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 last 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 Kearney 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.