NPR: Why Aren't There More People Of Color In Craft Brewing?

Michael Ferguson sometimes jokingly refers to himself among colleagues as "the other black brewer." 

That’s because Ferguson, of the BJ’s Restaurants group, is one of only a small handful of African-Americans who make beer for a living. Latinos and Asian-Americans are scarce within the brewing community, too.

"  For the most part, you’ve got a bunch of white guys with beards making beer," says Yiga Miyashiro, a Japanese-American brewer with Saint Archer Brewery in San Diego. 

Sure, there are prominent exceptions — like Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery, and Celeste and Khouri Beatty, the owners and operators of Harlem Brewing Co. There are a few others, too — but that’s out of more than 2,600 breweries nationwide.
.