Women-Led, Women-Brewed — Kweza Craft Brewery in Kigali, Rwanda
For Kweza’s managing director Jessi Flynn, there’s a bigger story to be shared.“We are the first country in the world whose craft beer industry is being started by women,” she says, pausing to let her words sink in. Rwandan women have always been in charge when it comes to traditional brewing, but the notion that this country—a tiny state surrounded by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, and Burundi—might be something of a pioneer in the beer world should be a source of great pride for its citizens. In fact, Kweza’s journey is full of “firsts” and “onlys.” The idea began seven years ago in the unlikely location of Vankleek Hill, Canada, at Beau’s All Natural Brewing Company, as that company’s co-founder Steve Beauchesne recalls.