Craft beer trailblazers Beny Ashburn and Teo Hunter want to change their industry.

The founders of Inglewood brewery Crowns & Hops Brewing Co. have set their sights on getting their brand in retail locations and events throughout the state. As they build the brand’s strength, they’re also determined to extend their mentorship and networking to other Black and minority entrepreneurs seeking to break into the beverage space.

To that end, they’ve recently joined forces with three other Black-owned California breweries to form the Circle of Crowns Beverage Group in order to take advantage of economies of scale and leverage their influence on the industry.

“We always understood that what we were building at Crowns & Hops had the opportunity to be something that was industry changing. There are very few entrepreneurs in the beverage industry, especially the craft beer industry, that were addressing diversity in the space,” Hunter said.

“Our country is getting more and more diverse by the day. The industry right now is focused on the fact that they need to have a more diverse consumer. What we also know is that that needs to be reflected in the ownership as well.”

The pair are motivated by their own experiences in getting a brewery off the ground with little prior experience – much less a network – in the industry. Since launching in 2019, the brewery has developed a signature brand and earned recognition for its products. And they said they’re consistently logging about 30% year-over-year sales growth.

Ashburn said it’s time to take that momentum and elevate their peers to similar success.

“We’ve had to raise capital. We’ve had to create efficiencies,” she said. “We can be a great adviser-consultant guide and help them build that foundation to be successful moving forward. We ourselves had a lot of help getting started, so it’s our opportunity to pay it forward.”

Getting the business started

When they became business partners and began laying the foundation for Crowns & Hops in 2016, Ashburn and Hunter said they sought to create an environment that actively sought to bring Black customers into mix.

Of the 10,000 or so independent craft breweries in the U.S., Hunter said only about 80 are under Black ownership and fewer than half of those are able to produce at scale. He came to enjoy craft beer in around 2010 – his preferred variety is a West Coast IPA – and often found he was the only Black man in any given bar or taproom.

“But that didn’t stop me from wanting to investigate the product and industry itself,” Hunter said. “We realized we had a huge opportunity.”

Ashburn had built a career in beauty product advertising in New York before relocating to Los Angeles to build the internal creative team for Beats Electronics, the Culver City audio product manufacturer created by rap mogul Dr. Dre.

A “successful-unsuccessful” Tinder date with Hunter introduced Ashburn to craft beer – she has since adopted hazy IPAs as her favorite – and the two struck up their business partnership. They chose to establish the brand in Hunter’s hometown of Inglewood.

“What was important for us was to build this brand in a community that was majority Black and brown. Inglewood is that,” Ashburn said. “It’s a space that we felt like our brand could be best represented and be its most authentic self. It’s becoming one of the largest entertainment centers in America and we knew the brand that we were building would fit really nicely into that narrative and create that space.”

The journey so far

The operation guest-brewed at other area locations while searching for a physical home. The Covid-19 pandemic and its economic fallout has continued to complicate that journey, but the duo has recalibrated its focus to keep growing its California consumer reach.

Forming Circle of Crowns Beverage Group is a key step for this goal. The brewery partnered with Fresno-based Full Circle Brewing Co., the nation’s largest Black-owned craft brewery which also owns Speakeasy Ales & Lagers in San Francisco and Sonoma Cider in Sonoma, to create the alliance.

Crowns & Hops then shifted all production to Full Circle’s facility and was able to focus on getting beer to customers.

Ashburn and Hunter got to know Full Circle Chief Executive Arthur Moye in 2021 when they were preparing to fundraise through an equity crowdsourcing platform and wanted to discuss strategy. Crowns & Hops ultimately brought in more than $1 million from more than 1,400 investors.

In other news, Crowns & Hops is a finalist in the Sam Adams Brewing the American Dream Experienceship contest held by Boston Beer Co. The winner, who will be announced this week, will receive mentorship and brewing experience at the Boston Beer facility and collaborate with the company on a specialty brew under the Sam Adams name.

The brewery is now working with real estate firm Oak View Group to provide beer at the company’s sports venues and events. Similarly, Crowns & Hops also an approved national vendor with Hyatt Hotels Corp. and will be the lead beer sponsor at the Newport Beach Jazz Festival. And in September, they’ll be opening a full-service restaurant and taproom in Terminal 4 at Los Angeles International Airport.

With prior distribution agreements at retailers like Costco, Target, Whole Foods, BevMo! and Total Wine, Ashburn said sales have consistently increased 30% year-over-year. Last year, they brewed about 2,000 barrels.

“The opportunities that are presenting themselves really have us focused on the production side,” Ashburn added.

Paying it forward

These deals would be hard to come by without the secured production capacity, Hunter noted. While companies have diversity initiatives to recruit minority vendors, issues with opportunity, scalability and financing continue to be roadblocks.

“You have large retail chains across the country that would love to support more producers of color,” he said, “but if those producers do not have the scalable production capabilities, the distribution structure, the marketing chops, no one can ladder into those initiatives.”

With the beverage group alliance, Ashburn and Hunter expect to become a network available to young Black and minority entrepreneurs interested in beer. They can lend their expertise in best business practices, learning the craft and how to secure financing for an upstart operation.

“What we’re doing is not just moving the needle in racial equity for our country, but it is really making an impact on the beverage industry as a whole,” Hunter said. “People are looking for new consumers and how to find that diversity. For us, it is something that we believe is the future of craft beer.”