Carrot cake, lemon pound cake, key lime pie, banana pudding, and German chocolate cake—all sound more like items in a bakery case than beers on a shelf. And you wouldn’t be wrong. But at Brown Girl’s Brew®, you can eat your cake…and drink it, too.
Every year, towards the end of the year, we post on Instagram, asking our fans to tell us their favorite breweries and beers of the year. In 2022, they introduced us to a fantastic brewery called Fox Tale Fermentation, and in 2024, they once again delivered, telling us about Brown Girl’s Brew.
We haven’t seen any other brewery like this, which is why we named Brown Girl’s Brew one of our “11 Best Breweries of 2024.” I think all of you will agree that in today’s industry, with just a whisker shy of 10,000 breweries in the country, that is very, very hard to do.
Started by Christina Thomas, Brown Girl’s Brew transforms cherished pastries into crushable beers. But these aren’t just any old recipes.
They come from Christina’s soul, her heritage, and her mother.
Feeding A Community, Feeding a Soul
Photography courtesy of Brown Girl’s Brew and New York Wins
Christina describes her mom as a true woman of the sixties. “She did her own thing, and she made sure that she cooked every night,” says Christina, who grew up on the South Side of Chicago as the youngest of eight siblings. “She was one of those women from that era, and I really appreciate that about her.”
There was food on the table every night, and every day, there were baked goods on the counter.
Christina’s sister, Selena Thomas, says their mom ruled the kitchen like a kingdom. “My mom did not play with anyone gathering in the kitchen while she was cooking,” says Selena. “She took pride in what she made and made sure it was perfect.”
The proof was in the pudding, as they say. According to Christina and Selena, everything their mother put her hands on turned out great. “She loved doing it, and you could tell in her food,” shares Selena, noting you could tell just from the smell of whatever was cooking that “it was going to be the best thing you ever had in your life.”
Whether that was an egg custard pie, a carrot cake, or a lemon meringue.
“My mom was always baking,” says Christina. “She made sure we had desserts all the time.”
With a dream to open a bakery, Christina’s mother eventually converted a family-owned house in Chicago into a makeshift bakery—Allie’s Cakes & Bakery.
The place became a delicious haven. Word spread, attracting neighbors and folks from the religious community.
“I have friends to this day that I grew up with who still talk about my mom’s cooking,” laughs Selena.
Her sweet potato pies always sold out. Her vibrantly spiced carrot cake turned heads while her lemon pound cake never came off the menu. And her German chocolate cake became a hit during the holidays, the only time she’d make it.
Years later, when Christina found herself drained from her role as a financial analyst at J.P. Morgan, she had an idea.
She called up a friend. “I had been brewing over something—no pun intended,” laughs Christina, who got into craft beer after drinking a New Belgium Fat Tire. “I had this idea about fusing my mother’s cake recipes with beer.”
Carrot Cake, Lemon Pound Cake, Key Lime Pie, Oh My
Photography courtesy of Brown Girl’s Brew and New York Wins
Craft beer in America is no stranger to pastries.
Pastry stouts have been universally adopted in the craft beer community. We can credit Don’t Drink Beer with the creation and proliferation of the term. Most commonly, it refers to a stout brewed intentionally sweet and often made with plenty of sugary ingredients, usually to mimic a dessert’s flavor—and sometimes appearance.
In 2023, the category of “Stout – Imperial/Double Pastry” placed second on Untappd’s list of the highest-average-rated styles of 2023.
And dessert/pastry sours have become crazier and wilder in the age of social media.
Overall, when we see a beer stuffed with everything from Oreos to cheesecake, we barely bat an eye anymore.
Sometimes, though, it feels like ingredients are stuffed into a beer solely for shock value or because we can. There’s a whisper of intention, but mostly, it’s a ploy to play into the latest fad.
But at Brown Girl’s Brew, each recipe has more than ingredients; it has a story; it has a soul.
Carrot Cake Amber Ale
Photography courtesy of Brown Girl’s Brew and New York Wins
Perhaps no beer is as emblematic of Brown Girl’s Brew as the inaugural Carrot Cake Amber Ale. One of Christina’s mom’s best-selling cakes, carrot cake, felt natural for Christina’s first beer.
Brown Girl’s Brew’s Carrot Cake Amber Ale includes all those classic warming spices, like cinnamon and nutmeg, with some actual carrots added to the mash and on the back end for sweetness.
“I love carrot cake,” gushes Christina, now known as the Brew Mistress. “It’s a cake of antiquity, right? And ale is a beer of antiquity, so I put two and two together, and it was perfect; it resembles the cake in every way.”
In just a short time, the beer, much like Christina’s mom’s cakes, has already turned heads.
