Women have long been at the heart of beer brewing around the world, but rarely have they been able to capitalize on the economic benefits of their craft. Kweza seeks to change that for women in Rwanda: Female empowerment is the core tenet of this craft brewery in Kigali, which was finally licensed by the Rwandan government to make and sell beer this year. That was a milestone—as co-owner Jessi Flynn explains, “Being the first in the industry here took a long time and a lot of meetings and documentation to work through!”
Founded in 2016 as a collaboration between Beau’s All Natural Brewing Co. in Canada and a Rwandan businesswoman who has since stepped away from the project, today, Kweza is today helmed by three women: American Jessi Flynn, Zimbabwean Debby Leatt, and Rwandan Josephine Uwase, the latter of whose recipe for sorghum beer is now one of the mainstays of the brewery’s range. The five-beer offering also includes a Ginger Ale made with local ginger and lemon (a recipe born of lockdown) as well as a Belgian Honey Ale, blending European methods with Rwandan ingredients, notably honey sourced from a women’s cooperative.
“Inspiration is everywhere,” write Flynn, Leatt, and Uwase of their work. With their focus on ingredients sourced locally from female farmers using sustainable practices, they want to spur wide-ranging change. While there is, for example, no malting industry in Rwanda, they hope that with their demand for local malt, they may create jobs all along the value chain.
Their business is, they say, a marriage of many facets: chemistry, management, infrastructure, and, of course, flavor. “Then, when those things go right, our favorite thing is the people,” they write. “We really like leading the way, and Rwanda so far is very excited to see women starting a new industry.”
Words,Emily Monaco