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..458e4b8d2 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
+  ``genres`` option inside the ``musicbrainz`` config.  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..6aa9f5f53 100644
--- a/docs/reference/config.rst
+++ b/docs/reference/config.rst
@@ -356,7 +356,6 @@ Sets the albumartist for various-artist compilations. Defaults to ``'Various
 Artists'`` (the MusicBrainz standard). Affects other sources, such as
 :doc:`/plugins/discogs`, too.
 
-
 UI Options
 ----------
 
@@ -721,6 +720,17 @@ above example.
 
 Default: ``[]``
 
+.. _genres:
+
+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.
+
+Default: ``no``
+
 .. _match-config:
 
 Autotagger Matching Options