Shmaltz 2010 Year in Review

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(craftbeerbarmitzvah.com) Cowan admics that the whole thing started as a joke with friends.

Soon however, Cowan realized that he could have a legitimate business and was nor content to be another fad or a joke label rhe borde artwork and

JOHN HOLL

2010 has been a Brewing lClCa,cu book, a rollicking chronicling his childhood, [11m lhe brewing world, near collapse and eventual slingshm-lil<.e success. He opened a pico-brewelY 011 Coney Island for the summer momhs :ll1d just in time for Challukah has released a vertical bortle pack, from the lasl seven ye-ars ofJewbdation, his anniversary ale.

Oh, and he also WOll a silver medal - his first at the Great American Beer Festival.

"TIlis is by far lhe biggest year we've had, the most complicated we've ever had and successful," said Cowan. very ambitious."

The best ambitioll can De seen HE'BREW Holiday which is a collection of Jewbdation years 8-14 and a bottle of the barrel­ aged Vertical Jewbelation, a combi­ nation of all seven recipes ami then barrd-aged in Sazerac 6-year rye whiskey barrds.

Keeping true to the shrick that Ius made Shmaltz stand our, the holiday pack comes complete with Chanukah. candles and instructions on how to build a beer menorah from the empty bottles.

Back in 1996 when Cowan launched Shmaltz from San

up made beer. . ~ craft beer more choices than ever were slow to seven years that first the young entrepreneur had lost tens of thousands of fanlily and friends capitol investment funds and despite some beer name recognition was about to find his business become a brewery casualty.

Cowan pressed on, sold his beer in New York by going shop to shop, bar to bar and eventually gained more and more traction and was able [Q turn the whole tlling around.

Shmalrz now has seven full-rime employees. The beers are made ar the Olde Saratoga Brewing Co. in upstate New York and Cowan said they will likely produce about 7,200 the end of2010. His beers throughout the Francisco and bortled, labeled and delivered the first cases himself, ir could have been easy to lllisral(e brewery as jusr another gimmick, a way to malre a quick buck and one that would jusr become another

piece of craft beer he notes in his new Bar Mitzvah: How it rook 13 Extreme Jewish Brewing, and Sideshow Freaks to mal(e Shmaltz Brewing an International Success

of what we have i in a recent New Orleans wh~re he was between sales calls and a promotlonal appearance.

There is no rest for rhe weary, however. In recent years Cowan has expanded his offerings beyond the torah and yarmulke and into the arena of weird, the circle of stra.nge, the world of carnival sideshows.

Coney Island Crail: Lagers launched a few years ago and now has three regular offerings, including rhe Sword Swallower Steel Hop Lager, and cwo seasonal brews.

Proceeds from the sales benefit a

a[[ractlon.

Coney Island also became home this pasr summer to a 1/8 barrel brew house operated by Cowan and designed [Q be a side show much like ics neighbors the Bearded Lady and Human Blockhead. "le's really a non-profit arcs project," said Cowan. "The idea is to show people how beer is made and to get creative with what we make." This included the creacion of a funnel cake beer and candy apple ale. The small brewery will return to Coney Island again in the summer of2011.

Cowan jokes chat what he really needs after the last year is a nap. The reality is that the brewery is pressing forward with Cowan revealing that establish a permanent barrel aging program with three specialty releases planned for 2011. to focus on whar and throw in some he said.

Posted at 10:00 AM ET, December 6, 2010

Beer: Barley, hops and shtick

By Greg Kitsock

Some beers are simple. You can brew a great pilsner, for instance, using only a single type of malt and one hop variety.

Other beers are almost absurdly complex. In that category would be Jewbelation Fourteen, which claims to be brewed from 14 malts (including flaked quinoa, spelt and oats) and 14 hops.

Jewbelation Fourteen, which measures 14 percent alcohol by volume, pours likes an imperial stout, ebony with a cocoa-colored head. But it lacks the coffee and roasty notes of that style.

Instead, there is a great depth of crystal and Munich malt sweetness, an herbal, earthy spiciness, and a mild alcohol burn in the back of the throat. My first thought is to peg it as a black barley wine in the style of the Sierra Nevada Jack and Ken’s Ale released last summer.

“I was conscious of trying to create a monster brown ale,” says Jeremy Cowan, founder of Shmaltz Brewing Co., who contract-brews his He’Brew the Chosen Beer series of ales and Coney Island series of lagers at the Olde Saratoga Brewing Co. in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Cowan isn’t actually a brewer; he describes what flavor profile he’s aiming for, then leaves the technical details to Paul McErlean, Olde Saratoga’s brewmaster. Cowan, however, might have more fingers in more pies than anyone in the craft brewing business (with the possible exception of Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione).

He’s written a book, with help from journalist James Sullivan: "Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah" recounts his 13-year journey to the promised land of brewing success. The book is available online and at select homebrew supply stores across the country. (It should appear in mainstream bookstores next spring).

Cowan has also released his Vertical Jewbelation variety pack consisting of all seven versions of his Jewbelation anniversary ale (including the Jewbelation Fourteen), plus a bottle of Vertical Jewbelation: a blend of those seven beers aged in Sazerac rye whiskey barrels. “It was a logistical super-project,” says Cowan. “All those eight-packs had to be packaged by hand.”

The gift set contains a custom-made glass, Hannukah candles and instructions on building a “beer menorah.” (These aren’t the first Jewish-themed tchotchkes that Cowan has handed out. At the 2009 Great American Beer Festival in Denver, he distributed yarmulkes screen-printed with the Shmaltz Brewing logo and the advisory, “This is not a Frisbee.”)

As an additional Hannukah promotion, Cowan has designated 88 “chosen bars” across the country to pour all eight Jewbelation beers during the eight days of the Festival of Lights, which began Dec. 1. Participating bars locally include ChurchKey in Logan Circle and Fire Works Pizza in Arlington.

Cowan will continue with his extreme beers and extreme promotions into 2011. To celebrate his 15th anniversary in brewing next spring, he plans to release Genesis 15: 15, a strong amber ale brewed with four fruits mentioned in the Bible: pomegranates, figs, dates and grapes. (The Biblical verse referenced consists of God’s assurance to Abraham: “And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.”)

Sometime next summer, he’ll debut what he calls the country’s smallest fully licensed commercial brewery, capable of producing beer in one-gallon batches. The brewery and tasting room will occupy a 175-square-foot storefront adjacent to the Coney Island Circus Sideshow in New York City.

If you’d like to meet Cowan and hoist a glass of his beer while shouting "l’chaim!," the founder of Shmaltz Brewing plans to swing by this area next week. He says he’ll drop by the Star and Shamrock Tavern & Deli for a tasting and book signing on Monday, Dec. 13, and the following evening will pop up at Max’s Taphouse in Baltimore for a holiday beer bash. (Max’s is one of the chosen bars serving all Jewbelation beers this Hannukah season.)

Behind the Bar

Jeremy Cowan of Shmaltz Brewing Company Talks Geektoberfest, Jewish Celebration & How Sour is the New Bitter

By Chantal Martineau, Fri., Oct. 1 2010 @ 10:55AM Jeremy Cowan started Shmaltz Brewing Company back in 1996 out of his San Francisco apartment. Now, the beer is brewed in upstate New York and includes the line of HE'BREW craft kosher beers and Coney Island Craft Lagers. Cowan is busy this week as NYC Craft Beer Week is in full swing. He tells us where you can find him and his beers now through October 3.

This is a big week for you guys. What should we be looking out for at NYC Craft Beer Week?

We hosted the kick-off party called Freaktoberfest -- it was our third annual -- which showcases all of our favorite and what we think are some of the best craft beers from around the country with performers: bands from New York and the Freakshow performers from Coney Island, doing burlesque acts, juggling, sword swallowing, and hammering nails to their face. It was a huge hit and we are off and running with New York Craft Beer Week with events that feature the official beer we put together as a project called Geektoberfest. Geektoberfest is definitely not a traditional Oktoberfest beer. It's specifically intended to shatter any expectations of anything to do with what I find to be a somewhat less interesting beer style than most of the other great craft beers that are going on right now.

Wow. Sounds intriguing.

Geektoberfest is a blend of seven different craft beers brewed at our facility from Shmaltz Brewing Company, Ithaca Beer Company, and Captain Lawrence. The beer itself is a ridiculous, delicious project I've been calling the absolutely most expensive kitchen sink beer ever produced. The Captain Lawrence beer is a sour brown in a traditional Belgian or boutique European style that was aged in port barrels for over two years. The beer from Ithaca is their nut brown ale that's been aged in barrels that were previously used for Sam Adams Utopias, as well as Buffalo Trace bourbon. And the beers from Shmaltz Brewing Company are our Jewbelation series, which is our high-octane anniversary seasonals. We blended four different years Jewbelation, as well as Rejewvenator: our harvest seasonal. It's a big, strong brown ale brewed with grape juice this year. And finally, in honor of the Circus Sideshow at Freaktoberfest, we put in a healthy serving of the Human Blockhead, which is our imperial European

lager aged in Sazerac six-year rye whiskey barrels. The beer is featured all week long at Blind Tiger, 4th Avenue Pub, and The Gate. It should make an appearance at Spuyten Duyvil and Barcade.

Are collaborations between breweries common?

Collaborations have become a much more prevalent part of experimenting to make unique beers and to have a bunch of fun. Basically, we have not done as many collaborations ourselves because I don't own the brewery, but there have been some really fantastic examples of collaborations from West Coast-East Coast or American and European breweries. This was a chance for us to feature some very unique beers from three outstanding breweries in New York State that are creating a real reputation for themselves in New York City. It's been a really exciting project and I think it's been a very successful blend. The beer itself is spectacular.

What can you tell me about aged beers? Is it a major trend of the moment?

It's a big point of enthusiasm and experimentation. It's still a tiny slice of the beer market, but what's happening in craft beer is that the overall market is growing. People are looking for more flavorful, if not exceptional craft beers from small producers. It's not just a fad. It's clearly the market shifting in that direction as the biggest beer companies in the country have a harder and harder time selling their products just based on marketing and advertising. Craft brewers sell these unique and innovative products based on passion and artistic sensibility. Barrelaged beers and aged beers are the fringe of craft beer, but that's were the excitement is, much like craft beer is the excitement in the overall industry in the United States.

Barrel-aged beers, alternative yeast strains, beers aged on different things, whether it's fresh cherries or maple syrup or oak chips. That's where the excitement is in craft beer, where the experimentation and passion is happening.

I recently heard someone say that sour is the new bitter.

That's awesome. Somebody's got to have that as their bumper sticker. It's not that sour is the new bitter. IPAs are still the fastest growing category in the country now that the hop crisis is seeming to pass, hoppy beers are back in full force. But sour beers are starting to take hold in a way that really hoppy beers or even just extreme beers started being prevalent at the best beer bars on a consistent basis. I think in the next several years, just about every small craft brewery is going to be featuring something that will be, if

not specifically sour, at least containing some of the elements of those types of beers.

Are there any trends or phenomena in the beer world that you're sick of seeing at this point?

No, other than chasing the mediocrity of the biggest beers in the country. It's one thing I understand when brewpubs feel like they need to have a light color session beer for some of their customers, why serve them someone else's light beer? Obviously, craft brewers know how to make pale golden ales that can be even more complex and delicious, but there's been a bit of a backlash within this tiny little group that we call the craft beer community against extreme beer for people who want to see more session ales and low-alcohol beers. Yet, all of us who've finally scraped together a living and are just on the cusp of affording health insurance for ourselves for the first time in our careers have built our companies based on innovation.

Even my company, we put out a pilsner this year for the first time, which I vowed never to do. I think that the style has been so perverted that everybody calls whatever they're making a pilsner and it generally is their least interesting product, so we tried to do what I hoped was an interesting take on a pretty stale style.

So, no regrets on making a pilsner?

The fact is that nine out of 10 beers drunk in this country are big beer companies selling the same yellow, forgettable styles. So, if people want to chip away at that I think it's great for this country. It's great for small business. For beer that really doesn't cost that much more and certainly doesn't have the price tag of fine wine or fine boutique spirits, you can afford the absolute best, most insane beers in the world that have taken an incredible amount of artistry to conceive of and to execute.

Do you do any of the brewing yourself?

No, I work with a head brewer, Paul McErlean, up in Saratoga. He and I create the idea. I tell him what I want and he translates it into something that the brewing staff produces for us. They do 15 different beer styles several times a year. We have a young gentleman who does our special brewing projects, like blending barrel-aged beers. I basically list what I want for the beer and he pulls it all together.

How did you initially get into beer?

When I started Shmaltz, it was really just an experiment. I just thought it would be fun and funny to make this country's first and only Jewish celebration beer. And so, I went to a small brewery in Northern California and did exactly what I do now, which is say, "Hey I have an idea for a project and I'm wondering if you could help me."

And we brewed 100 cases of Genesis ale, our flagship for Hanukkah 1996. It was all hand bottled and hand labeled, and I delivered it around Northern California to a handful of retail stores myself. Now, 14 years later, we're distributed in about 30 states. We probably have about 3,000 retailers around the country.

Do make a big marketing push for Jewish holidays?

It's at Jewish delis and it's at punk rock dive bars. I think we try to spread it around to a little bit of everybody who might like better beer and appreciate the shtick.

What's your most unusual beer?

Geektoberfest is definitely the most unusual as it's blended with other breweries. We just came out with one that won an award at the largest beer festival in the country: the Great American Beer Festival. We make a beer called R.I.P.A. on Rye, a rye-based version of our bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A. double IPA. We age that in Sazerac sixyear barrels. We did our first bottling in the spring and we're just now releasing out second batch in the next couple of weeks.

What do you drink at home?

Lots of different things. Since I own a beer company, I'm mostly out drinking. I don't drink nearly as much at home as I do for work and for fun with friends at some of our favorite beer bars around the country and around New York City. When I'm just having a quiet moment on my own, I really like stronger ales and some of our stronger lagers. They have just a flavor and richness, a lusciousness whether it's double IPAs or we have a giant brown ale we make every year called Jewbelation. Beers in the category that are not very predictable and utterly delicious, usually a little bit higher alcohol, but smaller servings so that's it's really quality, not quantity.

What are some of your favorite bars in the city?

That's kind of unfair since we have so many friends at so many bars. I always enjoy Spuyten Duyvil in Williamsburg. It's a fantastic environment and an incredible esoterically curated beer selection that I really appreciate. I've also been going to 4th Avenue Pub a lot.

They've been awesome for us. For more like neighborhood hangouts: Franklin Park over in Prospect Heights, as well as Kettle of Fish. My art director is from Milwaukee and has been watching Packers games at Kettle of Fish for over a decade. For the Coney Island beers, having them at the Freakshow at Coney Island out at the beach has been an incredible project and they're probably our number one account in the city.

You have a book coming out?

It's called Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah. It's kind of a small business memoir of 13 years of Shmaltz Brewing Company.

Is there anything else you'd like to mention coming up after Craft Beer Week?

The last thing we're going to be doing this year is launching a Jewbelation project, which is three different versions of our holiday seasonal. It'll be our 14th anniversary beer brewed with 14 malts, 14 hops and 14 percent alcohol. A gift pack with eight different versions of that beer, as well as Hanukkah candles and instructions on how to create your own beer menorah.

It should be really fun. And a barrel‐aged version of all of those blended together called Vertical Jewbelation.

All of those start coming out next week.

Jews and Beer Uncloaking the Myths

By Leah Koenig Published August 03, 2010

Nothing cools down a rash of steamy summer nights like a frosty pint of beer. Unless, that is, you are Jewish — because aside from the occasional l’chaim around the Kiddush table or on Purim night, Jews don’t drink.

Especially not beer.

Of course, anyone who has ever witnessed their Uncle Barry getting soused on Heineken at a wedding, or attended college in the past 50 years, knows that the concept of Jewish sobriety goes only so far. And yet, the stereotype — the subject of both Woody Allen standup (“I’m not a drinker…. I had two martinis on New Year’s Eve and I tried to hijack an elevator and fly it to Cuba”) and scholarly inquiry, like a 1958 study, “Alcohol and the Jews,” by the Yale Center of Alcohol Studies — persists.

The study, which stated that in the late 1950s, alcoholism among Jews was virtually nonexistent, suggested that the prevalence of wine in Jewish rituals likely lessened Jews’ desire to drink recreationally. They drank, in other words — but in the context of Sabbath dinner, not at the pub. But Jeremy Cowan, who owns the 14-year old Shmaltz Brewing Company, has built his business on the opposite notion.

“I don’t think the stereotype [reflects society], but it is fun to play with,” Cowan said. With kitsch-heavy names like Genesis Ale and Messiah Bold, and a dancing rabbi for a logo, Shmaltz’s He’Brew beer is the first (and only) line of “Jewish celebration” craft beers. He’Brew products are all certified kosher — with the exception of this season’s Concord grape juice-spiked Rejewvenator — and have found their place at bars and bar mitzvahs across the country. Shmaltz, which in 2008 launched a second successful line of (equally kitschy, but not overtly Jewish) beer called Coney Island Craft Lagers, has arguably done more than most to foster Jewish-beer consumption. Despite the company’s success, however, there may be some historical weight to the whole “Jews don’t drink beer” thing, after all.

The practice of fermenting grains first flourished in Mesopotamia and Egypt, where barley and wheat grew readily along the lush river valleys. According to Iain Gatley’s “Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol” (Gotham Books, 2008), beer was the preferred drink of Egyptian workingmen. And according to an Egyptian proverb circa 2200 BCE, “The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer.” The Israelites, on the other hand, likely consumed very little beer. With all those vineyards dropping sweet, fat grapes everywhere, wine was their preferred libation. “I imagine there was [also] some ‘We don’t drink what your group does, and vice versa,’ going on,” Cowan said. “And 5,000 years later, the stereotype remains.”

Flash forward many centuries: Beer brewing in the Middle East found its way to Europe, where it was heartily embraced and cultivated — often in explicitly non-Jewish spaces, like monasteries. In 16th-century Bavaria, brewers created a set of purity laws regulating the ingredients that could go into German beer. Ironically, a beer’s purity came to be marked by the six-pointed brewer’s star, which resembles exactly (but is not related to) the Star of David.

The notion of German purity would, of course, take a turn toward the maniacal in the hands of Adolf Hitler. Despite being a virtual teetotaler himself, Hitler fully recognized the importance of beer in German culture — which is why his first public attempt at establishing power was held in a brew cellar in Munich. Although his “Beer Hall Putsch” failed, it does not take a

huge leap to understand how it, and German influence over beer culture as a whole, could become a psychological turnoff for Jewish consumers in both Europe and the States.

