: drinking beer.”
Crowns and Hops won the 2019 Brewbound Pitch Slam competition at Brewbound Live in December.