FESTUS, Mo. — A St. Louis area brewery is honoring the Negro Leagues with a special canned series releasing Tuesday. It's called the Negro Leagues Celebration Series.
Main & Mill Brewing Company is collaborating with the Negro Baseball Museum, Negro Leagues History and painter Graig Kreindler for this project.
The bi-yearly series recognizes the history of the Negro Baseball League and its players, a Facebook post announcing the collab said.
The brewery gave a background on the start of the collaboration, too.
"With what we thought might just be a wild idea, we reached out to world renowned painter of the national pastime, Graig Kreindler. The idea was to explore licensing his paintings of Negro Leagues players in a way that could potentially raise money for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the players' families. Kreindler was immediately on board and got us in touch with Jay Caldwell, who runs negroleagueshistory.com, and has been actively involved in promoting the leagues, its players, and its history," the Facebook post said.
The first release of cans celebrates Satchel Paige and the 50th anniversary of his Baseball Hall of Fame induction. It will include four cans with four different paintings of Paige on his four different baseball teams from the 1920s to 1940s.
Leroy "Satchel" Paige was born in July 1906 in Mobile, Alabama. He started his career in the Negro Leagues in the 1920s, according to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Paige was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971. He was the first player selected by the Committee on Negro Baseball Leagues, according to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Main & Mill Brewing Company said it will donate 20% of every can of the Negro Leagues Celebration Series to support the players' families and the Negro Baseball League Museum.
The brewery said the beer series will be available in local stores and Craft Republic starting Tuesday.
The special can series will be available at these select locations in Missouri, with the possibility of more locations being added.
- The Wine & Cheese Cheese Place
- Total Wine
- Friar Tuck
- Randall's
- BeerSauce Shop
- Craft Beer Cellar
- Chillax
- Saint Louis Hop Shop
Select Schnucks Locations:
- Festus
- Richmond Heights
- Lindenwood Crestwood
- Hampton Village
- Eureka
- Kirkwood
- Affton
- Loughborough
- Arsenal
- Maplewood
- Wildwood
- Brentwood
- Washington
- Dardenne Crossing