German dominance over American beer had actually begun years earlier, in the mid-19th century, when waves of German immigrants settled in such cities as New York, Philadelphia and Milwaukee, bringing their beloved lager-style beers with them.

Interestingly, one of the most renowned, and the longest surviving of these brands, Rheingold Beer, was actually owned by a German-Jewish family.

Soon after settling in Brooklyn in 1850, Samuel Liebmann founded a brewery. Years later his great-grandson Philip codeveloped the “extra dry” lager that would become the company’s greatest success. Rheingold Beer (as the company was later renamed) thrived for decades, buoyed by New York’s loyal working class and the company’s popular Miss Rheingold beauty pageant. But in the mid-1970s the company closed, unable to compete with national corporations, like Miller and AnheuserBusch, which sold the mass-produced watery brews that would become synonymous with American beer by the end of the 20th century.

Today, beer in the United States is undergoing something of a flavor revolution, as consumers shift their devotion toward craft beers and microbrews. According to Maureen Ogle’s “Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006), “The volume of craft beer produced in the United States doubled between 1990 and 1994” — and the figure has most certainly continued to grow.

As a Jewish brewing family in the 19th century, the Liebmanns likely represented the exception rather than the rule. Today, however, nice Jewish boys — from Matt Cohen and Alan Newman of Vermont’s Magic Hat Brewery to Sierra Nevada’s Ken Grossman, Pete Slosberg of Pete’s Wicked Ale and Heartland Brewery’s Jonathan Bloostein — are at the forefront of the craft beer zeitgeist. As of yet, there is no brewers’ equivalent of the Jewish Vintners Association, in California’s Napa Valley, though Cowan of Shmaltz Brewing has joked about someday founding a “Jewish brewing conspiracy” society.

So why have so many supposed alcohol-abstaining Jews become key figures in the beer scene? Because the story of Jews and beer in this country is simply the story of American acculturation, writ tipsy. Two generations after that Yale study, Jews have largely adopted (and been adopted by) mainstream American culture — and their food and beverage choices reflect that shift.

