This Tribal Pale Ale Is Brewing More Than Just Beer, It’s Raising Awareness for MMIW

As breweries across the U.S. continue tying limited releases to social causes, tribally owned producers are increasingly using craft beer to connect cultural identity with public awareness campaigns. In Rochester, Washington, Talking Cedar Brewery has tied a new beer release directly to the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, or MMIW. The brewery’s latest launch puts a regional craft product into a broader conversation about violence against Indigenous women and the gaps in public awareness around that issue.

Talking Cedar’s release pairs a beer launch with a verified fundraising effort

Talking Cedar Brewery, which is owned and operated by the Chehalis Tribe, announced on August 24 that it had released MMIW Tribal Pale Ale, a limited-edition beer created to raise awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, according to Sip Magazine’s report on the launch. The brewery said the beer is packaged in 4-packs of 16-ounce cans, carries a 6.5% ABV, and has a suggested retail price of $12.99. The cans are marked with the phrase “Brewed for Justice, Brewed for Our Sisters,” and the brewery said a portion of proceeds from every can sold will support the Urban Indian Health Institute.

The artwork on the can was created by Ryan Burnett, a member of the Chehalis Tribe, according to the same report. Sip Magazine said Burnett’s design uses the red hand symbol that is widely associated with the MMIW movement. Talking Cedar’s marketing director, Jackie Dodd-Mallory, said the brewery viewed the beer as a way to bring the issue to audiences that may not otherwise encounter it through routine news coverage or advocacy work.

The release also defines the product as part of the brewery’s own “Tribal Pale Ale” style positioning. Ryan Myhre, Talking Cedar’s director of brewing and distilling operations, said the beer was built around Pacific Northwest pale ale flavors, including pine and citrus notes, while also tying the product to tribal land and water sourced from the Chehalis Tribe’s aquifer.

The launch is centered in Rochester, with sales confirmed across three Northwest states

The local center of the release is Rochester in Thurston County, where Talking Cedar brews the beer at its Washington facility, according to Sip Magazine. That gives the launch a specific place-based connection in southwest Washington rather than a generic regional rollout. The brewery has confirmed that the limited-edition beer is currently available in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

What has been confirmed publicly is the three-state sales footprint, the package format, and the beneficiary organization. What has not been publicly detailed is how many retailers in Washington are carrying the beer, how many total cases were produced, or which cities outside Rochester have received shipments. The company has not released a comprehensive list of affected stores or accounts in Washington, Oregon, or Idaho.

The beneficiary named in the launch, the Urban Indian Health Institute, is based in Seattle as the research division of Seattle Indian Health Board, according to UIHI and Seattle Indian Health Board materials. That means both the production site and the nonprofit connection are rooted in Washington state, giving the release an in-state public health and advocacy dimension beyond its beer branding.

The broader context is an ongoing Indigenous public health and safety crisis

Talking Cedar tied the beer to a cause that has been documented for years by Indigenous-led researchers and federal agencies. The Urban Indian Health Institute’s MMIWG work found 506 cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls across 71 selected U.S. cities from 2010 to 2018, according to CDC materials summarizing the report and Department of the Interior background on the crisis. Federal and Indigenous health sources have also pointed to persistent data gaps, racial misclassification, and undercounting as barriers to understanding the full scope of the issue.

Broader violence data also helps explain why advocacy campaigns like this one are emerging in consumer spaces. A CDC fact sheet says American Indian and Alaska Native people experience high rates of homicide, and that about 58% of American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetimes. Those figures are part of the reason the MMIW crisis has drawn response from tribes, public health researchers, and federal agencies.

For customers in the Pacific Northwest, the practical takeaway is straightforward: this is a limited-edition release now on sale in three states, with part of each purchase designated for UIHI’s work. Talking Cedar has not announced how long the beer will remain on shelves, but it has stated that the release is intended to pair awareness with direct support for Indigenous-led research and advocacy on MMIW.