diff --git a/beets/autotag/mb.py b/beets/autotag/mb.py
index 211f4c42f..7952c5566 100644
--- a/beets/autotag/mb.py
+++ b/beets/autotag/mb.py
@@ -418,7 +418,7 @@ def album_info(release):
         info.media = first_medium.get('format')
 
     genres = release.get('genre-list')
-    if genres:
+    if config['musicbrainz']['genres'] and genres:
         info.genre = ';'.join(g['name'] for g in genres)
 
     info.decode()
diff --git a/beets/config_default.yaml b/beets/config_default.yaml
index c75778b80..f3e9acad1 100644
--- a/beets/config_default.yaml
+++ b/beets/config_default.yaml
@@ -105,6 +105,7 @@ musicbrainz:
     ratelimit_interval: 1.0
     searchlimit: 5
     extra_tags: []
+    genres: no
 
 match:
     strong_rec_thresh: 0.04
diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index a31c6869b..2f12015a8 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -159,9 +159,11 @@ New features:
 * :doc:`/plugins/web`: add DELETE and PATCH methods for modifying items
 * :doc:`/plugins/lyrics`: Removed LyricWiki source (shut down on 21/09/2020).
 * Added a ``--plugins`` (or ``-p``) flag to specify a list of plugins at startup.
-* Use musicbrainz genre tag api to get genre information.  This currently
+* Use the musicbrainz genre tag api to get genre information.  This currently
   depends on functionality that is currently unreleased in musicbrainzngs.
-  See https://github.com/alastair/python-musicbrainzngs/pull/247 and
+  Once the functionality has been released, you can enable it with the
+  ``use_mb_genres`` option.  See
+  https://github.com/alastair/python-musicbrainzngs/pull/247 and
   https://github.com/alastair/python-musicbrainzngs/pull/266 .
   Thanks to :user:`aereaux`.
 
diff --git a/docs/reference/config.rst b/docs/reference/config.rst
index 2f8cee3c9..021c3d2b7 100644
--- a/docs/reference/config.rst
+++ b/docs/reference/config.rst
@@ -356,6 +356,14 @@ Sets the albumartist for various-artist compilations. Defaults to ``'Various
 Artists'`` (the MusicBrainz standard). Affects other sources, such as
 :doc:`/plugins/discogs`, too.
 
+.. _use_mb_genres:
+
+use_mb_genres
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Use Musicbrainz genre tags to populate the ``genre`` tag.  This will make it a
+semicolon-separated list of all the genres tagged for the release on
+musicbrainz.
 
 UI Options
 ----------