So whereas zayde likely preferred a sip of slivovitz when he drank, Jews today are just as apt as their non-Jewish neighbors to enjoy a frosty brew. “Beer is a great equalizer,” Bloostein said. “It goes beyond [religious differences].” With the end of summer’s shvitz nowhere in sight, those are refreshing words indeed.

~~~Irfdependellt

$50 FOR HOME OELIVERY' DECEMBER 24 2010117 TEVET 5771

Always time for Jewbilation

Jeremy Cowan marks 13 years in the kosher beer business.

DAVID

J. LITVAK

eer is not gene.rally associ­ ated with Jewish culture.

But thanks to Jeremy Cow­ an, founder of Shmaltz Brewing Co. and the author of a new book about Jews and beer, the world has been introduced to spe­ cialty craft beers that fe-ature a danc­ ing rabbi on the label and shmaltzy names like He'Brew, Genesis Ale, Messiah Bold, Jewbilation and Re­ jewvenator.

This unusual award-winning brewery (it was recently named best American craft brewer by Beverage Worldmagazine), which has featured slogans like "Don't Pass Out, Passover" and "He'Brew: The Chosen Beer," turns 13 this year. Cowan, a self-described "nice Jewish boy from Los Angeles," established this trailblazing brew­ ery in 1996 and, since that time, Shrnaltz has become a pop-culture phenomenon, managing to sell more than eight million bottles of beer to date, with estimated sales of more than $2 million in this, the company's bar mitzvah year.

In order to commemorate the company's years in the business, Cowan wrote (along with longtime friend James Sullivan) a rollicking small business memoir, Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah: How it Took 13 Yea~ l!:x:tremeJewish Brewing and Cin;us Sideshow Freaks to make Sbmaltz Brewing Company an Internation­ al Success. The book is chock full of inspiring, infonnative and hilar­ ious anecdotes about the joys and challenges of brewing beer.

The Independent interviewed Cowan as he was driving to Wash­ ington, D.C., for a book signing at the Star and Shamrock, the world's only JewisMrish bar.

Cowan notes that the idea for the brewery began as an "inside joke with a bunch of high school fiiends" and, several years later, in 1996, he experimented by producing his first batch of He'Brew beer for Chanukah.

"Thirteen years later, our beer is distributed all across the United States in 2,000 retail outlets, bars and restaurants, and we now have two brand lines with He'Brew beer and Coney Island," Cowan said. One of the main goals of the company is "to ensure that the quality is as high as any craft beer

B

Jeremy Cowan, founder of Shmaltz Brewing Co. in the country," he added.

Increased national recognition for the quality of the company's beer, a 1,000 percent increase in sales from 2003-2009 and the in­ troduction of a popular new brand (Coney Island Craft Lagers) are all promising signs for the future, but Cowan didn't establish the Shmaltz Brewing Co. just to brew a quality beer. He established the company to promote Jewish identity and to get people asking the "age-old question": Why is this beer differ­ ent than all other beers?

Everything Shmaltz does is different from other breweries, Cowan explained. He cited the in­ gredients (which include pome­ granates), packaging and flavors that Shmaltz uses, the tie-ins to Jewish tradition, the marketing strategy and promotions, and events that are organized around the products to celebrate special beers, as examples of harnessing thatJewish identity.

"Creating Jewbilation, the first and only Jewish celebration beer, was an opportunity for me to dig deeper into Jewish history and to tie into world culture through in­ gredients, traditions and shtick - that is the pan of the job that is very meaningful to me."

In fact, Cowan, who is a fan of numerology and is a Stanford lit­ erature graduate, also enjoys re­ searching the packaging and labels

for Shmaltz beers. which are liber­ ally sprinkled v.:.ith infonnation about Jewish holidays, references to Jewish pop-culture icons like Mel Brooks and Jerry Seinfeld (he even created a beer in honor of leg­ endary Jewish comedian Lenny Bruce) and gematria Qewish nu­ merology). He often opens up a Chumash as a source of inspiration before writing labels and designing packaging and gets help from a co­ worker to source the material.

"I go to the Torah as a begin­ ning point and I keep looking and looking," he said. Not only is the inclusion of Jewish references an integral pan of Shmaltz's marketing shtick but the core philosophy of the company is influenced by what's known as the three pillars ofJudaism (Torah, divine service and acts of loving kindness), which Cowan was introduced to on a trip he took when he was 25 with the Safed­ based volunteer program Uvnot U'Lehibanot.

When he returned to the United States, he created his own version of the three pillars and it bePlease see

BEER on

page 2

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came his company's motto: "Qual­ ity, Community and Shtick."

«As 1 mention in the book, it is important to me to have these core ideas running through everything 1 have created and so we are a strong supporter of community events," Cowan explained. 'We have been the official beer sponsor of the New York Jewish Heritage Festival,Jew­ ish fihn festivals, 1it:ernry series, stand­ up comedy, anything related to Purim, Olanukah ... events and any­ thing where beer is a central element ci the celebration. " And building community and trying to be inclusive is the main reason Cowan decided to get kosher certification (becbsber) for his beers.

"It's not necessary for a beer to have a hechsher, as long a,s certain main ingredients are used.' Despite this, he said, "I just wanted to make sure my customers and communi­ ty were comfortable bringing it to events and !inlto their homes."

Cowan's inclusive philosophy ensures that Shmaltz's kosher beer appeals to a broad section ofJews across the spectrum, "from college kids to Orthodox rabbis, to people who have nothing to do with for­ mal Judaism," he mused.

The recent Beverage World ac­ knowledgment, as well as numer­

......

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"Creating Jewbilation ... was an opportunity for me to dig deeper into Jewish history and to tie into world culture through ingredients, traditions .and shtick - that is the part of the job that is very meaningful to me." ous other accolades and awards, is an indication that not only Jews but the business and beverage world is beginning to take notice of this unique brewery. This recognition, coupled with the marked growth of the company, shows that Shmaltz Brewing Co. has definite­ ly come of age in its 13th year.

Craft Beer BarMitzvah is only available for purchase online at craftbeerbarmtizvah.com, but He'Brew beer can be bought at most local liquor stores.

a

David]. IJtvak ;s aftr!elance writer andpublicist living in Vancouwr.

September/October 2010

50 of the World's Best Seasonal Brews

HOLIDAY:

HE'BREW Jewbelation 14 Saratoga Springs, NY ABV 14%

A self‐proclaimed "chosen beer," the tongue‐in‐cheek Jewbelation series from Shmaltz Brewing is a perennial holiday favorite. Each year they build off of the previous vintage's recipe, adding one more hop variety and one new malt to the kettle. This year's 14th Anniversary edition features 14 hops, 14 malts and 14% alcohol. At some point they'll run out of options, so enjoy it while you can.

The Year's Best Christmas Beer? L'Chaim!

By Brian Yaeger, Tuesday, Dec. 7 2010 From the Romans gorging themselves on strong brews during Saturnalia to the Vikings drinking themselves blotto during Yule, pre‐Christians took their winter intoxication seriously, as a way to commune with deities and supernatural spirits.

While the guests of honor at this annual winter feast have morphed from the god Saturn and Nordic Asa gods to jolly ol' St. Nick, the communal beverage of good cheer remains. In Belgium, they're Noël beers, and ever since Anchor revived the "winter warmer," typically a spiced, dark ale known as a wassail, craft brewers have been brewing up a winter storm. For the literate, there's even a whole book about 'em by Don Russell called Christmas Beer.

Other than this blogger, panelists for December's blind tasting included Mill Valley Beerworks owners and this month's hosts, brothers Justin and Tyler Catalana, Old Oak Brewing proprietor Damian Fagan, Brewery Adventures cofounder and guide Elana Leoni, and Brewed for Thought blogger Mario Rubio.

The tasting list that follows contains 10 different interpretations of what the holidays‐in‐a‐bottle should taste like from local, craft, imported, and corporate brews available locally. They're scored on a scale of 1 to 10, based purely hedonistically, with 70 being the highest possible score, listed in order of overall preference.

1. Shmaltz Jewbelation 14 (San Francisco via Saratoga Springs, N.Y.): 45 points. The best Christmas beer, it seems, is a Hannukah beer. (Woe that we didn't have Alex Hochman on the panel.)

Garnering several top scores ― from the brewery that brought you He'Brew ― comes the latest in its series of holiday beers where the number of grains (all the usual malted barleys plus flaked quinoa and spelt), hops, AND alcohol are also calculated to mark its anniversary. This year's rendition is velvety and chocolaty to the point where this blogger wished it came with mistletoe, since I wanted to kiss it. (14% ABV, $6/22 oz.)

2. Dupont Avec les Bons Vœux (Tourpes, Belgium) 3. Anchor Our Special Ale 2010 (San Francisco) 4. Anderson Valley Winter Solstice (Boonville, Calif.)

5. 21st Amendment Fireside Chat (San Francisco via Cold Springs, Minn.)

6. Deschutes Jubelale (Bend, Ore.) 7. Fish Tale WinterFish (Olympia, Wash.)

8. Blue Moon Winter Abbey (Golden, Colo.)

9. Sierra Nevada Celebration (Chico, Calif.)

10. The Bruery 3 French Hens (Placentia, Calif.)

Beer

As Hanukkah Winds Down, We're Still Firing Up the Jewbelation

By Jason Henry, Tue., Dec. 7 2010 @ 2:19PM

Hanukkah is a time to celebrate miracles. This year, Shmaltz Brewing Co. ― which calls both S.F. and N.Y. home ― asked you to put down the Manischewitz for a minute and celebrate the miracle of beer. The 14-year-old brewery (happy belated bar mitzvah!) has been churning out its Jewbelation Anniversary Ale for seven years running. Each year, the malt additions, hop profile, and alcohol content are designed to match the age of the brewery, so for its 14th year, Shmaltz crafted a 14 percent

ABV beast incorporating 14 malts and 14 hop varieties. If beer descriptors like "figs," "molasses," and "tobacco" snag your attention, then you're in for a treat ― just like the panel for Brian Yaeger's blind holiday-beer tasting, which rated Jewbelation 14 first in a field of 10.

What's more, in honor of Hanukkah, the Shmaltz rebrewed the previous six iterations of its anniversary ale, along with a blend of all seven recipes aged in rye whiskey barrels, just for good measure. The entire set of brews (complete with commemorative glassware, candles, and instructions for making a menorah out of empty beer bottles) is available at better beer stores.

Or if you'd rather celebrate Hanukkah's waning festive nights from a barstool, all eight have been tapped in progressive nightly fashion at the Church Key (call for tapping times). Dreidel not included.

December 2010

Celebration Brews Holiday beers that’ll help you toast the season.

From classic Belgian strong ales to recipes that change year to year, the flavors of holiday beers are the ideal match for the rich, decadent foods of the season, and they make perfect gifts for your beer-loving friends.

Like everything else during the holidays, these are indulgent beers meant for savoring and celebrating.

Here are 20 of our favorites:

He’Brew Jewbelation Saratoga Springs, N.Y., ABV varies, A self-proclaimed “chosen beer,” the tongue-in-cheek Jewbelation series from Shmaltz Brewing is a perennial holiday favorite. Each year they build off of the previous vintage’s recipe, adding one more hop variety and one new malt to the kettle. This year’s 14thanniversary edition features 14 hops, 14 malts and 14% alcohol. At some point they’ll run out of options, so enjoy it while you can.

December 2010

25 Beers of Christmas “Do not open till Christmas” should never apply to beer. Each day until Dec. 25, we’re cracking open one of the season’s best holiday brews; follow along and feel the Christmas spirit in your veins.

Day 8: Shmaltz Jewbelation Hanukkah comes to an end tomorrow, so what better time to tip back a few selections from Shmaltz brewing? Today we’ve got its annual Jewbelation—this year’s 14—and Vertical Jewbelation, a barrel-aged blend of year’s past. Keeping with tradition, this year’s Jewbelation combines 14 malt and hop varieties for an ultra-thick, potent drink. A rich, dark fruit aroma overpowers roast and caramel scents: Raisin, cherry and plum notes sink deep into the nose. With this many ingredients, expect a rush of flavors to storm the tongue. Caramel, brown sugar and a dash of roasted malts flow back, while orange and pine hop notes jump out mid-sip.

There’s a decent bitter push that cuts through the malts, and with the help of some drying alcohol, the mouth isn’t overrun with thick, sweet malt flavors. Overall, Jewbelation 14 is a creamy, robust and complex American strong ale worth checking out. Vertical Jewbelation takes the experience to another level. While the aroma’s subdued, it’s not hard to pick out the rye whiskey threads, backed by woody oak, chocolate and a hint of roasted malts. Swirl the beer and you’ll unlock some of the dark fruit scents. Smooth vanilla and oak notes flow down the tongue, with sweet caramel and whiskey emerging mid-sip. A hint of grape appears just before woodsy bitterness swells in the back. Vertical Jewbelation is an incredibly smooth, well-rounded beer, and dangerously drinkable at 10.5%-ABV. By far, it’s the best Jewbelation beer released to date.

AOL Food

He'Brew Jewbelation 14 - Beer of the Week

by Joshua M. Bernstein, Posted Nov 22nd 2010 @ 5:00PM

As a kid, celebrating Hanukkah meant spinning the dreidl, lighting candles, snacking on my mom's crisp latkes and, glory be, opening up a present for eight great nights -- take that, Christmas.

But as an adult, the Festival of Lights has lost some luster. Now, I have to make my own latkes. And gifts? I'm lucky if I get a single sweater tucked into a JCPenney box. That's why this year I'm taking present-buying into my own hands and nabbing a bottle of He'Brew Jewbelation, crafted by the Shmaltz Brewing Company.

Each Hanukkah brings a new Jewbelation recipe, and this one -- done in honor of the brewery's 14th anniversary -- is a knee-knocking doozy: 14 hops, 14 malts, 14 percent ABV. "Our brewer, Paul McErlean, has done a tremendous job of finding a way to balance all of the ingredients in the Jewbelation beers to make the final product complex and aggressive, but also well thought out and totally drinkable -- for a 14 percent ABV brew," says founder Jeremy Cowan.

Well, I wouldn't go that far. While the ruby-black ale has a figgy, grassy nose, this ain't no dainty butterfly. From the first sip this bruising ale paints your taste buds with gooey, luscious malts shot through with dark fruit, molasses, chocolate and a shock of citric bitterness.

It's silky and warming, and almost as chewy as a chunk of caramel.

Happy Hanukkah, indeed.

P.S. If you'd like more Jewbelation this holiday season, you're in luck. Shmaltz is unleashing an eightpack dubbed Vertical Jewbelation. It features every release to date and a special bottle featuring a blend of all the recipes that's then aged in Sazerac barrels. It's oaky excellence.

Joshua M. Bernstein has written about brews, bars and booze for New York Magazine, Time Out New York, Imbibe Magazine and The New York Times. His beer book, Brewed Awakening, will be published

by Sterling in 2011. Follow him on Twitter @JoshMBernstein.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010 San Francisco, CA

L'Chaim: Jewbelation Tastings at Church Key Ensuring Hanukkah candles aren't the only things getting lit during the festival of lights, this week CK's hosting eight nights of progressive beer tasting (starting tonight) with limited edition re-releases of eight Jewbelation beers only available at 88 chosen bars across the US. One brew is added to the list each night, and the 5oz tasters will only run you $1, meaning on the eighth crazy night you'll get 40oz for $8 -- a good deal, though for the same price you could just get, like, 235 King Cobras.

MARKET WATCH

December 2010

NEWS WATCH

Shmaltz Brewing Releases

Holiday Gift Set

To coincide with Chanukah, Shmaltz Brewing Co. has released the Vertical Jewbelation He'Brew holiday gift set, a package containing eight different beers, a custom glass, Chanukah candles and instructions on how to build a menorah.

The gift set ($30 to $35, depending on the market) includes,one 12~ounce bottle of Shmaltz's Jewbelation beers 8 through 14 and a bottle of Vertical Jewbelation, a new release. Jewbelation 14, which debuted in October, is made with 14 malts and 14hops, and it has 14~percent alcohol.. by~volume.

Meanwhile, Vertical Jewbelation, which launches this month, is a blend ofJewbe~ lation beers 8 through 14 and is aged in Sazerac rye barrels. Shmaltz proprietor Jeremy Cowan is also releasing the book "Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah" this month.

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December 6, 2010

Why You Want It: While the holidays are all about family get-togethers, we also know that sometimes you need something a little bit stronger to drink to make it through them. So that’s where the fine folks at Shmaltz Brewing Company come in. The makers of HE’BREW have you covered with their HE’BREW Holiday Gift Pack. You get all seven versions of their annually brewed Jewbelation beer – a different version has been brewed for each year the brewery has been around, with each one stronger in alcohol content than the year’s previous – with Jewbelation 14 topping out at a whopping 14% ABV. The pack also comes with their latest offering, Vertical Jewbelation, which blends all seven recipes and has been barrel-aged in Sazerac 6-year rye whiskey barrels. The best part is the whole set doubles as a Hannukah Menorah, complete with candles and instructions on how to built it once you’re done drinking that night’s bottle.

TODAY PAGE 37 Wednesday, November 24, 2010 NJ.COM/ENTERTAINMENT …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Holiday Gift Guide

While you're untangling Christmas lights, stalking parking lots for empty spaces, and tussling, sometimes literally, with other frantic shoppers for door‐buster deals, your Jewish friends will be unwrapping gifts, lighting candles and contentedly wiping potato latke crumbs from their sweaters. Yes, the eight‐day festival of Chanukah comes early this year – the first night is Dec. 1.

Because our annual holiday gift guide traditionally runs the week after Thanksgiving, we're giving you an early peek at our hot picks this year. –Vicki Hyman

Food and Drink: Celebrate the Festival of Lights by getting, well, lit. Shmaltz Brewing Company, purveyor of HE'BREW Beer, offers a holiday gift box featuring an eight‐pack of its award‐winning Jewbelation series, including its newest, Jewbelation 14, with 14 malts and 14 hops, along with a custom glass, Chanukah candles, and instructions on building your own beer menorah. Whole Foods, Total Wine, $30.99.

Craft Brews Illuminate Deli Classics at Saul'sShmaltz Mashup

By Alex Hochman, Wed., Nov. 17 2010 @ 4:20PM

Smoked herring on potato coins, paired with Shmaltz's Genesis Ale.

Here's the shocker about last night's Shmaltz beer and Jewish foods pairing at Saul's Deli: It completely worked. As a deli purist who drinks only Dr. Brown's or plain seltzer with a pastrami sandwich and potato knishes, I was skeptical.

Shmaltz's Zak Davis tells me he thinks younger Jews are getting into the craft beer movement, and that events like last night's might help turn them on to old-school deli classics. Conversely, he's hoping that Shmaltz's regular presence on the Saul's beer list will introduce traditionalists to multiple brews.

We started with a sliver of chef Jon Bradbury's house-smoked herring served on a Genesis Ale-poached potato coin, matched with a glass of the same ale. The herring was intensely smoky ― a good thing. Both in potato and liquid form, the crisp ale acted as a palate cleanser, meaning our second and third bites were as thrilling as the first. A hunk of Marin Sun Farms pot roast had a mellow nuttiness thanks to a braise in Messiah Bold Nut Brown Ale, which we drank alongside.

Jewbelation, Shmaltz's 14-percent ABV dark brown Chanukah ale, was so boozy and chocolaty a snifter of it would have sufficed for dessert. I found myself spooning into the accompanying chocolate bread pudding to cut the beer rather than visa versa.

Leaning into our table's conversation, an older gentleman with an untidy beard summed up the experience: "I'm a bit of a beer lover and a bit of an eavesdropper, and this meal was fantastic."

When Eggnog Just Won't Do Christmas and Hanukkah beers to keep you warm

By Alastair Bland / December 1, 2010 Rain and darkness cloak the land. The earth has turned to mud. The sun appears reluctantly each day, hunkering low on the horizon where it seems to take a doubtful peak at our dreary land and say, "Thanks but no thanks, man. I'll be in Australia." And so we shiver through the winter; we burn our furniture to stay warm, eat boiled turnips, fuss over Christmas shopping, bundle up in damp blankets and wait for warmer days. We also drink beer. Naturally.

During these cold months, beers don't get much better. Now's the time when microbreweries put their watery lagers on hold and brew up high-alcohol, big-boned malt bombs strong enough to ward off the frost, not to mention make "The Twelve Days of Christmas" tolerable.

Locally, the Christmas beer list includes Moylan Brewery's White Christmas Spiced Winter Lager, Marin Brewing's Hoppy Holidaze, 21st Amendment Brewery's Fireside Chat and Anchor Brewing Co.'s annual Christmas Ale, all available in either bottles or cans at local markets.

On draft, find an experimental version of Lagunitas Brewing Co.'s Brown Shugga, usually an ale but this year fermented in part with a lager yeast, pouring at the brewery taproom starting in early December. Up in Healdsburg, the downtown taps flow with the Scottish Wee Heavy at Bear Republic Brewery.

According to the Beer Judge Certification Program guidelines, a Christmas beer's aromas should be "reminiscent of Christmas cookies, gingerbread, English-type Christmas pudding, spruce trees or mulling spices." Traditionally, English and German breweries never spiced their Christmas beers, but the Belgians did, and the technique has become a favorite method.

Moylan's winter beer is heavy on pumpkin pie spices and also bears grainy, biscuity notes of a lager. And Fireside Chat, 21st Amendment's ode to Franklin Roosevelt's weekly radio talks with the nation, contains the warm and sugary essence of "spices"—and that's all they're willing to tell us on the can. Anchor's Christmas Ale also carries an undisclosed curry of ingredients that changes from batch to batch.

