Big things are brewing: Alum leads the charge to diversify craft brewing industry
Jamaal Ewing holds a pack of four original Black Calder brews.
Mbaba Mwana Waresa is the fertility goddess of South Africa’s Zulu nation. Ruling over agriculture, harvests and rain, she’s also the deity of one of West Michigan’s favorite libations: beer.
“According to legend, she gave humans the gift of beer and taught them how to brew,” explains Jamaal Ewing, co-owner of Black Calder Brewing Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The goddess inspired his brewery’s logo, which reimagines her hair as a crown of hops. The brewery’s name is a nod to Grand Rapids, nicknamed “Calder City.”
“We wanted a name to speak to who we are and incorporate the community in which we belong. Black is a strong word associated with strength, power, sophistication and elegance. Putting the two together, we felt like we had a really solid name,” says Ewing, a two-time Western alumnus.
Launched on Black Friday 2020, Black Calder is the first Black-owned brewery in Michigan. In a field historically lacking diversity—a 2019 Brewers Association survey found just 1% of responding brewery owners were Black—Ewing and co-owner Terry Rostic hope to infuse their culture into the craft beer community and inspire inclusion. Their website includes a promise to “celebrate, cherish and highlight the things special to us in our culture,” promising to be “unapologetically proud, Black and represent to the fullest.”
“We want to celebrate our culture’s contributions to art and history in all its forms, from the designs we use on our beer labels, the artwork you will see on the walls and the artists we work with to create them, to the music playing in the taproom, pop culture references we use on social media and the community organizations we support,” says Ewing.
In fact, the company has created a dedicated space for underrepresented artists to share their work. “It’s one of our
goals to provide a platform in the industry for artists of all backgrounds.”
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Ewing’s passion for beer runs deep. While he cultivated his love of craft brews at Western, he also honed his business skills, earning a bachelor’s degree in sales and business marketing in 2006 and an MBA in 2013. “My time at Western helped me de
velop the critical thinking skills I needed to excel in my career.”
In 2016, after bumping into Rostic at an event and bonding over beer, Ewing saw an opportunity to match his entrepreneurial prowess with his future partner’s brewing expertise.
“They say start a business about what you’re passionate about. I was passionate about beer,” Ewing says. So, he and Rostic started envisioning their brand, networking and experimenting with different brews.
Their dreams took a giant leap forward in 2018 when they won $20,000 in the Start Garden competition, which gives seed money to promising entrepreneurs in the Grand Rapids area.
“At that point we were like, ‘We’ve really got something that might work.’ And we kept planning and going at it,” says Ewing. He still has several books from his business classes that have turned into valuable resources as the company developed. “We actually wanted to open a taproom in late 2019, but it didn’t end up working out. It turned out to be a good thing that we didn’t open, because a few months later COVID-19 happened.”
As the pandemic ramped up, Ewing and Rostic started exploring the option of contract brewing, which would allow them to partner with an already established brewery and use their space to make and distribute beer.
“COVID-19 has affected everyone, especially small business owners. We put in a lot of work and sacrifice up to this point and didn’t want to give up. We were forced to pivot,” he says. The Black Calder team found a partner in Brewery Vivant and got to work crafting their first brew: Black IPA. Building excitement in the beer community through social media and word-of-mouth, the beer sold out on preorder in just a few days. They’ve since brewed several other creations, including BOUGIE S’more Stout and Bishop, a juicy double IPA.
“We’re able to get our beer out there and build a reputation for what we do, which I think will help us once we do eventually open a taproom—hopefully by the end of this year or early next year.”
GIVING BACK
While Ewing and Rostic may be recognized as the state’s first Black brewery owners, they’re quick to recognize other people of color who’ve been involved in the industry for years.
“It’s an honor to be recognized and be a part of history in that way. At the end of the day, we want to be known more for our beer than our skin tone,” Ewing says. “Hopefully we can be an inspiration for other people who … want to enter the industry.”
Black Calder has a philosophy of “craftlanthropy,” or philanthropy through beer.
“We’re blessed to be able to do the things that we do but realize there are many others who are less fortunate. We used a portion of the proceeds from our first release to purchase water for a community in Tanzania,” says Ewing.
“Our motto is simple, ‘Make dope beer for dope people.’ Yet our hearts are huge and complex,” the Black Calder team says on its website. “Community is extremely important for us. We feel blessed to have an opportunity to bring people together through beer.” ■