In the News: St. Thomas Business Students Assist Local Brewer With Start-Up Efforts – Newsroom | University of St. Thomas

Brittney Mikell is planning to make history as she works toward the opening of the first Black woman-owned brewery in the Twin Cities – Bubble Line Brewing Company in St. Paul – next year. As part of her entrepreneurial journey, Mikell enrolled in the University of St. Thomas Community Entrepreneurship Program, where she worked side by side with business students who helped her with some of the challenges of building a business.

The pull toward beer was finally strong enough that Mikell left pharmacy behind for a job as an assistant brewer at La Doña Cervecería in Minneapolis. She enrolled in a community entrepreneurship program at the University of St. Thomas, where she was paired with student consultants who helped her build and develop a strategy for crowdfunding to open the brewery.

Recent St. Thomas graduate Laila Franklin was one of two students paired with Mikell to work with her on the crowdfunding campaign.

“I was really grateful that I got assigned Brittany, because she’s just an amazing human,” Franklin said. “Being a woman of color myself, I just found her to be very inspiring with her words and all the things she’s trying to do for the Rondo community.”

Franklin, 22, has sampled some of the beer; she said future patrons have a lot to look forward to.