Brew this beer to raise funds for inner city sports programs, awareness of Negro Leagues

In the spring of 1943, legendary slugger Josh Gibson and team captain Walter “Buck” Leonard were preparing to lead the great Homestead Grays to the first of Back-to-Back Negro Leagues Baseball World Series Crowns. The “Dynamic Duo” of the trailblazing Negro Leagues bashed their way into the record books while anchoring a star-laden lineup.

80 years later, the Josh Gibson Foundation and Buck Leonard Association have joined forces with trailblazers of the craft beer industry to celebrate the history of Negro Leagues baseball through the Thunderous legend of two of its first Hall of Famers. Bronze Thunder Twins IPA is an all-star collaboration between the Gibson and Leonard Families, the Harlem and Métier Brewing Companies, and Yakima Chief Hops.

You can brew it: The hall-of-fame IPA recipe and interactive marketing materials are available to craft breweries around the world through November as part of a global awareness and fundraising campaign.

The story of the Negro Leagues and the Thunder Twins will also be brought to life inside partner breweries with the help of Augmented Reality, artwork, fun facts, and history.

And raise funds: Participating breweries will donate a minimum of $1 per pint sold of Bronze Thunder Twins IPA. Funds raised by the project will directly benefit key capital development projects and the inner-city youth educational enrichment and athletics programs of the Josh Gibson Foundation of Pittsburgh, PA, and the Buck Leonard Association for Sports and Human Enrichment of Rocky Mount, NC.

Recruitment of partner breweries is being led by trailblazer Celeste Beatty of Harlem Brewing Company. In 2001, she became the first African American woman brewer to launch a commercially distributed beer brand. She has used her influence to help open doors for a new generation of BIPOC brewers.

Beer sales are scheduled to begin on May 2, which will mark the 103-year anniversary of the first game played in the Negro National League. Celebrations are being planned on the East coast and in Seattle, at Steelheads Alley Taproom – a collaboration between the Seattle Mariners and Métier Brewing Company that pays homage to Seattle’s Black baseball pioneers and heroes