In the Russian River Valley, autumn means apples, the core ingredient at Ace Cider Company. Honey from Gipson's Golden honey farm in Santa Rosa also finds its way into the Sebastopol cidery, and the sum of these sugars makes Ace Apple Honey cider, a current wintertime release now on shelves at most better beer stores. (You might even buy a second bottle and baste a ham or turkey with the off-dry, fruity-nosed brew.) Avery Brewing's Old Jubilation Ale stands in a gray area, brewed with no special ingredients yet redolent of hazelnuts, ginger and espresso.

Would one ever imagine that the Shmaltz Brewing Company, renowned for its Jewishthemed brews, would deign to release a Christmas beer? Hell no. The irreverent San Francisco—based brewery is famed for its He'brew: The Chosen Beer label, and every year since 2004 has released a special birthday beer called Jewbelation. Last December, when the brewery turned 13, Shmaltz released—what else?—Jewbelation Bar Mitzvah.

Currently hitting shelves is Jewbelation Fourteen, a brown ale of 14 malts, 14 hops and 14 percent alcohol.

In our melting pot of a world, He'brew representatives will be celebrating Christmas— and pouring beer—at the Toad in the Hole Pub (116 Fifth St., Santa Rosa; 707.544.8623) on Tuesday, Dec. 7, where the Jews' brews will be matched to traditional Christmas soups and roasts and pies of England. Drink up. The carolers are coming.

Drink This: He'Brew Jewbelation Fourteen 12/01/2010

He'Brew Jewbelation Fourteen by Shmaltz Brewing Co. $5.99 per 22-ounce bottle

By Marcus Chamberland The eight nights of Hannukah begin tonight, and the folks at Shmaltz Brewing are out with their 14th-anniversary ale, a kosher barleywine brewed with 14 malts, 14 hops and 14 percent alcohol by volume. Resembling an imperial stout in pour and body, it's an opaque, dark-brown, heavy liquid with a tight, light-brown head. It smells of figs, prunes and alcohol, and is, while rich, a surprisingly easy drinker. Its high alcohol demands that it be sipped, and a slow approach helps bring out the deep and complex flavors imparted by the many ingredients. It has the sweetness of dark fruit and molasses rather than anything bready or malty, as the malts are well-balanced by the hops. The alcohol is present but not at all overpowering. This is a fine holiday drinker, and it makes you wonder how far Shmaltz can push the formula of adding to the hops, malt and booze with each passing year. So far, so good. â&#x20AC;Š

Tampa, FL

Brew Mitzvah: Shmaltz Brewing’s He’Brew Jewbelation Beers December 1, 2010 at 4:30 pm by Thomas Barris When people think of Hanukkah they general think of menorahs, dreidels and latkes, but it is a little more than that. It’s a festival of light celebrating the Jewish culture regaining the holy city of Jerusalem and the rededication of the Holy Temple. Now during this special time of year, the brewers at Shmaltz Brewing Company, based out of New York and San Francisco, release a series of brews called Jewbelation to help commemorate this holiest of holidays. The two new brews in the Jewbelation series this year are the Jewbelation 14 and Vertical Jewbelation.

The Shmaltz Brewing Company started back in 1996 in San Francisco by owner and head brewer Jeremy Cowan and has now grown from making its original one hundred cases of He’Brew to being one of the most recognizable craft beer companies in the world. They have two different brands of beers the He’Brew series and the sideshow-inspired Coney Island series. The Coney series includes brews such as the Human Blockhead, Sword Swallower and the Albino Python. Proceeds from the Coney series goes to help Coney Island USA and helps keep that offbeat part of American culture intact and thriving.

Jewbelation Fourteen – 14% ABV This being the fourteenth installment of the Jewbelation series, it has a lot to of hype to live up and it does not fail to deliver. This brew is made with fourteen types of malts and hops and at fourteen percent ABV is sure to leave one feeling a little “ferschnoshked” (Yiddish for “drunk”). It is considered to be a barleywine style ale and pours a nice deep mahogany color. The aroma is full of sweet malts, caramel with a small hint of hops and alcohol (not surprising with its high ABV). This is a big beer that is surprisingly easy to drink, imparting lots of sweet malt flavors, sugar, caramel, followed by some floral-citrusy hops, with a nice clean not to boozy finish. This beer could be paired with food but would be most enjoyable savored alone.

Vertical Jewbalation – 10.5% ABV Now going one step beyond, the brewers at Shmaltz have combined all the award-winning brews in the Jewbalation series, to make a interesting “kitchen sink” type of ale. This beer has taken Jewbelations eight through fourteen and barrel aged them together in Sazerac 6 year rye whiskey barrel. It pours a nice darkish brown color, with sweet aromas of malt and fruitiness. The combinations of the sweet vanilla tastes, hints of whiskey from the aging, some grape fruitiness, rich malt and slight booziness make this one very enjoyable brew. It is definitely a different take on a strong ale but it is certainly palate pleaser. This brew can be savored and cellared due to the high ABV and also because of its rarity.

This year Shmaltz has released a commemorative gift pack of all the award-winning brews in the Jewbelation series. Combined in this holiday gift set is a commemorative glass, 8 bottles of Jewbelation (8-14) Hanukkah candles, along with instructions for making your very own beer bottle menorah — the gift that keeps on giving.

While celebrating Hanukkah with family and friends, remember that sometimes it’s okay to stray from drinking the traditional Manischewitz and enjoy a well crafted brew. L’chaim and Happy Hanukkah!

Shmaltz Brewing celebrates 'extreme Chanukah' with special releases and a new book Published: Thursday, November 18, 2010 This is pretty much the brewery's press release verbatim...

Shmaltz Brewing ("Dedicated to Crafting Delicious Beer and Delicious Shtick...")

Releases Three Limited-Edition Holiday Seasonal Products: Jewbelation 14, HE'BREW Holiday Gift Pack, and Barrel-Aged Vertical Jewbelation Shmaltz Brewing celebrates its 14th year of brewing with the special release of three of the Most Extreme Chanukah Offerings including Jewbelation 14 (Release Date: November 1, 2010), HE'BREW Holiday Gift Pack (Release Date: November 1, 2010), and barrel-aged Vertical Jewbelation (Release Date: December 1, 2010). Jewbelation 14速 and Vertical Jewbelation will be nationally available in 22 oz. bottles and a very limited amount of draft for select bars, and will also be available in 12 oz. bottles in the HE'BREW Holiday Gift Pack.

Brewed with 14 malts, 14 hops, and soaring to 14% alc., Jewbelation 14 marks Shmaltz's boldest anniversary ale to date. Since its inception in 2004, Shmaltz's Jewbelation速 series has been touted by critics receiving top accolades including "5 Stars" from Celebrator Beer News, "Best Holiday Beer" by Pacific Brew News, and Playboy Magazine pegging Jewbelation Twelve as one of the "Best Winter Brews."

HE'BREW Holiday Gift Pack features all seven recipes of the award-winning Jewbelation速 series (8 - 14) plus a bottle of the barrel-aged Vertical Jewbelation. The 8-beer Gift Packincludes a custom glass, Chanukah candles and instructions on how to build your own beer menorah, with artwork by Bay Area illustrator Chris Blair, and a very special addition of "A Chanukah Prayer" by San Francisco stand-up comedian and Chronicle cartoonist, Michael Capozzola.

Vertical Jewbelation is a a blend of all seven recipes of Jewbelation速 barrel-aged in Sazerac 6-year rye whiskey barrels throughout 2010.

In December 2010, Shmaltz will host special events at acclaimed beer bars across the country featuring all eight Jewbelation beers for the eight nights of Chanukah.

This holiday season also marks the launch of Shmaltz Brewing proprietor Jeremy Cowan's new book, Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah: How it Took 13 years, Extreme Jewish Brewing, and Circus Sideshow Freaks to make Shmaltz Brewing Company an International Success. A small business memoir tracking 13 years of brewing up delicious beer and delicious shtick, Cowan divulges his take on creating a successful national brand and all the fun and unexpected turns he has experienced along the way. With over 8 million bottles of beer sold to date, Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah takes readers on a wild ride with the head of one of today's most talked about and award winning Jewish Freak Show Craft Breweries.

Finding a malt for all seasons March 18, 2010

By IRV LEAVITT ileavitt@pioneerlocal.com

If you're willing to risk your Easter dinner collapsing into drunken recriminations sufficient to last in familial memory until everyone reconvenes at Christmas, we may have just the thing for you.

Lincolnwood distributor Louis Glunz Beer maintains their new 10.5 percent alcohol, limited-edition Belgian brew, Houden Carolus Easter Ale, is the perfect drink for washing down Easter ham.

Pioneer Press convened a largely arbitrary panel to test this claim.

Our mavens assembled at Max and Benny's, a kosher-style delicatessen at 481 Waukegan Road, just east of Northbrook and south of Deerfield. This is a less-thanprime spot for ham-eating, of course.

It was chosen because, in the interest of ecumenism, we also tested some kosher beers made by the Shmaltz Brewing Co., which Glunz says go well with the kind of food Max and Benny's is better known for.

Passover is approaching at nearly the same speed (March 29) as Easter (April 4), but neither "He'brew presents: Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A.," a rye-heavy ale, or "Coney Island Human Blockhead" lager is kosher for Passover.

If you can't use yeast in bread, you can't use it in booze, either. Nice try, though.

One of our judges was Joe Spera, owner-operator of Al's Meat Market in Wilmette. He not only knows a good ham when he carves it, but the cooler of his butcher shop at 1165 Wilmette Ave. is never without a tapped beer keg. Currently, it's Spaten Maibok, a spring beer from Germany, available to his pals during slow periods.

Spera's store may be the best place for a drink in Wilmette, if you're not particular about drinking in the general proximity of dead animals.

Sandy Frum, village president of Northbrook, was considered a double-threat judge because she grew up Catholic, like Spera, but converted to Judaism when she married. So she knows ham and delicatessen, too.

Frum's husband Carlos, an Argentina-born computer genius and another Northbrook mover and shaker, was also on the panel.

Three men from the restaurant sat in. Lester Schlan owns the 12,000 square-foot eatery. His cousin Richard Reeder runs catering and community outreach. Schlan's son Ben does marketing, and is the brains behind the famous cookies sold with frosted visages of such greats as Barack Obama, John McCain and Stewie Griffin from Family Guy. And then there was the author, whose daughter maintains he would "eat a hippo if he could find one," and at one point knew the location of the back door of every bar in three Chicago wards.

Max and Benny's only ham-centered entree is a Monte Cristo sandwich. But the boss ordered the chef to make some thick ham-and-swiss sandwiches, too. The judges ate, and sipped the Easter ale.

Ale is a lot like beer, except it's usually stronger and a little fruity-tasting.

And "very malty," said Spera, who said that was a good thing.

"Oh, that is delicious," added Lester Schlan. "Are you sure that's beer?" He was assured it was ale.

Everybody liked it, whatever it was, and most of two 25.4 ounce bottles -- $11 each -- were emptied quickly, which is pretty good for that crowd.

"I'm not really much of a beer drinker," confided Sandy Frum.

She must have felt right at home in Max and Benny's. During the 90 minutes we spent in the restaurant, no customer ordered anything stronger than chocolate milk.

"You probably have more (alcohol consumed) in your place than we do in ours," restaurateur Schlan told butcher Spera with a shrug.

Next, we tried the new Bittersweet Lenny's from Shmaltz' He'brew line (referred to by the New York brewery as "The Chosen Beer." We're not making this up).

It contained 10 percent alcohol, too, which is well more than twice the content of most beer.

"Very hoppy," Spera said. He noted that India pale ales like this one traditionally are hop-heavy, which effectively prevented spoilage during shipping from 19th century England to India.

But it also makes them very bitter. Not too bitter to temper my appreciation of Schlan's "Nosher," a trademark corned beef sandwich with a shmear of chopped liver inside, or his potato latkes the size of pocket dictionaries. But only Carlos Frum and I thought it wasn't too strong to drink with food.

"I like Guinness (stout), but not this," said Reeder. Stout, though among the most assertive of beers, is the "milder" brew you can mix with a pale ale to make a Black and Tan. I noticed that Carlos Frum, while drinking the pale ale, picked up another ham sandwich. Is the Jewish beer really better with ham?

"Whatever you're eating, you drink what you like to drink with it," he said.

I have no idea if that answered my question, but I wrote it down anyway.

FYI: R.I.P.A stands for Rye India Pale Ale, not Rest in Peace Ale. The Blockhead lager, also blessed with 10 percent alcohol, has a label featuring a banner identifying it as "Tough as Nails Lager," and a caricature of a man driving a large nail into his own head with a hammer.

This is as accurate a label representation of the actual sensation delivered by a product as I have ever seen.

I cannot describe what Blockhead tasted like. I asked everybody, and nobody could or would say anything about it.

"I am taking the fifth," Lester Schlan said helpfully.

So I had another glass. Just for investigative purposes.

â&#x20AC;Š

Holiday Foods: Seasonal Suds ’Tis the season of wintry things: a sun that hardly rises, gloom and gray all day, farmers markets flooded with kale and the anguish of gift shopping. But with December, at least, we also enter the months of the big-boned malt bombs, often billed by brewers as their “winter” or “Christmas” beers. Such brews currently on shelves at local supermarkets and better beer stores include Ginger’s Winter Warmer from Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing, Sierra Nevada’s annual Celebration Ale and Anchor Brewing’s yearly Christmas Ale. San Francisco’s 21st Amendment has released Fireside Chat, a strong brown beer named after Franklin Roosevelt’s weekly radio talks with a nation that was then burning its furniture to keep warm. And from breweries further afield, beers like Deschutes’ Jubelale and Avery’s Old Jubilation Ale have arrived with the rains and the nasty north swell.

So what makes a beer a “Christmas beer”? According to the Beer Judge Certification Program guidelines, a lengthy online document of history, sensory descriptors and ingredients, the brew, whether ale or lager, should be “reminiscent of Christmas cookies, gingerbread, English-type Christmas pudding, spruce trees, or mulling spices. Any combination of aromatics that suggests the holiday season is welcome.” To achieve such ends, brewers often add spices to their Christmas beers. Ginger’s Winter Warmer, for example, was brewed with two pounds of dried ginger, two pounds of fresh ginger and crushed whole lemons. Fireside Chat contains the warm and sugary essence of “spices.” Anchor’s Christmas Ale also carries an undisclosed mix of ingredients.

Uncommon Brewers makes nothing but strong ales spiced for effect; there’s the curry-flavored Belgian-style, the redwood branch barleywine, the poppy seed golden and the candy cap mushroom. But our holiday picks from this homegrown Santa Cruz brewery would have to be the oil-black Baltic Porter with licorice, available on draft at The Parish Publick House, and the Bacon Brown, a smoky, maple-hued ale brewed with cuts of smoked swine and pouring now at The Avenue and Bluewater Steakhouse.

At Seabright Brewery, spiced winter beers have historically been financial duds, according to brewer Jason Chavez.

So what can we expect instead? A 10 percent alcohol barleywine on draft beginning Dec. 23.

Another Bay Area wintertime beer worth tasting is Shmaltz Brewing Company’s Jewbelation Fourteen. Of 14 malts, 14 hops and a 14-percent alcohol reading, this beauty is a layered, chewy ale of fudge, toffee, butterscotch and dried fruit flavors—but if it reminds you of a fat man in a sleigh and gifts heaped under a wilting fir tree, the brewers missed their mark. Because Shmaltz, based in San Francisco, is the nation’s most irreverently Jewish brewery: don’t expect a pig-flavored beer from these guys. Well-known for its “He’brew: The Chosen Beer” label, Shmaltz released Jewbelation Bar Mitzvah last December when the brewery turned 13. Fourteen is the latest in the Jewbelation birthday series. Available in 22-ounce bottles, it will also be paired to kosher cuisine (specifically a fifth course of chocolate beignets) on Dec. 6 at 515 Kitchen & Cocktails. Call the restaurant (831.239.8615) to reserve.

Finally, we leave you with word of the fanciest winter release in town: Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing Company’s barleywine, available in champagne bottles only at the Westside brewery—and it’s worth the trip. It was aged in French chardonnay barrels for eight months, a technique intended to impart a buttery smooth texture and flavors of vanilla, oak and faint coconut. Visions of Santa Claus and sugar plums, however, were never intended as part of the package—but if they start dancing in your head, well, it is Christmas. Have another drink.

Hoppy holidays Winter beers come in many flavors

By Alastair Bland, December 23, 2010 They might not melt snow, but the big brown beers of Christmastime display warming, spicy aromas and flavors that evoke so many things December, including gingerbread men, snow-dusted fir trees, mulled wine, and, sometimes, Chanukah.

Among us now are classics like Anchor Brewing’s annual Christmas Ale, Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome Ale, Sierra Nevada’s Celebration Ale, Deschutes’ Jubelale, and, from Austrian brewery Schloss Eggenberg, Samichlaus, a bock containing more alcohol than most wines and claiming on its front label to be “The World’s Most Extraordinary Beer.” More recently introduced newcomers to this beer category include 21st Amendment’s Fireside Chat, a spiced ale; and Moylan’s spiced White Christmas Winter Lager.

These beers range from 6 percent to 14 percent alcohol by volume and include ales and lagers.

What, then, do they all have in common? Christmas spirit, according to the Beer Judge Certification Program guidelines, a long-winded document referred to by brewers and tasters for its eloquent descriptions and definitions of most recognized beer styles. The guidelines declare that a Christmas beer should display “a wide range of aromatics,” often “reminiscent of Christmas cookies, gingerbread, English-type Christmas pudding, spruce trees, or mulling spices. Any combination of aromatics that suggests the holiday season is welcome.” The beers may be spiced with cinnamon, orange peel, nutmeg and allspice and are often malt-heavy, fudgy brews whose sweetness and often high alcohol levels can ably balance their potpourris of aroma.

Lagunitas Brewing Co.’s Brown Shugga’ only loosely matches the BJCP’s description of traditional Christmas beers. Yet it has become one of the most anticipated winter releases in California and often finds its way into horizontal tastings of the Christmas beer style. A review in the December issue of Celebrator Beer News gave Brown Shugga’ a top-notch five-star rating when blind-tasted against dozens of other international winter releases. Brown Shugga’, highly hopped, spicy and sweet, owes a good quarter of its 9.9 percent alcohol level to cane sugar, a trait owing itself to the winter day in 1997 when the brewers, who were making their annual barleywine at their Petaluma facility, ran short of malt and resorted to hundreds of pounds of brown sugar from local supermarkets to fill the malt gap.

Adam Avery, brewmaster at Avery Brewing in Boulder, Colo., says his Old Jubilation Ale is technically most like an English old ale, not a Christmas or holiday ale. The beer, of rich, round coffee and chocolate notes, is made without spice additions, which Avery feels can diminish a beer’s “drinkability” while fatiguing the taster’s palate over the course of a bottle or two. Whether Christmas beer or not, Old Jubilation’s package label depicts a family of holiday revelers in a horse-drawn sleigh arriving at the gates of a country estate, presumably for a tree-trimming party followed by a feast of a roasted pig with an apple in its mouth.

Old Jubilation was also included in Celebrator’s tasting and received a five-star rating.

In the same review, Sierra Nevada’s Celebration Ale received three stars (still a “Good”). Though it’s on shelves now, and though its label features a cozy cabin in the snowy woods, don’t crack the bottle expecting figgy pudding, gingerbread and hot mulled wine from this beer, because it’s actually an IPA, according to the brewery’s senior research analyst, Thomas Nielsen.

Anchor’s Christmas Ale (it received four stars) is the real thing by BJCP standards. Brewed every year since 1975 using a secret blend of spices, the beer is awaited eagerly by devotees who often set aside a magnum bottle or two for long-term cellaring, saving them for that most regal and revered experience in beer drinking—the vertical year-by-year-comparison tasting. The beer’s recipe changes every season but is always brewed as an ode to the “joy and celebration of the newness of life,” according to Anchor’s website. In similar spirit, 21st Amendment’s secretly spiced Fireside Chat (three stars) touts itself as “a kick in the butt and a hug at the same time.”

Finally, we discuss the biggest beer of the month, Shmaltz Brewing Co.’s Jewbelation Fourteen, now on shelves. Chewy, fudgy, and redolent of caramel and hazelnuts, the 14percent-alcohol ale was released in honor of Schmaltz Brewing’s 14th birthday this December. Last year, the same beer was brewed and released as Jewbelation Bar Mitzvah. Get it? The brewery is Jewish, and if a taste of Fourteen inspires warm, fuzzy feelings and images of loaded stockings, jingling bells, or reindeer, drink again.

Beer Jewrnal: JewBaucchus Posted by Sarah Shanfield on Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 1:43 PM

