TheBurg

14 | theburgnews.com | 07.18 S haun Harris was watching TV in his Harrisburg home when he caught an episode of "Moonshiners," a show about illegal whiskey production in the Appalachian Mountains. As he witnessed scofflaws in rural Virginia distill liquor from giant drums of hog feed, Harris thought to himself, "You can do that?" As it turns out, you can't. A quick Google search told Harris that brewing liquor in America is illegal without a license. Brewing beer, on the other hand, is fair game. Harris promptly bought a simple home- brewing kit, made his first batch of beer and "was immediately blown away." Harris roped his friends JT omas and Tim White into joining him for a daylong home-brew session. ey brought one of their first kegs to a summer barbeque, where they offered it to a dozen friends with a disclaimer—they didn't know how it would taste. "Six gallons were gone in like, 20 minutes," said omas. "People had one and wanted another and another and another." Harris describes that barbeque as a light-bulb moment. He didn't know yet what craft beer was, but he did know that the ingredients and production that went into his keg didn't cost much. "Where we're from, you try to monetize everything—it's called being a hustler," Harris said. "We thought, we can do something here." at was four years ago. Since then, Harris, White and omas started making beer as the Harris Family Brewery, and they just secured a location for a taproom on 13th and Market Streets, in South Allison Hill. ey still need to obtain a brewer's license and retrofit the empty space with brewing equipment and seating, but they're hoping to sell the first beers over their 10-seat bar in early 2019. When it opens, Harris Family Brewery will be the first craft brewery in Allison Hill and likely the first black-owned brewery in Pennsylvania. Harris hopes that the business will inject new life into its neighborhood and broaden Harrisburg's craft beer scene beyond its downtown and Midtown epicenter. untAPPed PotentIAL e guys at Harris Family Brewing don't just see their new business venture as a way to do what they love—it's also an opportunity to bring a new base of consumers into a lucrative market. Craft beer sales in the United States topped $26 billion last year and account for 13 percent of the country's total beer industry. But African Americans, who make up 14 percent of the country's total population, only consumed 4 percent of its craft beer in 2014, according to a Nielsen study. Mike Potter is the editor of Black Brew Culture, a Pittsburgh-based online magazine dedicated to advancing African Americans in the craft beer industry. Potter said that people of color haven't traditionally been exposed to craft beer, in part because the industry hasn't invested in marketing to minority customers. Craft beer consumption among blacks is on the rise, but Potter said that fewer people of color enter the industry as brewers and brewery owners. Shaun Harris, Tim White and TJ omas.

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