The Black Beer Experience Bridges the Divide Between Breweries and the Black Community February 22, 2021 Paul Velgos/Shutterstock Shani Glapion loves the experience of drinking beer, from the first citrusy sip of a West Coast India Pale Ale down to the conversational buzz of a brewery. Though the 35-year-old Nashville resident is now a cicerone-certified beer server — the first step to becoming a master of beer, or master cicerone — Glapion didn’t always know so much about beer. At first, it was just a way for her to spend time with her wife. The couple started using Groupon in 2013 to find tickets to brewery tours, which quickly became a hobby of theirs.