Dear Beer Jewrnal, A note on Jews: not too many of them have been showing up to the Shmaltz Brewing Company's Hanukkah events. Speaking as a Jew myself, we can smell each other like fresh kugel out of the oven, and when I arrive at these bars, the He’Brew people are asking me for menorah advice and no one is asking me what my parents do for a living. Like I said, the people who celebrate Hanukkah are way over it by Day 4 and are already looking for what Chinese restaurants are open on December 25th. This solidifies my theory that Hanukkah is to Jews as Patriot’s Day is to Patriots. We acknowledge that it’s there but don’t want anything to do with it after we’ve milked the benefits of leaving work early on Friday and getting some sort of meal out of it. Don't most people feel that way about the holidays? However, I appreciate that Shmaltz is taking that good old-fashioned American Cinco de Drinko spirit and applying it to the most annoying holiday in my culture. It’s time somebody stepped up and made Hanukkah the Festival of Getting Lit anyway. So on it rages, this festival of lights, and the good people at Shmaltz brewing have yet to start nursing their hangovers.

This weekend, drinkers enjoyed free tastings of all the Jewbelation brews at Whole Foods on Bowery, paired with a lovely selection of kosher cheeses served on toothpicks. Later, after everyone returned their newly filled growlers to their houses, the chosen people of partying with Shmaltz donned their best “Jewish” costumes (wigs, nylons and flats for ladies, cozy wool suits for men), and headed to Manitoba’s for some burlesque, beer, and mackin’ like maccabees on the dance floor.

Tuesday’s event was He’Brew Beer night at spring Lounge, featuring a variety of He’brew Beers os well as “Local Jewish Fare,” so, whatever was leftover from the Bar Mitzvah that was at Spring Lounge that weekend. (Greasy pastrami from Katz's as a pass-around hors de’vours?) Challah!

November 11, 2010 / GO Brooklyn / Shopping

Special meals deserve specialty markets

BY ADAM WARNER for The Brooklyn Paper

These next few months, it’s all about food. And if you’re planning a feast for friends and family, you can stock up on flavorful, local products, find choice cheeses, and even pick your own turkey at these specialty food stores across the borough. Or, for nonentertainers, you can find the ingredients for an enviable gift basket. Here’s our guide for putting together the perfect spread. Dig in.

BEER Park Slope’s Bierkraft holds the answer to all your hoppy needs.

Among the many brews available this season is ‘T Gaverhopke’s Xmas Ale from Belgium, a strong and deliciously spiced choice; Stillwater Artisanal Ales’ A Saison Darkly from Maryland, which is brewed with rose hips and hibiscus; and Ale Project’s Baba Yaga, a Russian Imperial Stout flavored with rosemary.

Don’t forget the 8-beer menorah from Shmaltz, appropriately named Vertical Jewbelation.

25 beer days until Christmas Published: Wednesday, December 01, 2010, 5:26 PM

By Peter Genovese/The Star-Ledger

I'm sitting in front of my computer at home, poised somewhere between trepidation and excitation.

A beer bottle with a golden yellow label is in front of me. Jewbelation Fourteen, it proclaims, innocently enough. The "14'' is key. It's the 14th anniversary of Shmaltz Brewing in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., the folks who gave you such freaky beers as Coney Island Sword Swallower and Albino Python.

The "14'' also refers to the amount of malts and hops in Jewbelation Fourteen.

And, oh, the ABV. Today's a good day to feature Jewbelation, part of Shmaltz' He'Brew the Chosen Beer line. Tonight marks the beginning of Chanukah, the Festival of Lights. Jeremy Cowan, Shmaltz' founder, started the brewery in 1996 — 5757 on the Hebrew calendar.

Cowan seems to have his tongue planted firmly in cheek — one side of the Shmaltz web site (shmaltzbrewing.com) directs you to the Chosen Beers (which also include Genesis Ale, Messiah Bold and Rejewvenator), the other side directs you to the Freak Beers (Coney Island Lager, Mermaid Pilsner, Human Blockhead and others).

"As with many 14-year-olds, this year's Jewbelation is all about hands, hearts and farts,'' according to the label. "14 is the numerical value for the Hebrew word for 'hand.' The human hand contains 14 digital bones and 14 joints. 14 items fill the Passover seder plate . . Jacob labored 14 years to earn marriage to Leah and Rachel. Over a lifetime, the average American spends 14 days kissing. Woody Allen received 14 Oscar nominations for best screenplay and directed 14 other actors in nominated performances. Dr. Oz reported on Oprah that humans fart an average of 14 times a day.''

Believe me, there's a lot more.

Enough of the shtick, time to drink.

Jewbelation Fourteen pours foamy and sinister-black, with tiny bubbles frantically making their way up the side of the glass. There are whiffs of chocolate, fruit, woodsmoke. The taste is a surprise — more fruity/berry than expected, but not too sweet, with coffee, caramel, chocolate, burnt, raisiny flavors and lots of malty kickback.

The 14% ABV stays more hidden than that last big Christmas present for your kid. You don't feel it one bit — unless, of course, you get carried away and knock down a bottle or two, quick.

Do not operate heavy machinery, or maybe even try to walk and talk, after a Jewbelation or two. It's an attentiongetter, a sweet little number. Make that a big number. Like 14.

DECEMBER 13, 2010

Tacoma's Red Hot has been chosen as one of 88 bars across the country set to feature all eight award-winning recipes of Shmaltz's He'Brew Jewbelation beer this Chanukah - Dec. 1-8. According to Red Hot owner Chris Trashcan, his bar will tap all eight of the selected Jewbelation beers at once - today! Judging by the hype, this is not an event for the non-committal. "You'll get a four-oz pour of every version, as well as the blended wood-aged beer (Schmaltz) made (Vertical Jewbelation). ...The first 24 people to do the vertical will get a Jewbelation Vertical pint glass that they made for these releases," says Trashcan. "There are no growler fills, or getting a singular pour. This is an adventurous event, so it's the whole enchilada, or nothing at all. First come first serve."

New York '"

Chanukah

Cheers

Shmaltz Brew­ ing celebrates its 14th year of brewing with the release of three Chanukah offer­ . ings: Jewbelation 14®. HE'BREW Holiday Gift Pack®, and bar­ rel-aged Vertical Jewbelation®.

Jewbelation 14® is brewed with 14 malts and 14 hops; Vertical Jewbelation® is a blend of all seven recipes of Jewbe­ lation® barrel-aged in Sazerac 6-year rye whiskey barrels throughout 2010.

HE'BREW Holiday Gift Pack® features all seven recipes of the award-winning Jewbelation® series (8-14) plus a bottle ofthe barrel-aged Vertical Jewbelation®.

The eight-beer gift pack features a custom glass, Chanukah candles and a copy of "A Chanukah Prayer" by San Francisco stand-up comedian and cartoonist Mi­ chael Capozzola.

See shmaltz.com for store locations.

Prices range from $5.99 to $30.99.

Chanukah chaos: Everyone’s getting in on the act Published: Friday, November 12, 2010 1:09 AM EST

As Chanukah approaches … a little sooner than usual (sundown Dec. 1) … the Jewish world is getting ready with all sorts of new holiday-themed items.

Here’s a sampling of what’s come the CJN’s way: Beer: Shmaltz Brewing celebrates its 14th year with the special release of three Chanukah offerings including Jewbelation 14, barrel-aged Vertical Jewbelation, and the HE’BREW Holiday Gift Pack.

Brewed with 14 malts, 14 hops, and soaring to 14% alcohol, Jewbelation 14 marks Shmaltz’s boldest anniversary ale to date.

Vertical Jewbelation is a blend of all seven anniversary recipes of Jewbelation. The gift pack features all seven anniversary recipes (8-14) plus a bottle of Vertical Jewbelation, and it comes with a custom glass, Chanukah candles, and instructions on how to build your own beer menorah. www.shmaltzbrewing.com.

May 26, 2010 | 9:44 am

From Alef: Alef Interviews: Shmaltz Brewing Company Turns 13 Featured in Alef: The NEXT Conversation, Birthright NEXT Los Angeles For the Jews, thirteen seems to be a lucky number — especially when we’re talking Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. So to wrap up our 13th issue, we went on the hunt for #13.

You’ll never guess what we found: Shmaltz Brewing Company, the producer of He’Brew: The Chosen Beer, recently turned thirteen. So, of course, founder Jeremy Cowan couldn’t let the year pass without a Bar Mitzvah celebration and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to chat with him about his company’s coming-of-age.

Alef: Tell us about your Bar Mitzvah, and how it influenced the way that you’re celebrating Shmaltz Brewing Company’s Bar Mitzvah year.

Jeremy Cowan: My personal bar mitzvah was in a suburban synagogue outside of San Fransisco in a reform community and it was very typical of 80’s northern California reform Judaism. Basically, I started He’Brew because I wanted to find a way to participate in the Jewish community in a meaningful and exciting and contemporary way that was relevant for me. But I also wanted it to be fun and a little bit outrageous, for other people to get a kick out of it so that they might also dig deeper into their own identities. So the Bar Mitzvah celebration this year had elements of text and tradition, but we didn’t have too many sacred elements. We got yarmulkes that everybody wore at the Great American Beer Festival and then at our parties throughout the last six months. Inviting people to share their Bar and Bat Mitzvah photos was hilarious, I don’t know if you guys checked out the website.

Alef: We did!

JC: It’s pretty amazing I mean, [laughs] everything from the very traditional and sincere to just ridiculous and silly, bizarre entries. Also, the band that was at my Bar Mitzvah was called “Hot Borscht.” I think I put together my set list for them to play. It was Led Zeppelin and Rush, and then they played the exact same set list from every other Bar Mitzvah and even threw in My Sharona. So when we had bands this year we wanted to make sure that they were kind of riffing off the absurdity of certain traditions — the set list was made up of hassidic surf bands, which was really cool.

Alef: You mentioned that you included a few more sacred elements in the celebration. How did those go over?

JC: Oh, it was awesome. I couldn’t believe how big a hit those yarmulkes were. I did a beer dinner and people were just loving them. I included a little line of instruction on it so that my non-jewish friends wouldn’t use it as a dog

chew toy; it said “Happy 13th Anniversary.” Everybody got a kick out of it.

Alef: How would you describe your Judaism growing up?

Was your family invested in some sort of specific Jewish community or were you secular, for instance?

JC: Like I said, I grew up in the suburbs of northern California in a reform synagogue. We were Jewish by self identity, not really by knowledge or practice, but I was Bar Mitzvah’d and confirmed and went to Israel on my teen tour when I was 16 so I did everything you’re supposed to do and a lot of things that you’re not. It wasn’t until I went back to Israel when I was about 25 and got a chance to work with an observant community for 3 or 4 months – and eat kebab and celebrate the holidays and learn about Torah – that I began to understand some of the more traditional elements of Judaism and started to argue about some of the more unusual parts of our culture. The experience allowed me to have a better, more multilayered understanding of Judaism than I’d had in the past.

Alef: So, how would you define your Judaism now?

JC: Eh, personal. I mean, I’m not much more observant than I used to be. I have a deeper appreciation of my own ability to struggle with interpretation and to celebrate holidays and participate in the community. Working on the marketing and sales of the beer, I have no shortage of opportunities to be involved with the community from everybody who’s totally unaffiliated, just some random Jewish kid at a bar, to Orthodox communities that are celebrating Shavuot or Sukkot or doing events with Young Adult Division or Hillel. It’s been a wonderful way to participate and create my own path.

Alef: So we had to ask this question – would you say that after 13 years your beer has finally become a man?

JC: I was thinking that our punchline could be “Today I Am A Man” but, there are so many fun women home brewers so I stayed away from it. Also, half my staff is female and I want them to feel ownership in the company…but yeah, I think we have.

What's NEXT is the official blog of Birthright NEXT Los Angeles. Connect with Taglit-Birthright Israel friends and meet new young Jewish adults from around L.A. Our calendar is packed with movie screenings, outdoor adventures, happy hours, Shabbat dinners, Hebrew classes and more.

Wanted: Jewish Beer Stories

By Staff on July 13, 2010 - 2 Av 5770 | 1 Comment

This year, Shmaltz Brewing Co., of San Francisco, California, turns 13. Jeremy Cowan, founder and proprietor, is writing a small business memoir about the past 13 years of Shmaltz Brewing Company, entitled “Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah.”

With the help of his close friend and pro journalist James Sullivan, he’s about done with the tale itself. In good do-it-yourself craft beer style they are self-publishing the book and launching it at the Great American Beer Festival here in Denver during the opening Thursday session, September 23, 2010.

Jeremy writes: But to finish the saga, I NEED YOUR HELP. Anyone who might have a story about Shmaltz Brewing, HE’BREW Beer, Coney Island Craft Lagers…about beer and Jews, Sideshow Freaks, the Torah, the Warriors….somehow connected in any profound, frivolous, ridiculous, hilarious, meaningful, insightful way – I want your input!

Much like we try to do in our events and marketing, I love to include anyone else from the Shmaltz Tribe and the beer world who cares to join. The core shtick is certainly about Shmaltz Brewing, but as we all know none of us would be able to accomplish what we do without the wider community of supporters.

So please send a note to us below about anything you think fun and relevant: your first Shmaltz sighting, HE’BREW at a Bat Mitzvah in your life, the Chanukah gift that got your brother-in-law locked up, the misguided attempt to prove the Human Blockhead is just a trick…or any of so many times we’ve crossed paths in oh so many ways.

I would love to include many in the book and many more on the website so keep them coming and send photos, video and anything else you would be willing to add to the Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah celebration.

Details on buying the book and the sure-to-be-thrown-together-wandering-HE’BREW book tour will come out later this summer.

OK. L’Chaim for now and thanks for anything you can send our direction as soon as possible, Jeremy” If you have any good stories involving Jews, beer, and maybe even HE’BREW Genesis Ale or Messiah Bold, please submit right away to craftbeerbarmitzvah@shmaltzbrewing.com. And you can find more information about the book and the beer at Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah.

JeWishTimes

NOVEMBER 5, 20 I 0

Vol. 317 No.1

Shmaltzy HE'BREW

L

ooking to change. the dynamics ofyour upcoming Chanukah gathering which is less than a month away?

Meet HE'BREW, America's only Jewish beer (whatever that means).The San Francisco crew that ri1akes it loves shtick, so they call their company Shmaltz Brewing and are offering diverse products while"celebrating our second decade ofbrewing ... with chutzpah!"

The refreshment comes in colorfully designed bottles loaded with tongue-in足 cheek humor. Some of the libations include GenesisAle ("our fi!st creation"), Messiah Bold ('~the chosen beer',),Rejewvenator ("this ain't your Bubbe's Manischewitz"), Coney Island Lager and Pomegrante Ale. Their website sInnaltz.com lists plenty ofarea locations to pick up the treats.

This year, in honor ofboth their 14th

anniversary and (the other) Mattisyahu's revolting boys of ancient yore, Shmaltz is offering Jewbelation 14.Their Holiday Gift Pack features all seven recipes of the award-winningJewbelation series, plus a bottle ofthe barrel":'aged Vertical Jewbelation.

Do check out the 8-beer Gift Pack. (Get it?

Eight candles!) Not only does it come with a custom glass, but in a nod to the eco-recycling passions ofso many Jews it has Chanukah candles, iiIstructions on how to build your own beer menorah out of the bottles and "a very special addition of 'A Chanukah Prayer' by San Francisco stand-up comedian Michael Capozzola:' Unsolicited tip: Please light the candles bifore drinking the beer. Just trust me on that one. 0 Neil Rubin

The American

ewish World

VOICES OF MINNESOTA'S JEWISH COMMUNITY· FOUNDED JUNE 12, 1912

VOLUME 99· NO.6' NOVEMBER 26,2010' 19 KISLEV, 5771 • www.ajwnews.com

1-----­

Seasonal brews and book Shmaltz Brewing celebrates its 14th year ofbrewing with the release of three ofthe "Most Extreme Chanukah Offerings," including lewbelation 14, He'brew Holiday Gift Pack and bar­ rel-aged Vertical lewbelation.

He 'brew Holiday GiftPackfeatUres all seven recipes ofthe award-winning lewbelation series (8-14),plus a bottle of the barrel-aged Vertical lewbela­ tion. The eight-beer Gift Pack will come with a custom glass, Hanuka candles and instructions on how to build your own beer menora, with artwork by Bay Area illustrator Chris Blair, and a special addition of "A Chanukah Prayer" by San Francisco stand-up <;omedian and Chronicle cartoonist Michael Capozzola.

Additionally, Jeremy Cowan, Shmaltz's founder, has co-authored with James Sullivan a small business memoir to celebrate the company's Bar Mitzva year. The book, titled Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah: How It Took J3 Years, Extreme Jewish Brewing, and Circus Sideshow Freaks to Make Shmaltz Brewing Company an Inter­ national Success, is now available from the company's Web site.

For information, visit: www. shmaltzbrewing.com.

S;1.50

STAFF PICK

Chanukah Gift Guide 2010

FOR BEER ENTHUSIASTS HE'BREW HOLIDAY GIFT PACK

This eight‐beer gift pack from Shmaltz Brewing Company (makers of HE'BREW, the Chosen Beer) features all seven recipes of the award‐winning Jewbelation series (8‐14) plus a bottle of the barrel‐aged Vertical Jewbelation. The gift pack comes with a custom glass, Chanukah candles and instructions on how to build your own beer menorah, with artwork by Bay Area illustrator Chris Blair, and a very special edition of "A Chanukah Prayer" by San Francisco stand‐up comedian and Chronicle cartoonist Michael Capozzola. For the gift pack ($30.99) and more on Shmaltz Brewery, visit www.shmaltz.com.

Beer Sessions - Episode 41 - Warren Monteiro, John Holl & Shmaltz Brewing Company First Aired - 12/07/2010 05:00PM This week on Beer Sessions tune in as Jimmy & Ray are joined by three very lively personalities in the studio.

Warren Monteiro, known to some as the beer sensai, discusses some of the trends he's seeing in craft beer and John Holl explains what made him write a book about beer in Indiana! Later on the show, Jeremy Cowan of Shmaltz Brewing Company joins the conversation as everybody in studio comments on big industrial beers, athe Burger King beer bar, and growlers at Duane Reade. This episode was sponsored by GreatBrewers.com the best beer site on the internet. â&#x20AC;Š

Creating a Microbrew Memoir Takes Blood, Sweat and Beers September 18, 2010 in Denver, CO

Who brew the Chosen Beer? HE’BREW. The Great American Beer Festival boasts brews of character.

Only one, however, dares to tell the tale of how it took 13 years to reach beer brewing maturity and international success. Be it pass out or Passover, one can say that Jeremy Cowan’s choice to bottle his dream is certainly half full.

Cowan, creator of Shmaltz Brewing Company, made a special appearance at Falling Rock Tap House Wednesday, to promote his new book, Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah, a memoir which details the rise of his not so micro brews. Before getting to the good stuff, sometimes one has to put up with a little beer head before getting ahead. During his book reading and tasting, he shared that in the early days, everything was self brewed and hand bottled by yours truly. In some cases, it was even personally delivered by Cowan.

While it takes many stories to make several million beers, it is important to remember the ones that count, and perhaps refill or recycle when the time is right. The initial transition from writing beer labels to a beer book of manhood served as a bit shock for this Stanford English major.

Cowan did not imagine the verbal crafting of his craft would be nearly as hard as he originally thought; he joked that it took him 20 years to use his degree to account for 13 years of HE’BREW history. However, despite a wavering start, his brew of thoughts and combination of the correct literary ingredients–with blood, sweat and beers–seems to have turned out just fine in its bottled and capped form, that’s now all the buzz.

October 29, 2010

Kickbacks Gastropub & Smaltz Brewing Company Beer Dinner - Nov. 1 I’ll be attending Kickbacks Gastropub’s Beer Dinner featuring Shmaltz Brewing proprietor, Jeremy Cowan, and Sales Manager Darren Quinlan as they present a special beer dinner Monday night at one of my favorite places in town.

Shmaltz will offer a selection of more than 25 beers from their HE’BREW Beer® and Coney Island Craft Lagers® lines. Chef Gary, along with two guest chefs including Chef Michelle Ugarte from Salt at Ritz Carlton, Amelia Island, and Chef Patrick Walley will all contribute to the beer and food pairing menu.

Jeremy Cowan will also sign copies of his debut book, Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah: How it Took 13 years, Extreme Jewish Brewing, and Circus Sideshow Freaks to make Shmaltz Brewing Company an International Success. Shmaltz Brewing Company was established in San Francisco in 1996 with the first batch of 100 cases of HE’BREW Beer® bottled, labeled, and delivered by hand. More than 8 million bottles of HE’BREW Beer® and Coney Island Craft Lagers® to date have been sold! Shmaltz is available in more than 25 states through 30+ wholesalers at more than 1,500 retail specialty shops across the U.S. including Beverages & More, Whole Foods, Total Wine, select Krogers, and Cost Plus.

Kickbacks Gastropub is located at 910 King Street. There’s still space available for the 6:30 p.m. event. Pricing is $55 + tax and gratuity.

15 of the Best Winter Beers As you may be aware of, the Northwest Brewing News recently released their best of list known as “the Readers Choice Awards.”

This list is a partially accurate list of some of the best brewpubs, beer bars, breweries, and beer types. Despite some obvious ballet stuffing, the list outlines a depiction of some of the region’s favorite brew culture. Inspired by the year-end best of lists as well as the amazing lineup of brews featured recently at the Holiday Ale Fest, Brewpublic felt compelled to offer a short list of some of the best seasonally appropriate beers to try. Here’s 15 beers not to miss this winter. Find ‘em at your favorite beer stores and pubs around the Northwest.

