Jul 11, 2021
You’re listening to a special-edition, three-part podcast series
about Charleston’s Schützenfest, a German gun and beer festival
that initially was a diverse and welcoming environment in the mid
19th century, but which gradually evolved into a site of white
supremacy.
In our first podcast, we spent a lot of time exploring how
African-Americans were excluded from the Schützenfest and later the
craft beer industry. Now we explore a simple question: “What were
they drinking at the Schützenfest, and what were those excluded
from the Schützenfest drinking?” We have Mike Stein and Peter
Jones, president and CEO of the Lost Lagers beverage research
consultancy, respectively, to help answer that question. Mike and
Peter were also researchers for the three-part editorial series
that went out on Good Beer Hunting this week—if you haven’t
already, give those stories a read. In this episode, they’ll talk
about indigenous ingredients, enslaved brewers, and some of the
first Guinness beer to reach the United States.
After this, tune into Part Three of this podcast series, where I
meet up with Mr. Sammy Backman of Backman Seafood, KJ Kearnery of
Black Food Fridays, and Jaime Tenny of Coast Brewing Company, to
talk about the influence of exclusion in Charleston and in their
respective industries.