I met Kemeron Senhouse during one of my first shifts as a taproom beer guide at Suspended Brewing Company in Baltimore, Maryland. He and I hit it off pretty quickly. For one, we’re the rare faces of color in the craft beer industry. For another, Kem is a really interesting dude, and an artist—in every sense of the word.
Before I’d gotten on board with Suspended, back in March 2019, I’d gotten wind of the brewery’s grand opening a few months prior. One of the first things I noticed was the fire-ness of its merchandise. That was confirmed after I started working there, when I realized that, yeah, all the visuals are fire. After a few shifts, I finally asked one of the owners who was responsible for the design work. “Kem does it,” she said. “He’s awesome.”
One Sunday, Kem and I were scheduled for the same shift, and I finally got to ask him about the logos and merch. We also rapped a little about his background (he’s first-generation Trinidadian-American), how he and the owners are old college buddies, and his graphic design skills.
For me, I’m usually the only face of color in a lot of settings—mainly within breweries, and specifically as a brewery employee. As much as I love embracing folk from different cultures and ethnicities, there is a level of comfort in knowing that there are people who look like you, and who share similar interests to you—especially in industries where you’re underrepresented.
We’re now in week seven of quarantine, and the taproom has been closed for as many weeks. I sent Kem a text a couple days ago to see how he’s holding up during this time of social distancing. We rapped about the usuals: Are you masked-up at grocery stores? Do you sanitize your beer bottles? Are you and your lady at each other’s necks? But the main thing I asked him was whether he thought it was weird not having that connection to people that the taproom had previously provided.
“It is,” he said. “I think there is a certain part of interacting with people you don’t know that changes you, on an unconscious and conscious level. On a conscious level, your views may change after a conversation. You may think about interactions after work and ponder about a bunch of things. But, on an unconscious level, you may find yourself missing those times and people you didn’t even know you cared to see.”
Kem, and others like him, find it difficult to cope during these strange circumstances, when the need to connect with people and socialize has been taken away abruptly. One can only hope the appreciation of connectivity, and these small but important moments of socializing, increase whenever life gets back to “normal.”
“The connections made over drinks sometimes seem very light and in some ways insignificant,” Kem continued, “but I think over time, when you see certain people enough, there is a camaraderie that is formed with each interaction.”
Since the start of the quarantine, I have become more sensitive and emotional about the people I can no longer hang out with, give daps to, or simply have a beer with. I miss Suspended Brewing and the staff, I miss all my friends, and I miss my homie Kem. More importantly, I miss life before COVID-19—but I am prepared to never take good people and good times for granted again.
Words by Jamaal Lemon