1. He’Brew Vertical Jewbelation – An amazing specimen, this beer from Shmaltz Brewing Co. is a blend of all seven recipes of Jewbelation aged in Sazerac six-year rye whiskey barrels. This beer is the quintessential ideal of complexity in an American ale. Notes range from sweet vineripened grape to prunes and figs. Toasted toffee notes rise from a nice looking gray-tan head that will have you saying “L’Chaim” to extreme Jewish brewing.

Beer of the Week: Shmaltz Brewing Jewbelation 14

BY MARIO, ON DECEMBER 4TH, 2010 If there is every a time to watch your words, now is the time.

If you’re thirsty and looking for a festive beer, a holiday beer might fit the bill. Since we’re in the middle of Hanukkah, better make sure that beer is Kosher. While my people weren’t chosen, I certainly have been, as my favorite beer pf the season is regularly the Shmaltz Brewing Anniversary release Jewbelation. It is this years release marking 14 years of Shmaltz Brewing will fill this space for the week. My Beer of the Week is Jewbelation 14.

This week’s Beer of the Week is being included in the Beer Advent Calendar hosted by The Brew Site. Each day a new holiday ale will be reviewed until Christmas.

This is always one of my favorite releases of the season. I saved it for sundown to mark the beginning of Hanukkah. I love this beer because it’s always something different and gets increasingly more complex. Each year one more malt, one more hop and one more percent of ABV are added to the beer.

With each year getting bigger, I asked myself a couple years ago, “How far can they go?” This year I asked brewer Jeremy Cowan the same question and he tells me that Shmaltz has no plans of slowing down.This year’s beer was brewed with an ale yeast, but future batches may need the help of champagne yeast. As it is, at 14%, Jewbelation 14 is the strongest beer to ever be brewed in the Bay Area and gain a wide release.

Jewbelation pours a deep reddish brown, so deep that the color closes in on black. A thin, tight tan head sits atop the beer, slowly fading to nothing. There’s a great aroma. Chocolate covered raisins lead the way but don’t expect a big whiff of booze. First taste raisins, chocolate syrup fades to cherries, then toffee and finally to roasted malts. Coffee and dry cocoa sneak up at the end. BIG flavors, each sip seemingly different from the next. Toffee rising as you swallow seems to be the one constant.

Jewbelation has athick, viscous mouthfeel with a creamy character coming out when you swirl the beer to bring out the head. With warmth, a coffee liqueur finish starts to emerge.

Full of flavors, Jewbelation 14 is a winter treat. Dangerous in that the flavors overwhelm the alcohol, this 14% beer is a sipper but can entice you into drinking a bit too much or too quickly. Whether you’re lighting the Hanukkah Menorah or just looking for a delicious brew for the evening, Jewbelation is a great choice.

For a chance to try this beer, come down to the Toad in the Hole on Tuesday night. In addition to bottles of Jewbelation 14, the new Vertical Jewbelation, a barrel-aged blend of 7 years of freshly brewed Jewbelation beers, and the GABF Silver Medal winning R.I.P.A. on Rye, a double Rye I.P.A. aged in rye barrels, will also be available on draft. Come down to Railroad Square in Santa Rosa and join us.

Make A Beer Bottle Menorah

by J A Y B R O O K S on N O V E M B E R 2 9 , 2 0 1 0

With Hannakuh beginning December 1, Shmaltz Brewing has created a fun DIY way to make your own Menorah, using beer bottles â&#x20AC;&#x201D; preferably Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brew bottles.

Drink up! Vertical Jewbelation January 13, 2011 by ZACK TAYLOR The He’Brew Vertical Jewbelation is not only the most pun-filled beer I have had — it’s also the most flavorful.

The cleverly named company is located in San Francisco and the beer is listed as an American Strong Ale, which is kind of broad labeling.

More importantly, Vertical Jewbelation is “blended,” meaning it’s actually a mixture of seven different beers by the company.

It isn’t necessary to try all seven to appreciate the Vertical, but it is an undertaking I found to be a blast.

To make matters more amazing, this blended beauty is also aged in rye whiskey barrels.

The body of the beer is opaque black, like motor oil, and pours as such, giving off a nice creamy light-brown head.

The aroma is very pleasant, with notes of chocolate, caramel, vanilla, burnt wood and rye whiskey.

It is the taste of this beer, however, that makes it “The Chosen Beer.”

First flavors that come to mind are brown sugar, chocolate, vanilla and a healthy dose of whiskey.

As you swallow, however, there’s an overwhelming sensation of maple and buttery toffee.

Never in my life have I had the sensation of buttery toffee in my beer.

Being a brewer myself, I’m not sure how they managed such a feat — all I know is that the bar for good beer has been set very high this year.

Despite the intense flavors, the beer really does go down quite smooth.

Hop-heads be warned — if you’re looking for intense bitterness or aroma, then the Vertical is not it. With little to no real hop character, this brew is all malt-backbone.

It also has a high, 10.5 percent alcohol content.

To paint a little picture, you’d have to consume two and a half Natty Lights to get the same amount of alcohol. That being said, be careful.

With the roads still covered in dirty slushy ice, this high gravity beer is the perfect thing to warm you up after a long day out in the harsh weather.

Vertical Jewbelation was only brewed one time and in limited quantities, so don’t procrastinate. If you want to start your beer-drinking off right this year — and wean off the watered-down gas station knock-offs — then look no further than He’Brew Vertical Jewbelation.

Jeremy Cowan, owner of Shmaltz Brewing and author of Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah comes to Star and Shamrock (1341 H Street NE) tonight to talk about beer and sign his book at their Hanukkah Hangover Party & Book Signing event. Shmaltz brews Jewbelation 14 and Vertical Jewbelation will also be available. 6-9 p.m. Free.

This Week: Jeremy Cowen at Star & Shamrock Hanukkah may be over but the celebration continues with yet another He'brew Jewbelation event from Shmaltz Brewing Company. Tonight head He'Brew himself Jeremy Cowen will be at Star & Shamrock on H Street, NE, to talk Schmaltz and sign copies of his new book, Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah.

He'Brew Jewbelation 14 will be Georgia's final Jewbelation October 22nd, 2010 Last year, Shmaltz Brewing Company celebrated its brewing Bar Mitzvah with He’Brew Jewbelation 13, a powerful strong dark ale brewed with 13 different malts, 13 different hops, and hitting the scales at a whopping 13% ABV. This year, the annual celebration continues with Jewbelation 14, scheduled for release next week (though it has already leaked into some markets).

Sadly, for Georgians, this birthday marks our final chance to dance with the Jews’ anniversary brews. Brewed to 14% ABV, Jewbelation 14 has hit the Georgia cap for alcohol content in beer. If that doesn’t give you enough of a reason to rush out and celebrate with a bottle, the brew is already garnering A-range scores on BeerAdvocate.com.

Luckily, this final (Georgian) Jewbelation will also bring with it something special for the Chalidays (yes, that’s most certainly a pun and not a typo). The brewery has been releasing a new Jewbelation for seven years now, with each beer being brewed with a coordinating number of malts, hop varieties, and to a corresponding alcohol content, packaged in 22-ounce bottles. This year, Shmaltz is releasing a special 8-pack called the He’Brew Holiday Gift Set: Vertical Jewbelation, featuring 12-ounce bottles of each Jewbelation (years 8-14), along with a special brew called Vertical Jewbelation, a blend of all seven Jewbelation ales blended together and aged in Sazerac 6year rye whiskey barrels. The gift set also includes Chanukah candles and instructions to build a menorah. Vertical Jewbelation will be sold additionally alongside Jewbelation 14 in 22-ounce bottles.

Having personally tried years 11 through 13, I can say with confidence that Shmaltz does an excellent job with their birthday brews, and undoubtedly Jewbelation 14 will be no exception. And for Augustans, there’s no real reason to fret: just making the short drive across the river to North Augusta will give access to another three years of celebratory goodness, with South Carolina’s alcohol cap set at a significantly higher 17% ABV. I’ve not been made aware of any local stores with any of the new beers available early, but as soon as they are, you can count on me to let you know. Look for an update very soon.

16 Spotlight Catching Ways to Market your Business: July 12th, 2010 Theatrical professionals know how to find the light on stage.

The audience might not take notice of an actor if he is in shadow. Of course this could be a director’s artistic choice but on the business stage this is not an option. So here are 16 Must Try Tips from Forbes Magazine: Stick to a Shtick Some brands are so dialed in to a customer base–its history, interests and aspirations–that the marketing effort smacks more of a celebration.

How: Jeremy Cowan, founder of Shmaltz Brewing Co., maker of He’Brew beer, builds all his events around Jewish themes.

Each year, he hosts an anniversary party where he gives out yarmulkes and Hanukkah Gelt (kosher chocolate coins) with his brand on it. (Jewish DJs often work their magic for free beer.)

Cowan also ran a contest asking for bat mitzvah photos to create a collage now used on his label and invites. “It’s not just weird,” he says. “It reinforces our message and our vision.”

December 6, 2010

Holiday beer roundup: He'brew Jewbelation 14 It is de rigeur to review some Christmas beers in December. But we need to start with a beer for another winter holiday, before I've missed all eight days!

Shmaltz Brewing Company, based in San Francisco, was started by Jeremy Cowan in 1996 with a unique idea for certified Kosher beer. I'm not going to pretend a few minutes on Google will make me an expert on whether the brewing process has anything that could make it treif, but I'm guessing the major thing is Rabbicinal supervision.

Launched with a tagline of "The Chosen Beer," and currently contract-brewed by Olde Saratoga in New York, Shmaltz He'brew brand has made fans for boths its beer and the bit of shtick in its marketing. It was named "Best American Craft Beer" and overall "Best in Show" by Beverage World magazine for 2010. And since 2004, it has marked each anniversary with a special release, timed for Hanukkah, called Jewbelation. This first Jewbelation was for its eighth anniversay, and was made with eight malts and eight hop varieties, and sold at 8% abv. Each year they upped the malt and hop count and alcohol points. 2009 saw their 13th anniversary beer, named, of course, Jewbelation Bar Mitzvah.

This year's 14th anniversary Jewbelation is a barley wine, packaged like the others in a 22 oz. bomber bottle, at 14% alcohol. In addition, the beer is available in a gift box with all the previous vintages in a gift pack of 12 oz. bottles, plus a "Vertical" blended from all the vintages. The box includes glassware, a set of Chanukah candles, plus instructions for making a beer menorah from the bottles.

I missed the chance to pick up the gift box, but I saw the bomber of Fourteen on sale for $5, I had to snatch it up. Then I had to open it up. And here's what I found: A solid black stout body under a brown layer of foam. The smell has some alcohol to it, but it's kind of light for a barley wine. But maybe it was my choice of the small snifter I poured this into. Re-pouring after the first sip offers an entertaining display of small brown bubbles forming and trying to rise to the top against the thick body. And yes, it is kind of thick. Very malty, with a thread of hop bitterness trying to settle in against the nearly syrupy texture. But this is a really nice malty brew. The website lists chocolate and other stout malts among its 14 malts used, but the blackness does not come with any stout bitterness. Other interesting grains include oatmeal, rye, spelt and quinoa. Hops are a mix of English, German nobles and strong American varieties, all blended for a smooth complementary bitterness. Call this one a Black IPA that detoured into "black barley wine" territory. As a new barley wine, it still shows a bit of roughness that would smooth down in a few years. Even heartier than my beloved Bigfoot. Next time I'm at the store, I may have to get a few more of these to lay down and start looking up when Hanukkah ends each year. L'Chaim indeed!

Beer fans will also want to check out Shmaltz' second brand, Coney Island. This line of lagers takes its beer names from attractions at the historic amusement park, like Sword Swallower, Albino Python, Human Blockhead, and Freaktoberfest.

NEW RELEASE: He’Brew Jewbelation 14 OCTOBER 15, 2010 | NEW RELEASES | BARLEYWINE, SHMALTZ BREWING Each year Shmaltz Brewing releases an anniversary beer. The recipe is bigger and more complex than the last. The 12th Anniversary was 12 malts, 12 hops, 12% ABV. 13 – 13 malts/13 hops, 13% ABV. This year marks 14 years of brewing at Schmaltz. So in good fashion this year packs a whopping 14 hops, 14 malts, 14% ABV. Founder Jeremy Cowan is quite the writer. His labels if you take the time to read them are legendary. I asked him about how he does it one time, he just said it takes time. I think he topped himself with this one: At age 14, is Shmaltz Brewing still the throes of adolescence? After publishing Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah, a new small business saga, I’ll leave it up to you, Dear Reader. As with many 14 year olds, this years Jewbelation is all about Hands, Hearts and Farts. 14 is the numerical value of the Hebrew word for “hand.” The human hand contains 14 digital bones and 14 joints. 14 items to fill the Passover seder plate, narrating the Exodus of the Hebrews – “and with a might hand did the Revolution bring us out of Egypt.”

Jacob labored 14 years to earn marriage to Leah and Rachel. Over a lifetime, the average American spends 14 days kissing. Valentine’s day, Feb. 14, dates to a pagan festival for the she-wolf who suckled mythical founders of Rome, Romulus, and Remus. 14 lines structure a sonnet.

Romeo and Juliet unfolds 14 days before Juliet’s 14th birthday. Carbon 14 dating proves the age of organic materials. Woody Allen, now married to his once not-daughter and not a spokesman for American Apparel, received 14 Oscar nominations for best screenplay and directed 14 other actors in nominated performances. 14 Jews serve in the senate. The current Dalai Lama is the 14th leader of the Tibetan people. A hummingbird’s heart flutters about 1400 beats per minute. Dr. Oz reported on Oprah that humans fart on average of 14 times a day. At age 41 and in our 14th year of brewing, the numerical sychronicity will happen only once in my lifetime. Here’s to being here now… L’Chaim!

Beer Rundown: Style: Barleywine Hops: Amarillo, Apollo, Cascade, Centennial, Crystal, Fuggle, German Spalt, Northern Brewer, Simcoe, Styrian Bobeck, Summit, Tettnang, Vanguard, Warrior Malts: Specialty 2-Row, Vienna, Munich, Wheat, Chocolate, Crystal Rye, Dark Crystal, Rye Ale, CaraMunich 40, Carpilsner, Kiln Amber, Flaked Spelt, Flaked Oats, Flaked Quinoa Taste Expectations: Complex! Lots of hops, malts and booze to sort out. Availability: 22oz bombers. Draft. Est Retail $5, 14% ABV Looking for this? In stock Hop City. Have it? Leave a comment. I’ll add you to it.

October 20, 2010

He’Brew Jewbelation 14 arrives, Vertical Jewbelation 8-pack coming soon (Saratoga Springs, NY) – Shmaltz Brewing has released the latest beer in its He’Brew Jewbelation Series.

With each year that passes, Shmaltz adds another hop, another malt and another 1% to the ABV mark for this anniversary beer to coincide with the brewery’s anniversary year. So here we have He’Brew Jewbelation 14, a beer with an unruly 14 malts, 14 hops and 14% ABV

There is another card up Shmaltz’s sleeve as well. The brewery will soon release a Vertical Jewbelation 8-pack which includes all seven recipes of Jewbelation plus a new beer called Vertical Jewbelation, a 100% Barrel-aged blend of the seven Jewbelations aged in Sazerac 6-year rye whiskey barrels. The boxed holiday set also includes a custom glass, Chanukah candles and instructions to build your own Menorah. Send a picture of your Menorah to beermenorah AT shmaltzbrewing.com -OR- post on facebook.com/shmaltzbrewing and you may be chosen to win some kind of Chanukah prize.

Brooks on Beer: Top Five Beers of 2010 Jay R. Brooks Bay Area News Group January 5, 2011

The past year was a great one for craft beer, with many amazing new entries -- but it wouldn't be fair to tease you with a top 10 list that includes wonderful finds unavailable here. To me, one of the great joys of beer is sharing them with friends. So this "best of" list features my favorite new beers available in the greater Bay Area in a variety of styles and from a variety of breweries.

4. Shmaltz Lenny's RIPA on Rye: He'Brew took its already terrific Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A. (Rye India Pale Ale) -- named for wry comedian Lenny Bruce -- and aged it in rye whiskey barrels, making it even more delicious in the process. â&#x20AC;Š

The GABF blew through town this past weekend for three days of beer, medals and revelry. I personally attended three sessions, trying dozens of the over 2,200 beers on the Convention Center floor.

Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what I found to be one of the tastiest: He'Brew R.I.P.A. on Rye Shmaltz Brewing Company, San Francisco, CA This silver-medal-winning ale is aged in rye whiskey barrels giving it a bit of bite. It's also extremely rare, so if you see a bottle, grab one.

By Zak Stambor Try These Ryes Novel brews that reach beyond the rye P.A. He’Brew Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. This 10%-ABV monster smells of rich caramel, complex malts and alcohol, but it does a 180 on the tongue when hops, alcohol and sharp, super-spicy rye shoot down the tongue, leaving a dry mouth in their wake.

Just as almost every brewery produces one wheat beer, one pale ale and one stout, now, there’s seemingly a rye beer on every beer maker’s menu.

For proof of rye’s newfound ubiquity, just look at the number of rye beers entered in the 2010 World Beer Cup: In 2006, the category had just eight entries. In 2008, there were 17. This year, the competition saw 22. And those entries represent only a fraction of the actual growth, as the Cup’s strict guidelines only accept rye beers with at least 20 percent rye malt (many breweries use 10 to 15 percent) and low to medium hoppiness.

While rye-based beers like Bear Republic’s Hop Rod Rye (modern American brewing’s first rye brew, launched in 2000) and Terrapin Beer’s Rye Pale Ale have been around for a while, most of the early offerings were pale ales with rye in their mash to add a bit of spice. But in brewers’ never-ending quests to craft something distinct, the latest generation of rye beers is more extreme. Today you’ll find twists on the IPA, imperial versions and even some beers aged in used rye whiskey barrels.

Behind the rise of rye is the grain’s dry, spicy astringent characteristic that makes it ideal for highlighting hops’ bitter and fruity traits, says Spike Buckowski, Terrapin’s brewer and co-owner, who has used rye in his homebrew for nearly as long as he’s had a hand in the kettle.

Professionally, he introduced Rye Pale Ale at his Georgia brewery in 2002 to beer drinkers who were relatively unfamiliar with the bold, aggressive West Coast IPA style; he wanted to produce a more subtle IPA that was hoppy yet balanced. That led him to rye; he combined it with four other malts, a blend of earthy English hops and citrusy Amarillo hops. The rye adds a hot note to the beer, which tricks the palate into sensing a clean finish, he says. “That means your tongue isn’t so overwhelmed by the hops that you only drink one beer,” says Buckowski. “And that’s exactly what we want.”

But Buckowski, like most craft brewers, isn’t content to keep things simple. That’s why he doubled the ingredients in Rye Pale Ale for Rye Squared, an 80-IBU, 8.5%-ABV imperial IPA. Thanks to rye, Squared isn’t an over-the-top hop monster, says Buckowski. “It’s not a tongue-dragger; it has a somewhat sweet finish.”

Rye doesn’t just offer brewers a way to temper aggressive flavors, it also gives them freedom to experiment, says Summit Brewing’s Mike Lundell, who recently brewed the brewery’s first-ever rye beer, the limited-release India Style Rye Ale. “Rye is perfect for experimentation because people have fewer expectations for what the beer should be like,” he says.

Even though Lundell loosely based his India Style Rye Ale on an IPA, he used chocolate rye malt to give the beer a smoky character. Nonchalantly, he figures, “If you use good ingredients in a careful way, you’ll probably get something decent.”

But just when brewers got the hang of brewing with rye, they struggled to age with it. Known for leaching intense peppery, spicy notes into beer, barrels that formerly housed rye whiskey aren’t the simple answer to storing rye beer.

When he began toying with a rye beer aged in rye whiskey barrels, Boulevard Brewing brewmaster Steven Pauwels was stumped by the sharp, tart notes he found in Templeton Rye barrels. His only solution was to produce a rye beer that could stand up to the barrels’ strong flavors.

Usually, his barrel-aged beers take three or four months to perfect; the aptly named Rye-on-Rye took 11. When it was ready, Pauwels found the whiskey notes too pronounced, so to balance the brew, he blended in a younger rye beer. The result is a complex, 11%-ABV beer with a mélange of pepper and vanilla characteristics from the barrel; bite from Perle, Magnum and Saphir hops; and, of course, ribbons of woody rye.

Rather than blend its beer to temper rye whiskey barrels’ strong flavors, Shmaltz Brewing embraced the intensity with its He’Brew Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. on Rye. Buffalo Trace Distillery’s Sazerac 6-Year Rye Whiskey barrels highlight the three different rye malts in the base beer, a rye pale ale. “We wanted to play with the spiciness of the barrel and beer and make them both complementary and contrasting,” says Shmaltz’s Jeremy Cowan.

While Cowan’s barrel-aged beer is a limited release, he plans to unleash another batch this fall and a third next spring. The demand for new rye beers is unceasing, he says.

Boulevard’s Pauwels agrees. “Rye is unique without being overwhelming,” he says. “It offers brewers endless ways to produce new flavors. And that’s why it’s here to stay.”

He'Brew R.I.P.A. on Rye Oak Aged (Rye Doubie IPA in whiskey barrels) ShRialtz Brewing, Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Big frothy head; dark amber color. The aroma suggests vanilla bean cnUitness. Rye are used, they are get our drift. Taking of Lenny Bruce and sending it to finishing some serious woodshedding. Rich, Break out the snifter and Hefner's robe for Outstanding,