During the 2023 Untappd Community Awards (which celebrated the thousands of great breweries and beers rated as best-in-class by Untappd’s 11 million users in 2023!), Carrot Cake Amber Ale won gold for the highest-rated American Amber / Red Ale in New York.
Lemon Pound Cake Lager
Photography courtesy of Brown Girl’s Brew and New York Wins
Another staple, lemon pound cake, is “one that always stayed on the table because it was just so easy for my mom to make,” says Christina. “I don’t care what background you come from; everyone loves lemon pound cake.
With a lager base, Brown Girl’s Brew’s Lemon Pound Cake leaves a lingering lemon note on the end while staying light and crushable.
Something you’ll find throughout all of Brown Girl’s Brews portfolio, Christina designed these beers to be drinkable and approachable.
These aren’t flavors slapped haphazardly into a recipe for the flash and glam; they’re carefully curated creations.
Key Lime Pie Ale
To make beers that are approachable not only for craft beer nerds but also for those who are beer-curious or even wine drinkers, Christina approached her third beer—Key Lime Pie Ale—a little differently.
Christina’s mom never made key lime pie. “I wanted to put a spin on a dessert that I really enjoy,” Christina shares about the collab with Hippin Hops Brewery in Atlanta.
Banana Pudding Hefeweizen
For a flavor probably never seen before in beer, the Banana Pudding Hefeweizen takes a heavy dessert with a controversial fruit and turns it into a fluffy fan-favorite hefeweizen.
“Most people don’t like bananas, but once they taste this, they’re just like, oh, that’s really good,” Christina tells me. “Grace, this sold out. People went absolutely crazy [for it]!”
German Chocolate Cake Stout
Rounding out the pastry case of beers, German Chocolate Cake Stout is perhaps the most cherished of all of Brown Girl’s Brews’ offerings.
We’ve seen German chocolate cake stuffed into a stout in countless ways. But as Christina unfurled her family’s connection to this cake, the beer took on new meaning.
Because the iconic ingredients—coconut and Baker’s chocolate—were expensive, Christina’s mom only made her famous German chocolate cake during the holidays.
“It was quite an expensive cake,” says Christina. “Any baker would know that Baker’s chocolate is quite more expensive than regular chocolate, so just to produce that cake alone is quite pricey.”
But Christina isn’t cutting corners because her mother didn’t. Using the exact same Baker’s chocolate from her mom’s recipe, Christina makes sure that “everything is connected.”
From Deferring the Dream to Drinking Distinction
Photography courtesy of Brown Girl’s Brew and New York Wins
Out of all her unique offerings, Christina might just love her Carrot Cake Ale the most.
It’s the beer Christina is most proud of because she believes it truly embodies Brown Girl’s Brew. “It brings unique, culturally inspired flavors to the craft beer scene,” says Christina. “We took the warm spices and rich flavors of a classic carrot cake and balanced them with the malty base of an amber ale. It was a bold experiment, but the response has been incredible. Not only does it resonate with people who love the flavors, but it also showcases how craft beer can honor tradition and tell a story. This amber ale represents our creativity, our roots, and our dedication to creating something distinct in the industry.”
Christina’s mother’s recipes didn’t just feed a community; they fed a community’s soul. Christina wants to do the same with Brown Girl’s Brew.
“Some of us think that it’s just the liquid that is the main component, and it’s really not,” she told us. “Brown Girl’s Brew is on a mission to make sure we push the needle for diversity, not only in the brewing space but just the entire ecosystem around the beer industry.”
When Christina first had the idea for Brown Girl’s Brew in 2009, she asked herself, “Who would I call?” The list was small or, more honestly, non-existent because the representation didn’t exist.
Which is why it took Christina many more years to bring Brown Girl’s Brew to life, launching just within the last couple of years.
She’d actually pitched the idea to someone in the industry. Just for them to turn it down, telling her she’d have a hard time getting into the beer space and encouraging her to keep her day job.
“I just deferred the dream,” she shares.
Now, she wants to be a leader and mentor for those underrepresented groups looking to open beverage businesses.
In the future, Christina hopes to open an incubator space in Harlem, NY, providing resources around not just beer development but the history, science, legal, and technical aspects of running a business. For instance, teaching others all of the laws around applying for liquor licenses or learning how to develop recipes.
“There’s no space like that in Harlem,” Christina points out, “so it would be a big deal if we had a beer school—that would be super dope.”
It would, in a way, only make her family bigger.
But with Brown Girl’s Brew, Christina will never forget where she came from and those who inspired her.
Now in her mid-to late 80s, Christina’s mom isn’t much of a beer drinker. “She’s like, how did you get the cake into the can?” laughs Christina, “But she’s excited about Brown Girl’s Brew.”
Inspired by her mother’s tenacity, strength, love, and delicious recipes, Christina and Brown Girl’s Brew are kicking down doors, proving no matter who you are, you can have your cake and drink it too.
