The Chosen Brew
Why Is This Beer Different From All Other Beers?
It's in the Shtick
by Doug Blackburn
Staff Writer
Albany Times Union
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
In the beginning, Jeremy Cowan had an idea.
And it was good.
So good, in fact, that he has been shticking with it for the past nine years.
Cowan's idea was to make and market a beer for Jews, a gourmet kosher microbrew that combines culture, chutzpah, humor and first-rate ales in nearly equal portions.
The result is HE'BREW: The Chosen Beer, a division of Cowan's Shmaltz Brewing Co.
"It's all about the shtick," Cowan says. "I keep pushing the shtick, every day."
The shtick is indeed nonstop.
He pushes his cleverly named three ales (Genesis, Messiah Bold and Miraculous Jewbelation) particularly hard at holiday times. The Miraculous Jewbelation, an extra-strong brown ale made last year to celebrate his company's eighth anniversary, was touted with the following motto: This Hanukkah the candles won't be the only thing getting lit.
The 35-year-old Cowan was an English major at Stanford, but he is an entrepreneur at heart. He is a one-man, walking, talking, e-mailing operation who has all of his beer 22,000 cases in 2004 made for him at Olde Saratoga Brewing Co. in Saratoga Springs.
There are roughly 1,360 craft breweries in the United States. This includes brew pubs and contract breweries, companies like Cowan's which have a brewery make the beer for them. Combined, they produce a mere 4 percent to 5 percent of the beer consumed in the United States because of the dominance of the Big Three: Anheuser Busch, Coors and Miller.
Paul Gatza, director of the national Brewers Association, is aware of only two other one-person contract breweries. "It's a more difficult challenge. Without your own brewery, you can't have gorilla marketing where you can do events at the brewery, where you can do public outreach," Gatza says. "On the other hand, you don't need nearly the start-up money to get something small going."
Cowan began on the micro-micro level. In 1996, his first year, he produced just 100 cases and sold it out of the trunk of his Grandmother's Volvo. But he has been growing steadily and now has distributors responsible for peddling his product in almost half the states. It is available at most beverage centers in the Capital Region.
"My target audience is a niche within a niche with a niche: Jews who aren't synagogue members, with no affinity or affiliation with organized religion; Jews who like good beer," Cowan explains. "I figured if the beer was good enough and big enough, it could appeal to a broader audience, but it was specifically created for a cult audience."
A funny thing happened along the way. Jewish organizations, community centers and synagogues, began to embrace Cowan's product. He's regularly hired to talk to various Jewish civic groups.
HE'BREW wouldn't work not for this long, anyway if it wasn't a good product. Each of Cowan's three ales are unique. Genesis is a hybrid, a cross between an amber and pale ale; the Messiah Bold, originally a stout, is a nut brown ale. Jewbelation is a well balanced strong ale.
Paul McErlean, head brewer at Olde Saratoga, credits Cowan with helping him develop the different styles. "Jeremy has a lot of ideas, and that's one of the fun things about working with him. When we're talking about beers, he'll have very clear ideas about what he wants and what he wants it to taste like. He has a good flavor sense."
McErlean concedes, though, that what helps Cowan succeed is his creative energy. Even the brewer knows the lingo at this point.
"Part of what sells Jeremy's beer is the shtick," McErlean says. "The labels are really fun. He's got a lot of imagination and a lot of creativity. I think that's the key to his success."
Tweaking the recipe
Cowan visited the Saratoga Springs brewery last week to discuss plans for this year's Jewbelation with McErlean, the conclusion of a two-week stay in New York. Cowan wants to tweak the recipe, adding more oatmeal, making sure there are nine different malts and hops to honor the business' ninth anniversary.
He was able to carry forth for seven years without turning a profit because, he says, "It's not like I had a lot of overhead."
His home is California's Bay Area, but he has not had an apartment of his own for more than two years. He is on the road almost nonstop, talking to deli and grocery store owners, trying to get them to carry his beer.
Not everyone is enamored of Cowan's creativity. While his shtick is less in your face than Wasatch Brewing Co. in Utah, which makes Polygamy Porter "take some home for the wives" in the heart of Mormon country, it nonetheless has offended a few folks.
"I get the occasional voice mail from people who see the label and get mad, but who really haven't taken the time to read it and find out what the beer is about," Cowan says. "Most people get that this beer is a positive statement about being Jewish in the United States."
Beer as vehicle
Cowan views He'brew as a Jewish organization that has a vehicle called beer. He is proud to report that HE'BREW was the exclusive beer sponsor at New York City's inaugural Jewish Music and Heritage Festival last year. Fear of failure fuels that vehicle.
"I never wanted to run a business as a business. I care more about the project part of it. With Paul's (McErlean's) help, I think I can start putting HE'BREW with the best beers in the country."