Black Star Line Brewing Co., of Asheville, North Carolina, shut down its downtown location, the Charlotte Observer reports.

The brewery described itself as the first black, queer woman-owned brewery in the town called "Beer City USA." Its founder, L.A. McCrae, told Vice's Munchies, “White supremacy shut us down. Our world has been rocked.”

The brewery has been the target of threatening, racist emails as well as multiple break-ins, WLOS reports.

According to Mountain Express, Beer lovers showed McCrae their support. Despite the town bigotry, the local brewing community helped Black Star Line Brewing Co., make repairs after the break-ins. McCrae said police responded to the threatening emails in a “swift and conscientious" manner.

In a Facebook post, the brewery explained that after overcoming several hardships, it would have to close, due to being "sabotaged by white supremacists, government officials (J. Edgar Hoover), and policies and procedures that were invoked to intentionally end the operations of Black Star Line."

The brewery's owners ran into a problem with its lenders. McCrae said the business was underfunded from the start because loan officers would not extend more than $50,000. She said many attempts were made to contact the lender and renegotiate the business' loan. But all were unsuccessful and the brewery would be ultimately evicted from its space.

A second Facebook post stated that the “community space that centered healing and liberation for all people” had been shut down when “white loan officers called the police.”

Despite the brewery's closing, all hope is not lost. McCrae told the Citizen Times that the brewery is still "alive and well," and that the business will reopen at a new location in the future.

Hendersonville, N.C.

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