Durham distributor is infusing the craft beer industry with severely lacking diversity
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On a trip to Egypt in 2008, Jamel Lynch learned about early Africans’ inventive role in crafting ancient beers.
Ten years later, he witnessed the modern industry’s animus toward Black brewers.
“I remember talking to different breweries and getting the sense it wasn’t very welcoming for me,” Lynch, CEO of Durham’s Harlem Beer Distributing, said. “There were layers to the lack of diversity.”
At the time, Lynch was a 13-year IBMer in Research Triangle Park. A few months earlier at a leadership conference, he’d met Celeste Beatty, founder of Harlem Brewing Company in New York City. A Winston-Salem native and Shaw University graduate, Beatty was looking to break into the Southern beer market. She wasn’t finding entry.
“I think one, being a female in a male-dominated industry, and two, being African American in a white-dominated industry, distributors were not very interested at all in carrying her beers,” Lynch said. “I figured if I could use my network I could help her get something started.”
Harlem Beer Distributing was founded in 2018. The company began as a small operation in Durham designed to market Beatty’s NYC brews.
Beatty still runs Harlem Beer out of New York City with Harlem Beer Distributing as her Southeast distributor. As the company’s success ballooned — securing more than 200 commercial customers in Southern states — Lynch’s mission evolved to embrace a larger scope.
“There should be more distributors and more breweries featuring Black products and brewers, and that’s my goal,” he said. “I’d like to equalize or add some equilibrium to the beer industry.... The beer-making process has roots in Africa and historically we’ve had a big hand in why things are where they are today, but we should be able to benefit financially.”
Black brewers make up only about 1% of craft brewery ownership in the United States, according to a 2019 study by the Brewers Association. Anecdotal evidence long suggested a striking diversity problem in the beer industry, but the BA’s report was the first time a trade group quantified the issue.
“There are something like almost 9,000 craft breweries in the country,” Lynch said. “Less than 90 of those are owned by African American individuals and even less than that, maybe 20, are owned by African American women.”
One of the biggest inhibitors to Black brewers’ success has been apathy from traditional distributors. Harlem Beer Distributing is changing that.
Besides helping Harlem Brewing find widespread acclaim, HBD has been instrumental in the success of Rocky Mount’s Spaceway Brewing Company, Virginia’s Negus Brewing Company and the Italian Licataa sparkling wine — all Black-owned businesses.
The company also partners with historically Black colleges and universities, such as North Carolina Central University, to place young Black prospects in different areas of the beer industry.
With a new distributing arm in Virginia opening last year and a Georgia facility in development, HBD hopes its diversifying mission will spread around the country.
“We want to create more jobs,” Lynch said, “and bring other products to market that may not have had the opportunity to get into the network until we built it and we introduced them.”
Harlem Beer Distributing
Where: 2210 E. Pettigrew St., Durham
Call: 919-808-5634
Hours: Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
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Durham Herald-Sun readers: Click here for Part Five.
This story was originally published February 16, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Durham distributor is infusing the craft beer industry with severely lacking diversity."