MAGA2;INE

VOL.UME 31, NUMBER 6

I JAN. 2011

2020

Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer (77 ENTRIES)

.....

Barrel Aged Big Island, Island Br~wing Co., Carpinteria, CA

SILVER:

He'Brew RIPA on Rye, Shmaltz Brewing Co., San Francisco, CA

BRONZE:

Melange a Trois, Nebraska Brewing Co., Papillion, NE

June ‐ July, 2010

Beer Predator: Why Not Rye?

By David Gilbert

In the current craft brewing climate, quality beers of every conceivable flavor profile are being concocted. Rare and unusual herbs and spices, ancient recipes and little used malts have become commonplace in the arsenals of many craft brewers.

One ingredient which has taken on a life of its own is rye which has led to a myriad of innovative new world rye beers. The use of rye in beer can produce flavors of pepper and bready notes with spicy fruity undertones and a slight sourness. A crisp dryness usually follows. These flavors can be greatly enhanced when paired with an aggressive hopiness. These new creations can be distant cousins to the German Roggenbier's and Finnish Sahti's or stand on their own as unique creations.

Shmaltz's Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A. is an example of a malty hoppy Double Rye IPA.

BREWSCOOPS

R.I.P.A. on Rye, a barrel aged version of Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A., has been released in 22 oz. bottles by Shmaltz Brewing Co. It was aged in Sazerac 6 Year Rye Whiskey barrels for over 4 months. Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A. (non barrel aged) is also now available in fourpacks.

He’Brew R.I.P.A. on Rye Shmaltz Brewing Company, www.shmaltz.com San Francisco, Calif. (brewed in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) 10% ABV 22 oz. bomber

Bottled in April, this is Shmaltz Brewing Company’s Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A (rye IPA) – a popular homage to Lenny Bruce that has been around since 2006 – aged for more than four months in Sazerac six‐year rye whiskey barrels. It pours a deep amber brown with lots of carbonation and a fluffy beige head that dissipates quickly. The nose portends the big, boozy sweetness that one would expect, with whiffs of butterscotch, coconut, vanilla and lots of oak. You have to fight a bit through the alcohol to pick out the layers of aromas, but they’re there.

Taste is – again, as expected – big alcohol bite up front, unfolding into a toffee‐ish malt, brown sugar sweetness. All those hops are working hard to show themselves but mostly come through spicily in the finish. As the beer warms, it unfurls notes of honey, coconut, German chocolate cake, malted milk balls, candied oranges and figs. Those long months in the rye barrels gives the beer its most dominant characteristics, and the rye spiciness mingles interestingly with the punch of hops. It may take a bit of effort for some to get past the hot alcohol bite and enjoy this brew, but it’s worth the effort.

Try it with a nice Stilton on rye bread toast points, smoked ribs with a bourbon molasses sauce, or chocolate pecan pie.

March 26, 2010

Shmaltz Brewing news: He’Brew Lenny’s R.I.P.A. on Rye, Coney Island Mermaid (Saratoga Springs, NY) – He’Brew Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. on Rye from Shmaltz Brewing is coming in 22 oz. bottles beginning this spring.

The beer is, you guessed it, aged in rye whiskey barrels and is only being produced in limited quantities. The first two versions of this previously available brew were aged for over three months in six-year old Sazerac Rye Whiskey barrels. Bottles should start to appear this spring though, from what I’ve been told, there will be some rolling availability over the course of the year.

Beer stats: Malts: Specialty 2-row, Rye Ale, Torrified Rye, Rye Flakes, Crystal Rye 75, Crystal Malt 80, Wheat, Kiln Amber, CaraMunich 60 Hops: Warrior, Cascade, Simcoe, Crystal, Chinook, Amarillo, Centennial – Dry hopped with Simcoe, Amarillo and Crystal 10% ABV

And that’s not all! More from Shmaltz Brewing on the Coney Island side: “[Last] summer, we started a new draft only project in NY called Coney Island Mermaid Pilsner. Much to be expected from Shmaltz, this is an off beat recipe using eight malts (including two kinds of rye, vienna, wheat and oats), five hops (substituting Tettnang for traditional Saaz) and even adding flavor and dry hopping with pure new American craft hop goodness with Amarillo and Crystal.

This has been a big success as a session beer with plenty of creativity and curiosity for our beloved cult . . . but also rather easy drinking, lighter color and body so open to a broad palate.”

As of fall, the brewery was planning a “full national launch” for this summer which will include a 12 oz. bottle in a variety pack so be on the lookout.

An Eve-ning with Adam's Apple: A Review of He'Brew Origin Pomegranate Ale from Shmaltz Brewing Co Trub Wortwurst, Yahoo! Contributor Network Nov 4, 2010

He'Brew Origin Pomegranate Ale Shmaltz Brewing Co. San Francisco, California It tastes quite fresh. Fresh, semi-fruity and grassladen. Hearty grains with caramel extracts and a little figgy pudding in the corpuscles of the bulging wheats. Add some nectar and you have a Garden of Eden beer nativity scene with the ox and lamb keeping time.

Think about that. Of all the things in Christian lore and tradition how is it that a frigging lamb and ox can keep time and nobody questions it. On grounds of common decency I beseech you to believe whatever it is that you will about God and man just don't be hoodwinked into believing that farm animals started up a hoof beat to the virgin birth. It didn't happen people!

Now the Jingle Cats are a whole other matter.

Those multi-faceted and talented singing and dancing cats can do the jig and strum an acoustic six string all in one motion. My God what treasures this Earth is immersed in. This beer will enhance that pleasure more than it will swamp out this stada baba world.

ABV: 8% -Wรถrtwurst

The Most Ridiculous Beer Names of All Time

Mainstream beer names are nothing special (Budweiser? What's a 'Budweiser'?). On the other hand, there are a slew of foreign and domestic microbreweries that produce some really hilariously named beers. Have you ever drank an Arrogant Bastard Ale or a Seriously Bad Elf? We found some of the funniest beer names out there and want you to submit your own. If you think you can top Santa's Butt Porter then bravo!

If you’re looking to give your barley and hops a little blessing, Shmaltz Brewing Company has a few beverages for you to check out. He’Brew The Chosen Beers are a selection of mischievously named brews set to appeal to those whose faith in a good, cold beverage never waivers.

He’Brew The Chosen Beers consist of: Pomegranate, Messiah Bold, Genesis, R.I.P.A Rye and Rejewvenator, which itself comes in three flavors: fig, date or grape.

Many of the beers have a fruity flavor, making it even more appealing to those who enjoy a fresher beverage.

Paid in Beer: He Brews September 16th, 2010 4:15 pm ET

Jeff Gavin Baltimore Beer Examiner As has often been said within this column, any excuse to (responsibly) celebrate with a good beer is worth taking, and the observance of religious holidays is no exception. From Christmas to Kwanza, Mardis Gras to St. Patty’s Day, or Ramadan to Easter- a good beer and good company make any gathering great.

Last week marked the celebration of Rosh Hashanah, commonly referred to as the “Jewish New Year”. Historically, Rosh Hashanah is the first of the “high holidays”. This is a period of repentence that also commences the civil year in the Hebrew Calendar. This culminates with the observance of Yom Kippur, which begins at sundown this Friday.

Yom Kippur is also known as the “day of atonement”, and practicioners typically spend 25 hours fasting and in focused prayer to ask for forgiveness for wrongs committed. At the end of the holiday, one is considered absolved by God. With a spiritual clean slate, it seems like no better time to enjoy a few beers, and the good folks from the Shmaltz Brewing Company aim to serve with the their kosher beverage: He’Brew Messiah Bold.

Dubbed the “chosen beer” (possibly by the same folks who chose LeBron), this American Beer hails from Frisco and weighs in at 5.6% ABV. It pours a translucent reddish brown, and it’s capped by a moderate tan foam top. Mild aromas of toasted nuts and cocoa are slightly evident, with traces of citrus hops for the extremely observent. The flavors upon taste are both sweet and bitter, with hints of coffee layered over the sweet roasted malt and cocoa. To call this beer “smokey” would probably put in context the similarity to a porter, a straddle of categories that might remind some of Newcastle. The beer has both moderate carbonation and mouth-feel, and ends with a mildly bitter or sour finish.

Finding a bottle of He’Brew in Baltimore won’t be like wandering the desert for 40 years (zing Moses), but it isn’t exactly a main stream offering. Product diverse liquor stores likes Wells on York Road are usually able to accommodate, but plan to call in advance to make their lives a little easier.

After you’ve tracked down your brew, pour a glass and toast your friends. Whether you are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu (sorry Scientologists) it doesn’t matter- friendships shared over a good beer knows no boundaries. “L’chiam”! (to life)

Beer worked wonders for biblical heroes, new translation concludes

by Rebecca Paveley, October 1, 2010 ANCIENT Israelites drank beer as well as wine, and the brew was even acceptable as an offering to God, a biblical scholar has argued.

The Associate Professor of Theology at the Roman Catholic Xavier University in Louisi-ana, Michael Homan, believes that the Hebrew word shekhar has been mistranslated in English Bibles to mean liquor or strong drink, when it should be translated as beer.

He said that the mistranslation was clue in part to academic snob-bishness, which led scholars to scorn beer drinkers but celebrate the wine-drinking culture.

In an article in the current issue of the Biblical Archae-ology Review, Professor Homan writes: “This has led many Bible scholars actively to distance biblical heroes from a beer drinking world, much like some Christians prefer to believe that Jesus drank unfermented grape juice despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”

The difficulty of finding archae-ological evidence of beer drinking — owing to the fact that most of the tools used were also used in bread-making, and that beer was drunk fresh and not stored — had meant that the amount of beer drinking in Israeli society had been under-estimated.

“Ancient Israelites, with the possible exception of a few teetotal-ling Nazirites and their moms, proudly drank beer — and lots of it . . . all social classes drank it. Its con-sumption in ancient Israel was en-couraged, sanc-tioned and intim-ately linked with their religion,” he argues.

Unlike today’s brews, ancient beers did not include hops, but were made from creating a barley “cake”, which was placed in water, to which yeast was added, causing fermentation.

The alcohol in beer was effective in killing any bacteria that might be present in tainted watersupplies — another reason for its popularity. Beer was predominantly made from barley, which the Bible records as one of the seven species of plants with which the Promised Land is blessed (Deuteronomy 8.8).

The word shekhar appears 20 times in the Hebrew Bible, and came to be synonymous with drunkenness in many Near Eastern languages. In the Bible, it is also often a verb that means “to get drunk”. This usage has survived in modern Hebrew: a drunk is a shekhor, and shekhar still means beer.

He’Brew A Great Brew: Shmaltz Beer Submitted by Colleen Fraser on October 6, 2010 – 10:24 pm

Shmaltz Brewing Company has been brewing beers with some serious chutzpah since 1996. In a sassy series of brews they like to call “He’Brew: The Chosen Beers,” Shmatlz Brewing presents cheeky bottles with seriously fresh flavours, such as the Origin Pomegranate Ale, Messiah Bold, Genesis Ale and the famous seasonally-released Rejewvenator. The Rejewvenator has seen three annual reincarnations, once as a fig juice infused ale, the following year it was sweetened with date juice and this year finds it brewed with concord grapes – now that’s a beer that’s seriously kosher.

Slogs

Comedy

Nice Jewish Girls Gone Wild Present a Boozy Burlesque Show for Hanukkah 11 Like

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Are you a constant disappointment to your mother?

â&#x20AC;˘.:\Ie your lady cojones bigger than the matzoth balls in

your metaphoric soup? Then you might be a nice Jewish girl gone bad. .And we have the perfect way for you to spend tomorrow night, the last night of Hanukkah. A new downtown venue Next@19 is commemorating eight days of light with He'Brew, "The chosen Beer," and a vaudeville-type show by comedy troupe Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad, whO've been described as "Borsht Belt meets Courtney Love."

The troupe includes Dana Eagle (Comedy Central) and Sister Schmaltz, and will be hosted by the Goddess Perlman (Last Comic Standing), who describes herself as a low-budget Sandra Bernhard ,\lith a better dentist. Expect tap dancing dreidels, the first Israeli strip dance, sketch comedy, burlesque, and spoken word.

The sassy semites, who evoke the bodacious babes of Russ :Meyers flicks (Faster!

Pussycat! Kvetch! Kvetch!), will also be presenting original haikus about Hanukah. If you enjoy Julie Klausner, then you'U definitely love this. Check out the group's rap video about hamantaschen, the three-corner pastry served during Purim.

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/cultistl20 1O/12/nice~iewish_girls~one_wild_pr.php

<< Beer:

Craft Brewer GOLD WINNER <<<< Coney Island Yep, these guys again. The recipient of the inaugural "Best in Show" award is also the Gold winner in the craft beer category. For the past 14 years Shmaltz Brewing Co. has embraced the offbeat with its ever-growing HE'BREW line. (A few years ago it expanded beyond the The Chosen Beer's trademark and created Coney Island Craft Lagers, contributing some of the proceeds of the line to Coney Island USA, a non-profit arts organization designed to preserve the unique culture of the Brooklyn, NY attraction.) It added a range of sideshow-themed extensions to the Coney Island Brand and instead of singling out just one, the BevStar judging panel decided to award all three as components of one, grand, freakish whole. Those include Human Blockhead, a seasonal "Tough as Nails Lager," Sword Swallower Steel Hop Lager and Albino Python, a white lager with an innovative mixture of malts, hops and spices. It also recently released Mermaid Pilsner for the summer season. In late May Shmaltz opened what it's billing as the "World's Smallest Brewery," a nano-brewing outfit in Coney Island producing a gallon at a time (Shmaltz's volume is contract-brewed upstate in Saratoga Springs, NY).

July 15, 2010

Best in Show

A Trio of Freaks

<<<<

Shmaltz's sideshow-themed additions to its Coney Island Lager line earn the inaugural BevStar Awards' highest honor.

For the Best in Show, we decided to take a bit of an unorthodox approach. We designed the BevStar Awards to honor single products within a brand's portfolio, but given our selection criteria, it proved difficult to single out just one performer in this glorious freak show of a product line. Since all of the beers in Shmaltz Brewing Co.'s Freak offerings form a wildly off-the-wall whole that's greater than the sum of its already-worthy parts, our judging team decided to bestow the honor (as well as the Gold winner in the craft beer category) on Shmaltz's three recent Freak extensions of its Coney Island Craft Lager brand.

In keeping with the sideshow theme that reflects Coney Island's storied namesake in Brooklyn, NY, each Freak bears the name and imagery of a particular seaside fun park oddity. The 6.8% ABV Sword Swallower Steel Hop Lager boasts a mix of four malts and eight hops, including three in the dry hopping stage. The 6% ABV Albino Python is, what else, a white lager brewed with a symphony of spices including ginger, crushed fennel and sweet orange peel. The label features a rather daring woman entwined in the eponymous slithering menace. Billed as a "Tough as Nails Lager" the seasonal Human Blockhead sports a whopping 10% ABV, a mix of seven malts and six hop varietals.

Those three join the flagship Coney Island Lager and the fall seasonal Freaktoberfest, Coney Island's own unique take on Oktoberfest-style beers.

What really put this on our judging committee's radar was that in a segment largely dominated by ales - the likes of Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Brooklyn Lager and other notables notwithstanding - Shmaltz has demonstrated how creative one can be when pushing the limits of lager. It's hard to expect anything less from the folks behind the HE'BREW brand.

"From the very beginning we thought, 'Why don't we try to do with lagers what we've been trying to do with ales,' because so few people had been attempting that on the lager side," says Shmaltz Brewing founder Jeremy Cowan.

Cowan adds that despite the envelope-pushing nature of the Coney Island line, they're not meant to be quite as over-the-top as many of the beers in the HE'BREW line (the latest of which is R.I.P.A. on Rye, a rye India Pale Ale, aged in rye whiskey barrels).

"We're constantly looking to be really niche and really interesting within our niche," Cowan says. "But we're still trying to be accessible in a very interesting and, hopefully, innovative and delicious way." -Jeff Cioletti

>>INSIDE: BW's Annual Packaging Awards_________

INTELLIGENCE FOR THE GLOBAL DRINKS BUSINESS

November 15, 2010....

GLOBAL PACKAGING DESIGN AWARDS

World­Wide Innovation

Entering its third year, Beverage World's Global Packaging Design Awards takes on a truly international perspective. By Andrew Kaplan

What is the biggest change you will notice among The result, after much careful consideration, are the winners of this year's packaging awards? This divided into Best of Show, Gold, Silver, Bronze and year the contest has truly broken out of the Special Jury Awards that honor packaging borders of North America, encompassing entries innovation, functionality, sustainability, and from as far away as Africa and Australia. closures.

While all of this year's entries were impressive in We will begin accepting entries for 2011's awards their own way, the editors of Beverage World had in early summer, so make a note and begin to single out just those that were truly searching your portfolios. As they say, "You too outstanding. can be a winner!"

______ GOLD WINNER ____

Coney Island Craft Lagers Shmaltz Brewing Company, San Francisco and New York Designer: Shmaltz Brewing and Dave C. Wallin

Matt Polacheck, Shmaltz art director, says the package deserved to win because he thinks no other craft beer company has worked directly with an acclaimed tattoo artists (Dave C. Wallin) to develop labels for specialty beers.

Another reason? Money from sales goes back to Coney Island USA to support the Coney Island Sideshow, the longest standing sideshow in the USA. Every beer that is purchased allows for the Sideshow to thrive as a historical institution.

• Retro Cycling Jerseys $70 to $80 • RetrolmageApparel.com There are countless ridiculous-looking cycling jerseys out there. Project a cooler persona with a classic jersey from Retro Image. They're made from moisture-wlcklng Euro Mesh fabric and have three rear pockets to hold your stuff. The Coney Island Lager and Black Cat Fireworks designs will remind you of more carefree days, while the Horton Collection features images pulled from memorable cycling posters of yesteryear that will make you look like more of an elite rider than you really are.

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JULY 2010

What's in the MAXIM Beer Fridge

Nothing washes down the sadness of summer's end better than a crisp­as­hell pils.

We're loving the new Coney Island Mermaid Pilsner from the freaks at Shmaltz Brewing Company (makers of HE'BREW Beer). This German­style stuff has bite and big thirst­ quenching powers, and the fish lady on the label makes us feel funny. Get it at Whole Foods.

Freaky Good Beer Posted Wednesday 06/16/2010

The crazies at Shmaltz Brewery unleash their newest Coney Island beer, The Mermaid Pilsner. Warning: It may give you a chubby. Everybody in the pool!

Shmaltz Brewing is bum rushing beer coolers across the country with its new variety pack of Coney Island suds, which features the delish Mermaid Pilsner, its newest tasty tribute to the freak‐filled life along the C.I. boardwalk in Brooklyn. When they first popped up on the craft brew scene, we thought the goofy Shmaltz crew was all gimmick, no guts. Boy, was that dumb. These nuts make some of the wildest, boldest brews around. Plus, they go off on the labels. (Peep the wet, bye‐bye‐ shrinkage sweety above. Sexiest beer label ever? Discuss.) The 12‐bottle Variety Pack includes three 12 oz. bottles each of Coney Island Lager, Sword Swallower, Albino Python, and Mermaid Pilsner ‐ all solid summer thirst quenchers. The beers are available almost everywhere at Whole Foods. Drank it!

PICK OF THE WEEK

Coney Island Mermaid Pilsner Bring a little taste of Coney Island to your next barbecue with Shmaltz Brewing Company's Mermaid Pilsner, the latest in its Coney Island Craft Lagers line to be made available in bottles. Like the sultry siren on its label, this is an easy brew to enjoy: light, crisp and just a little sweet.

Find Mermaid Pilsner in Coney Island Variety Packs, which include three 12‐ounce bottles each of Coney Island Lager, Sword Swallower, Albino Python and Mermaid Pilsner‐ at stores nationwide. The variety pack is the only way to get Mermaid Pilsner in a bottle in 2010. –Amber Ray

Beer: Mowing down summer thirst -- Greg Kitsock Lawnmower beer: It’s not a brew made from grass clippings, but a thirst-quenching, low- to moderate-strength beer you can use to rehydrate after engaging in strenuous activity. (Forget about the grass: In this weather, lifting yourself off the couch would count as such.)

A can of PBR or Milwaukee’s Best might work, but for the more discriminating beer drinker, I present a six-pack of summertime brews: Cerise (Founders Brewing Co., Grand Rapids, Mich.): At 6.5 percent alcohol by volume, this is a little stronger than I’d prefer to quaff at triple-digit temperatures, but it’s one of the best American-style fruit beers on the market. A puree of tart Michigan cherries, added at five points during the fermentation process, gives the beer a mouthwatering, sweetand-sour fruitiness without obscuring the malt and hops.

