HE'BREW Gives Young Jews Another Reason To Say "L'Chaim!"
by Ophira Edut
Detroit Jewish News
Move over Manischewitz. Now there's something hipper, headier. Something the college kids will love.
It's called HE'BREW, and it's a gourmet kosher microbrew with the chutzpah to declare itself "The Chosen Beer." Like any good bit of pop culture, HE'BREW draws its edge from a bottomless well of wit, blending the sacred and the secular into something deliciously different.
The parent company is San Francisco-based Shmaltz Brewing. And the Chagall-inspired label features a dancing Chasidic man waving two brews as he straddles the Holy City and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Lest you think this is all shtick and no substance, take a sip. HE'BREW is a premium-quality brown ale, manufactured at one of the world's top microbreweries. Anderson Valley Brewing Company, in Boonville, Calif., was even specially inspected and declared kosher by an Orthodox rabbi, Gerschon Horowitz, through the Los Angeles-based Kosher Supervision of America. (Unlike wine, which can have ritual uses, beer is almost always kosher, with kashrut supervision often unnecessary.)
"The time is exactly right to put out products that tie into Jewish culture and tradition, but in a funky contemporary way," says HE'BREW creator Jeremy Cowan. The 29-year-old California native and Stanford English grad launched HE'BREW as a "celebration beer" for Chanukah in 1996.
It was a grassroots operation involving Cowan, his mom, his girlfriend, and any friend willing to help deliver cases to Bay Area retailers, or to strategically move HE'BREW bottles to the front of the liquor aisle shelves.
Like any fine beer, HE'BREW has grown organically, but steadily. Cowan now has distributors in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. Bottles of HE'BREW have cameoed on popular sitcoms like "Friends" and "Veronica's Closet."
Still, Cowan insists that it is "still very much a one-man show." Along with a part-time assistant, he handles everything from brewery operations to distribution to attending Jewish festivals and answering e-mail.
Cowan stresses a commitment to Jewish activism, aside from business. HE'BREW has flowed freely at such functions as the National Foundation for Jewish Culture.
"People are enormously interested in being Jewish and finding a relevant, contemporary meaning in Judaism," said Cowan. "It's about spirituality and struggling with Judaism, in a way that's more substantial than Jewish fraternities or single events."
"I wanted to make this very overt," said Cowan. "It's like, 'Hey, it's Jewish. No way around it.' Jewish shtick is ubiquitous in American humor. It's everywhere you turn."
By making HE'BREW unapologetically Jewish, Cowan hopes to narrow the gap between religious and cultural Judaism. "I want to create a beverage company for the Jewish community, aimed at the younger generation. The plan is to keep putting out products that are high quality, a lot of fun and tied to Jewish tradition and text. I also plan to be endlessly active in the Jewish community--whether it's through delis or synagogues."