Sketchbook Brewing Announces 2026 Freedomish Collaboration Brew: Respect Existence or Expect Resistance

(Skokie, Ill.) Sketchbook Brewing is proud to announce the fifth-year partnership with Jay Westbrook (aka The Black Beer Baron) on its brew collaboration, Freedomish. Conceived in 2021, the partnership was designed to commemorate Juneteenth and the end of slavery in the Confederate states. Since its inception, the partnership has evolved to support a variety of local charities and organizations that support human rights.

The 2026 Freedomish is called Respect Existence or Expect Resistance and is envisioned to support the immigrant community from Central and South America. A fruited American wheat ale, it was brewed using fruits native to those regions, including dragon fruit and Andean blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries.

“As an immigrant myself, seeing the chaos that Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol created in our neighborhoods this past year was frightening,” said Cesar Marron, founder and director of brewing operations, Sketchbook Brewing. “We have a space that is welcoming to all and even that was being threatened. This project is one small way to voice that I am not OK with that. We are not OK with that. So raise a can and join us in a call for respect.”

A portion of the proceeds from Respect Existence or Expect Resistance will benefit Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a local organization dedicated to promoting the rights of immigrants and refugees to full and equal participation in the civic, cultural, social, and political life of our diverse society.

“The Freedomish Series has and always will be a Juneteenth-forward project, but at its core will also forever be a very intentional statement that if one of us isn't free, none of us are,” said Jay Westbrook. “As the rhetoric sided against immigrants and refugees continues to build, Respect Existence or Expect Resistance embodies the natural evolution of the very ideal Sketchbook and The Black Beer Baron have spoken toward from the beginning.”

The original Freedomish was a farmhouse ale saison brewed to commemorate Juneteenth and the end of slavery in the Confederate states. One hundred percent of the 2021 proceeds were donated to Skokie United and the Evanston Reparations Fund. In the years since, we’ve brewed Pathways to Freedom saison benefitting Skokie Park District and Skokie United in 2022; Reclaiming My Time fruited saison benefitting the City of Evanston Reparation Fund, Skokie United, and Urban Growers Collective in 2023; and Summer of ‘54 fruited IPA benefitting Skokie United and Lost Boyz, INC in 2024 and 2025.

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ABOUT SKETCHBOOK BREWING:

Sketchbook Brewing Company is the brainchild of two home-brew heroes, Shawn Decker & Cesar Marron, who met through Evanston’s Homebrew Club – a mighty throng of beer enthusiasts. Cesar’s brewing skills have earned him a dozen medals, and he was the Samuel Adams Longshot American Homebrew Contest 2013 winner: his grätzer was selected from over 1,000 entries nationwide. Shawn brings a solid home-brewing practice to the partnership and decades of experience as a musician, artist, and teacher working on big projects where quality was important. Recipe swapping and mutual appreciation accelerated into partnership and Sketchbook began filling growlers in the fall of 2014. Sketchbook opened its Tap Room in April of 2016 at 821 Chicago Ave., and then expanded that space in fall of 2019.