Cerise is available locally in four-packs, and kegs have popped up at such local beer destinations as the Brickskeller and Galaxy Hut. Lucy (Starr Hill Brewing Co., Crozet, Va.): Starr Hill’s The Love, a German-style wheat beer, was bumped up from summer seasonal to year-around beer, making room for this spiced ale flavored with ginger, lime and coriander. My initial impression was of a cross between a highball and a lime fizz.

Melanie Rhodes, office manager for Starr Hill, offered a different take: “It has a very Asian feel to it. We’re selling a lot to Thai and other restaurants.” The name, she says, is an homage to the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky WIth Diamonds,” released 43 summers ago.

Summer Love (Victory Brewing Co., Downingtown, Pa.): That’s Summer Love, not Summer of Love. This beer was commissioned by the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, the same group that’s slapping its posters in Metro as part of its its “With Love, Philadelphia XOXO” campaign. This crisp golden ale premiered during Philly Beer Week in June, and distribution will soon be expanded to the New York and DC areas. Victory uses a base of spicy German hops, adding a little Citra (a more intense American strain) for notes of lemon and grapefruit. According to Victory’s MidAtlantic rep, Joe Gold, the first kegs of Summer Love (a draftonly beer) should hit the taps this Friday at ChurchKey, Pizzeria Paradiso (both locations) and the newly opened Meridian Pint.

Dundee Summer Wheat Beer (Genesee Brewing Co.,

Rochester, NY): American wheat ales tend to be the wallflowers of the craft beer world, mildly flavored, “gateway” beers you offer to a timid palate who’s never strayed from the mainstream brands. This new release has a little more oomph: a grapefruity hop aroma (from classic Pacific Northwest hop strains Chinook, Centennial and Cascade), and a dry, spicy finish from a pinch of rye (a very nontraditional grain for this style). It’s still light on the palate and refreshing. The beer comes from a 132-year-old regional brewery that’s probably best-known over the years for its cream ale.

Mermaid Pilsner (Shmaltz Brewing Co., San Francisco and New York): To accompany its He’Brew line of ales, Shmaltz is marketing a series of slightly off-kilter lagers under the Coney Island moniker. This brew, released in kegs last year but now also available in bottles as part of the company’s Coney Island Variety Pack, incorporates four hops and seven malts. It’s got a nice flowery, grassy hop character, though the caramel malt sweetness comes on a bit too strong for the style. In a blind tasting I might have pegged this as an amber ale, albeit a fairly good one.

Pott’s Landbier (Harpoon Brewery, Boston): The latest in Harpoon’s 100-Barrel series of limited releases is a collaboration between the Boston craft brewer and Potts Brauerei in Oelde, Germany. The name translates as “country beer.” It’s too dark for a pilsner or helles, too hoppy for a Vienna lager, not quite strong enough for an Oktoberfest, so what is it? It seems to belong to the amber lager style that Sam Adams pioneered in this country (adding to the similarity: one of three hop varieties in this beer is Hallertau, the same strain that gives Sam its elegant floral aroma).

Often, breweries reserve their 22-ounce bottles for fullerbodied, stronger beers that are hard for a lone drinker to finish in one sitting.

But this one went down just like water, and made the sultry Washington summer a little more tolerable.

December 2010

Here, here: 23 of our favorite beers

Shmaltz Brewing Albino Python Shmaltz Brewing Albino Python has a straw-yellow color with a moderate head and a grassy (three kinds of hops in there), faintly celery-like nose. On the palate, the fennel and orange add a bit of breadth to the aroma, with the ginger dominating. It finishes quite dry and hoppy. â&#x20AC;Š

Beer of the month: Coney Island Albino Python Lager November 03, 2010

By Jerald O'Kennard, Special to Tribune Newspapers

What it is: Wacky puns and somewhat scary psycho circus labels decorate the extreme beers of the Shmaltz Brewing Co. The Coney Island Albino Python Lager mirrors the theme. It's a beautiful sideshow freak of a brew flavored with ginger, orange peel and fennel.

It's a distinctive, well-balanced and eminently drinkable lager that complements dishes with fall spices and makes a festively tasty alternative to humdrum lagers.

August 2010

Coney Island Albino Python

The mysterious blond of the bunch, this white ale has a cool, pale hue and a malty body. It's brewed with spices that lend it a muted hint of citrus.

Salute to suds Cheers to you, thirsty New Yorkers! Here are 10 great ways to enjoy Craft Beer Week

By CHRIS ERIKSON September 25, 2010

Listen. Hear that thumping noise outside? It’s the sound of beer geeks’ hearts pounding out of their chests.

What’s boosting their blood pressure is NY Craft Beer Week, which runs through Oct. 3. Now in its third year, the fest will have the city awash in enough doppelbocks, farmhouse ales, raspberry lambics and oatmeal stouts to float a battleship.

The festival has taken a leap forward this year with a crammed schedule of events ranging from beerpairing dinners and meet-the-brewer sessions to guided beer walks and bar crawls. It’s riding a wave of interest that’s brought the craft beer scene to a whole new level over the past couple of years.

“There’s so much going on,” says Josh Schaffner, the 26-year-old hops head who founded the event and serves as its director. “It’s been building and building and building.”

So, to help you find your way to raise a glass, here are 10 ways to enjoy Craft Beer Week. Bottoms up!

2. Have a Geektoberfest Tell a bunch of brewers to devise a science fair project, and they might come up with something like Geektoberfest, the official beer of NY Craft Beer Week. It’s a blend of barrel-aged beers from three New York breweries, including a sour brown ale from Captain Lawrence, a nut brown ale from Ithaca Beer Co. and three different vintages of Jewbelation, a brown ale made by Shmaltz Brewing. Oh, and throw in some of Shmaltz’s Rejewvenator, an ale that’s half double bock and half Belgian dubbel and brewed with Concord grape juice. “It’s one-of-a-kind all the way,” says Shmaltz’s Jeremy Cowan, who conceived the hybrid brew. Geektoberfest ought to be distinctive, and you won’t get another chance to drink it. A “big, complex, American-European brown ale with a definite hint of wine notes,” Cowan predicted.

Geektoberfest will be on tap at numerous participating bars, including Spuyten Duyvil, Barcade, Rattle N Hum and The Gate, and will be sold by the growler at Bierkraft in Park Slope (191 Fifth Ave., Brooklyn).

Get a taste of the carnival with Shmaltz Brewing Co.'s new Coney Island-inspired beers

BY Joe Jackson DAILY NEWS WRITER

Monday, July 19th 2010

Step right up! Step right up everyone and see the world's smallest brewery.

A microbrewery has been making experimental Coney Island-inspired ales since Memorial Day weekend in space provided by Coney's world famous sideshow.

There's Cotton Candy Belgium Wit (a cotton candy sugar-based beer), Candy Apple Ale (aged with apples and caramel) and Land of Milk and Honey Cream Stout (malt and lactose sugar).

It's all being overseen by Shmaltz Brewing Co., the same company that is behind the popular Coney Island Craft Lagers and He'brew beers.

"It's pretty kick-ass," said founder Jeremy Cowan, 41, who divides his year between Brooklyn and the company's West Coast base. "The idea of making the world's smallest brewery right next to the Freak Show seemed fitting."

Nonprofit Coney Island U.S.A., which runs the sideshow and the annual Mermaid Parade, provided the W. 12th St. space.

The microbrewery operates Friday through Sunday and uses the same grains and hops that go into its best-selling beers brewed upstate in Saratoga Springs.

"We're trying to emulate the Coney Island carnival and images everyone knows," said brewmaster Josh Knowlton, 26, of Brooklyn. "We want to push the limits and see how much we can do with that."

September 23, 2010 | New York

The Weekend Guide NYC Events and Diversions

What s all the brewhaha?

SATE

Craft Beer Week What: Pick up your $10 passport, and then sail from one $3 pint to the next at more than 100 watering holes across town. Why: Kick off the suds slamming at Freaktoberfest ($55) with 35-plus craft selections, educational tastings, Coney Island sideshow performers, local indie bands, burlesque dancers, and more. When: Fri.-Oct. 3. Fest, Fri., 7 p.m.midnight. Where: Fest, The Rock Shop, 249 Fourth Ave., at President St., Park Slope. Check the full schedule of events online at nycbeerweek.com.

September 2010

Friday, September 24, 2010

August ‐ September, 2010

BREWSCOOPS

Shmaltz Brewing Company has released its new Coney Island Craft Lager variety pack. Sword Swallower, Albino Python, Coney Island Lager, and Mermaid Pilsner are all in 12 oz bottles for the first time.

April – May 2010

Shmaltz Brewing is cooking a new summer release: Coney Island Luna Lager. Luna Lager commemorates the launch of the new Luna Park 2010, which will be operated by Zamperla USA, and is based on the original Luna Park (1903 – 1946), one of Coney Island's four historic amusement parks. Proceeds from Coney Island Craft Lagers continue to help Coney Island USA, which works to defend the honor of lost forms of American popular culture in Brooklyn's historic Coney Island neighborhood.

NEW YORK CITY NEW RELEASES: Coney Island Craft Lagers/Shmaltz Breing's newest release is Luna Lager, in celebration of the newest Coney Island amusement park. Luna Park, based on the original of the same name and part of the city's Coney Island redevelopment plan, is slated to open on Memorial Day. Luna Lager is the seventh beer in Coney Island Craft Lager's line‐up, with proceeds from all of the beers helping the non‐profit Coney Island USA "fulfill its mission to defend the honor of lost forms of American popular arts and culture, leading the renaissance in Brooklyn's historic Coney Island neighborhood." The newest lager will be available this summer in 22 oz bottles and at a selct number of draft locations.

February - March 10

Shlnalrz Brevving Co. released Coney Island Human Blockhead in Jan uary. The craft lager won H)ultiple awards last year, including the National Grand Prize in the "Loose lager" category at: me United States Tasting ChaJnpionship and Second Place in the "Strong Lager" category at the 2009 Manitou Springs Craft Lager Festival in Iv1anitou Springs, CO.

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November 2010

Birmingham Weekly: September 16, 2010

A survey of Oktoberfest beers

By Danner Kline We have once again made it to the best time of year: Fall, when the temperature in the South finally starts to drop below 90 degrees, college football is on the television and seasonal beers really hit their stride. Spring and summer have their own seasonals, but they aren’t as exciting as fall and winter seasonals.

Fall heralds the arrival of three major types of seasonal beer: pumpkin beers, fresh hop pale ales, and Märzen style lagers most commonly called “Oktoberfests”—a name derived from the very famous festival where they have long been featured.

Long ago, Oktoberfests were brewed in March and then lagered (aged) in caves during the summer months, ultimately being enjoyed at the eponymous festival. That festival originated in Munich in 1810 to commemorate the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of SaxeHildburghausen. It is now “the world’s largest fair, with some six million people attending every year.”

Regarding the beer style, it tends to be amber in color and very malt-focused.

The grain bill is typically heavy on Vienna and Munich malts, which are German malts with a very rich flavor. They may run a bit hoppier than everyday German lagers, which isn’t saying a whole lot since I’ve never heard of a hop-head German brewmaster. And they are usually in the mid-five percent range on alcohol. In my mind, they make the perfect beverage companion to college football on TV. Since they don’t transgress the old 6% ABV limit, Alabama has long seen a wide variety of Oktoberfests around this time of year. But I would like to highlight a handful, starting with those that are new here this year.

Another new one is Shmaltz Brewing’s Coney Island Freaktoberfest. It stands out a bit for its 6.7% ABV, making it unusually strong for the style. And it features primarily American hops such as Cascade, Willamette, and Warrior. The guys at Shmaltz are pretty much the polar opposites of the brewers at Gordon Biersch on this. While the latter are obsessed with perfectly adhering to German tradition, the former are pushing the boundaries and adding uniquely American twists to a classic style. Both approaches have their own merits.

It’s true. Rarely have I had a beer that wasn’t good. I’m not sure I’ve ever given one a truly bad review. It’s like eating a bad slice of pizza. It might not be as good as your favorite, but it’s most likely still passable at the very least.

It is almost as rare that I’ll find a beer that I get downright excited about to the point of raising it above the crowd on its own little pedestal of beer greatness. These are the beers I’ll suggest to someone when they ask. It’s a select few that reach that status of favorite.

This week’s beer falls into that latter category. Upon first sip, I immediately had to go bother my already in bed girlfriend so that she could take a swig herself. I was more than halfway through my first pint before we were done mouthing our initial impressions. It was surprising in a way that seemed natural. I was already regretting that I only purchased a single 22‐ounce bottle.

The beer is from Shmaltz Brewing Company out of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. as part of their Coney Island Craft Lagers line of brews. It’s called Sword Sallower and is self‐ described as a steel hop lager. According to the Shmaltz Web site, eight distinct hops are present in the bottle, which in itself is astonishing. What I found truly curious when I first picked up the bottle, however, was that it was a lager that was claiming this hop supremacy of sorts. Ales usually seem to rule when it comes to hoppyness or just general character. Lagers just usually seem to settle for major drinkability points.

Sword Swallower certainly ranks high in all of those areas. It was complex as most any ale while keeping every quality that makes a lager great. I think I truly found a winner here.

Its initial pour confused me a little. I did my standard slow and steady pour down the side of my pint glass. When I noticed not a speck of head was forming, I started to just let it splash into the glass. Only a little bit of beautifully white head formed on top of the perfectly golden murky brew. It was that easily identifiable classic color reserved for lagers and pilsners, just slightly cloudier.

My first gulp said it all. I swear, my mouth actually tingled like it would with spearmint, minus the overpowering taste. It started with a wonderfully refreshing lager taste, only amplified, and then oh‐so‐smoothly went from slightly sweet and crisp to a very nice hop‐induced bitterness that was in no way overwhelming as hoppier beers can be. It felt like such a natural transition that I wouldn’t have even taken note of it if I weren’t paying attention.

I suggest getting more than one, as it goes down easier than any beer with an ABV of 6.8 percent has a right to. According to the bottle, proceeds help an organization by the name of Coney Island USA (coneyisland.com), so you can even feel good about drinking it. If you’re anything like me, however, after a very pleasant 22 ounces goes down, you’ll be feeling good enough anyway.

The Huffington Post March 15, 2010 The May opening of Luna Park is to be toasted with a new beer called the Coney Island Luna Lager, made by the San Francisco-based Shmaltz Brewing Co. City Councilman Domenic Recchia, who represents Coney Island, called the renewal "a dream come true."

The TMR Z00 Coney Island Craft Lagers Launches New Beer – Luna Park (Coney Island)!

by TMR Newswire February - 23 - 2010 Coney Island Craft Lagers – Shmaltz Brewing Co. is thrilled to celebrate the announcement of Zamperla USA as the official operator of Luna Park, the new amusement park opening in Coney Island this Memorial Day Weekend. Special for this historic moment, Shmaltz Brewing is cooking up the summer release of their own newest attraction: Coney Island Luna Lager(TM).

Based on the original Luna Park (1903 – 1946), one of Coney Island’s four historic amusement parks, Zamperla USA puts the city’s Coney Island redevelopment plan into motion, and Shmaltz Brewing is very excited to be an ongoing reveller in this ambitious effort. Luna Lager(TM) commemorates the launch of the new Luna Park 2010, and brings to life a delicious newcomer to their award-winning craft lager lineup for the community to enjoy this summer at America’s Playground. Mayor Michael Bloomberg made the official announcement regarding Luna Park on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at the New York Aquarium (Surf Avenue & W. 8th Street).

Proceeds from Coney Island Craft Lagers(R) also continue to help Coney Island USA, a 501(c)(3) Arts Non-Profit fulfill its mission to defend the honor of lost forms of American popular culture in Brooklyn’s historic Coney Island neighborhood. Coney Island Luna Lager(TM) will be available this summer throughout New York City in 22 oz. bottles and a very limited supply of kegs at specialty shops and select bars. Please see the attached prototype label artwork for Coney Island Luna Lager(TM).

About Shmaltz Brewing Company Shmaltz Brewing Company is a recipient of the “2008 Distinguished Business Award” by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. Shmaltz was recently named one of the “Top 20 Fastest Growing Bay Area Companies” by San Francisco Business Times, and was acknowledged by Beverage World Magazine as a “2009 Breakout Brand.”

Established in San Francisco in 1996 with the first batch of 100 cases of HE’BREW Beer bottled, labeled, and delivered by hand, Shmaltz has sold over 5 million bottles of beer to date. Along with their acclaimed line of HE’BREW Beers, Shmaltz introduced its new line of sideshow-inspired Coney Island Craft Lagers(R) with seven featured attractions including Coney Island Lager(R), Albino Python(R), Sword Swallower(R), Human Blockhead(R), Mermaid Pilsner(R), Freaktoberfest(R), and Luna Lager(TM). Proceeds help Coney Island USA, a 501(c)(3) Arts Non-Profit fulfill its mission to defend the honor of lost forms of American popular culture in Brooklyn’s historic Coney Island neighborhood.

Shmaltz offerings are available in over 25 states through over 30 wholesalers at more than 1500 retail specialty shops across the U.S. including Beverages & More, Whole Foods, Total Wine, select Krogers, and Cost Plus.

October 20, 2010

Shmaltz Brewing brings back Coney Island Freaktoberfest

(New York, NY) – Shmaltz Brewing Company, ringleaders of the new Coney Island Craft Lagers® and HE’BREW – The Chosen Beer®, continues the national launch of its new line of sideshow-inspired beers with the seasonal release of Coney Island Freaktoberfest® (Blood Red Lager, 6.66% alc).

Proceeds help Coney Island USA, a 501(c)(3) Arts Non-Profit fulfill its mission to defend the honor of lost forms of American popular culture in Brooklyn’s historic Coney Island neighborhood. Shmaltz Brewing celebrates the national release of Coney Island Freaktoberfest® as they host and participate in several National and NYC events this fall. Coney Island Freaktoberfest® is available in 4 packs (12 oz. bottles), and a very limited supply of kegs will appear at specialty shops and select bars nationwide starting now.

The ultimate Halloween beer, Coney Island Freaktoberfest® is artfully crafted to lure the spirit’s deepest rapture, conjured to exorcise the grim horrors of the armies of soulless Lagers everywhere. Shmaltz’s Blood Red Lager is boiled and toiled in their stainless cauldrons with 6 malts and 6 hops, and comes in at 6.66% alc.

Upcoming Coney Island Freaktoberfest® special events include: Sunday, October 24 @ Beer Revolution (Oakland, CA): Freaktoberfest® will be featured alongside other select Coney Island Craft Lagers® and HE’BREW Beers®.

Wednesday, October 27 @ Sip (NYC): Donny Vomit, the current MC of the Coney Island Sideshow, will perform his daring act and Freaktoberfest® will be the featured beer of the evening.

Thursday, October 28 @ New Beer Distributors (NYC): Shmaltz Brewing will feature Freaktoberfest®, Geektoberfest®, Rejewvenator®, Luna Lager®, Human Blockhead® and Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A.®.

Thursday, October 28 @ Cigars & Stripes (Chicago, IL): Shmaltz proprietor Jeremy Cowan will present the 2nd Annual Freaktoberfest Festival in Chicago featuring six Coney Island Craft Lagers® available for tasting, plus a Halloween themed food menu and live entertainment.

Sunday, October 31 @ Black Swan (Brooklyn, NY): Freaktoberfest®, Mermaid Pilsner®, and Coney Island Lager® will be on tap for $5 all night. Black Swan will feature a special Halloween food menu and a costume contest.

Join lager freaks and beer geeks all across the country as they enjoy Shmaltz’s new Coney Island Craft Lagers® Variety Pack. The Variety Pack includes three 12 oz. bottles each of Coney Island Lager®, Sword Swallower®, Albino Python®, and Mermaid Pilsner® (currently draft only). This is the ONLY way to get Mermaid Pilsner® in a bottle during 2010.

When asked recently in an interview if Shmaltz Brewing was “going mainstream” by adding a new line beyond the award-winning Jewish celebration ales under the HE’BREW banner, proprietor Jeremy Cowan countered: “I guess if circus sideshow freaks are more mainstream than Jews, Shmaltz is going mainstream!” Cowan states, “For over 125 years Coney Island has been and continues to be America’s Playground. Shmaltz Brewing is ecstatic to celebrate that flavor, spirit, and future through this exceptional line of unique craft lagers.”

The masters of ceremonies launching Coney Island Craft Lagers® include proprietor Jeremy Cowan, Shmaltz Art Director and Brooklyn resident Matt Polacheck, brewer Paul McErlean (Mendocino Brewing Company, Saratoga Springs, NY) and Brooklynbased tattoo artist Dave Wallin who created the outrageously original label illustrations.

With the unequivocally distinct brewing recipes and artwork of Coney Island Craft Lagers®, Shmaltz Brewing aims to expand its own tradition of designing unique creations that can stand with the country’s best gourmet microbrews.

(NW) Get It Now (Again) … Shmaltz’s Coney Island Freaktoberfest Blood Red Lager 10/25/2010 written by P. Fruit Trees

Pacific Northwest – Tis the season it seems, to discuss more seasonal and festive beers. This time we are pleased to announce the arrival (on shelves now) of the Freaktoberfest “Blood Red Lager”. Brewed under the same label as such hits as The Human Blockhead, Coney Island Lager, and Mermaid Pilsner, this beer sounds like its gonna change people’s perceptions of what an Oktober beer should be.