If you walk into the average American brewery, pub, or bottle shop you might pass a few cornhole boards on your way in, hear 90s rock or alternative music piped through a speaker, and pull up to a seat at the bar next to folks (probably men) wearing plaid — A LOT of plaid. When you think of beer culture in the US, caricatures of “the white, hipster, bearded bro,” “fratty light,” or “white girl wasted” might come to mind. Or maybe you think back to your grandfather enjoying a Miller High Life or watching Kool & The Gang get down in a Schlitz commercial. You might remember flipping past Billy Dee Williams in an Ebony Magazine Colt 45 ad or still remember lyrics to Method Man’s St. Ides commercial. The practice of beer brewing is as old as human civilization and started with women in parts of the world now referred to as Africa and “the East,” but looking at the modern, brewing and craft beer industry in the United States, you would never know.

THIS BELONGS TO US is a feature-length, documentary film celebrating the unknown, forgotten and hidden contributions of Black women to brewing and craft beer. Like many industries in the US, the American beer industry was built on the colonization, extraction and exploitation of Black culture, Black genius and Black labor. What does it mean for modern-day, Black women brewers in the US South to reclaim a stolen tradition that is rightfully theirs?

Director | Atinuke Akintola Diver
Website | Thisbelongstous.com
Facebook | Facebook.com/thisbelongstous
Instagram | Instagram.com/thisbelongstous
Twitter | Twitter.com/thisbelongstous