As soon as we learned about the Black Is Beautiful collaboration brewing project Marcus Baskerville and Weathered Souls Brewing were spearheading, we had to join in.

We had been thinking about the best way to contribute to the Black Lives Matter movement, and our favorite language is beer.

Weathered Souls’ Black is Beautiful project is a collaborative effort to raise awareness for the injustices people of color face daily and to raise funds for police brutality reform and legal defenses for those who have been wronged.

Each brewery participating has taken the recipe developed by Marcus at Weathered Souls and put their own spin on it all under the same beer name, Black Is Beautiful. To date, more than 1000 breweries have committed to participating.

We brewed our version of Black is Beautiful on Juneteenth. It’s been fermenting away for weeks, and now we’re excited to have it make its taproom debut on Friday, July 17.

We made just a few minor changes to the beer as shared by Weathered Souls by adjusting the grain bill to our preferred balance and adding a significant amount of chocolate.

On Rotation’s Black is Beautiful imperial stout presents a chocolate and bready aroma and powerful cocoa flavor throughout. The booze factor is not overpowering, though this is a very big beer. It clocks in at 10.2% ABV, but, with the luscious chocolate flavor and dry finish, the alcohol does not overwhelm your palate. It’s a perfect chocolate cake in a glass — not sweet but chocolate through and through.

Due to the pandemic, we are currently closed for in-house business and limited to to-go sales only, but the taproom will be open at 12 PM on July 17 for curbside pickup of crowlers and growlers. You can order ahead online at on-rotation.com/order

You can also “RSVP” or follow our release event on Facebook here.

Each participant in Black is Beautiful was asked to select an organization to support. On Rotation has selected Campaign Zero and specifically their #8CantWait campaign to receive the proceeds from our sales of Black is Beautiful.

#8CantWait is an initiative to drive eight policies proven to decrease police violence by 72 percent. Research shows that the more restrictive use of force policies that #8CantWait is fighting for can reduce killings by police and save lives.

Of note, Dallas is only halfway there. While the city has enacted four of the eight #8CantWait policies, Dallas still has four more to go.

Dallas has yet to ban chokeholds and strangleholds, require a warning before shooting, establish a duty to intervene, or to ban shooting at moving vehicles. You can get involved and contact Dallas’ Mayor Eric Johnson about these policies at 8cantwait.org.

In the meantime, please show your support for Black Lives Matter and Black is Beautiful by taking home some chocolate cake stout this Friday at On Rotation.

Share your support for the Black is Beautiful project with hashtag #blackisbeautiful.