The Craft Brewers Conference (CBC), one of the brewing industry’s biggest events of the year, is taking place this week in Nashville, Tennessee. In a twist of complicated and unfortunate timing, the state has recently pushed forward several laws attacking trans health, drag queens, and most of all, the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole. These laws are currently being reviewed by the courts thanks to a few non-profits in Tennessee.

For the past few years, the Brewers Association (BA) has been putting forth initiatives to address the inequalities that plague the brewing industry, from working towards increasing black and brown voices, uplifting the LGBTQIA+ community, and celebrating women in brewing. While the BA, like many of us, was blindsided by these laws moving through the Tennessee House and Senate, they have put forth new seminars that add value to marginalized voices and have pushed for events outside of the day-to-day conference happenings that are being held in queer spaces and businesses owned by LGBTQIA+, black, and brown folks.

Minnesota can feel far enough away from what’s happening in Tennessee, but that doesn’t prevent us from creating the change we would like to see. This is why we’re teaming up with Arbeiter, Dual Citizen, Modist, and La Doña this week to help raise awareness and money for deserving non-profits in Tennessee and our own backyard fighting for the rights of trans and queer individuals.

All day on Friday at our taproom, round up when you close out your tab to donate to QUEERSPACE Collective out of Minnesota and Inclusion TN out of Tennessee. From 5-8 pm, we’ll also be donating $1 from every draft pour to these orgs doing amazing work.