He-Brew has a microbrewery bite and a hip Jewish identity
by Robert Eshman, Associate Editor
The Jewish Journal
One day, a tall, youthful Stanford grad named Jeremy Cowan decided that it was time to chuck his career in computers and create the very thing human society lacked most: a Jewish beer.
The idea flashed into his head during a bull session with some friends: a Jewish beer...beer is brewed...He-Brew...shazam.
Cowan played around with some recipes, using a local microbrewery to refine his concoction. He called it "He-Brew, The Chosen Beer." He incorporated as the Shmaltz Enterprises. His friends loved the idea. His first run sold out. Cowan got serious.
Soon, the laid-back 32-year-old son of a Beverly Hills High School teacher had hammered out a contract brewing arrangement with the esteemed Anderson Valley Brewing Company in Boonville, Calif. He spent months refining recipes (which was fun) and going through licensing hassles (which was no fun). To attain kosher certification, he brought up Los Angeles' Rabbi Binyomin Lisbon to Boonville, where the ponytailed brewmeister and the devout rabbi got along famously. Since beer manufacturing doesn't involve a lot of lard or lobster, Lisbon's main concern was making sure that the cleaning products were in adherence to Orthodox kosher standards.
The first product in the He-Brew line, Genesis Ale, is now available in stores. Packaged in 22-ounce bottles, the beer is indeed crisp and light, with a reassuring you-know-it's-a-microbrew bite and almost no aftertaste. Jews drink while they eat, figured Cowan, and he didn't want the beer to ruin the taste of the varnishkes to follow.
Each bottle bears the Chagall-ian label, designed by Cowan's artist girlfriend. It's lively enough, though the dancing Chassid hoisting brewskies over drawings of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Western Wall could double, were this 1930s Berlin, as a street poster decrying world Jewish domination.
That, of course, is not Cowan's aim. He'Brew, he says, is "a celebration of the culture of schtick." The label's copy makes this clear enough - "Exile Never Tasted So Good" and "Don't Pass Out, Passover" - as does Cowan's marketing and his personality. He is one of us way-post-Holocaust Jews who sees all things Jewish as cool and enriching. San Francisco, after all, is the birthplace of Davka magazine, Noah's Bagels and Tikkun -- a city where Jewish hip is mainstreamed. "Twenty years ago, you could never have called a beer He-Brew," he says. "But we're approaching Jewish identity in an interesting way. I'm Jewish and it's great and it's fine."
Thus, Cowan talks of marketing as "building community." He sent a bottle to Steven Spielberg and got back a short thank you - "Steven got a kick out of it." He's supplied kegs to Chabad parties, donated beer to his local Jewish community center, and has pledged, Ben-and-Jerry-like, to give 10 percent of his profits to charity. It's marketing as menschlekeit, and, so far, it seems to be working. The beer is selling briskly - at Wally's Liquors on Westwood Boulevard, customers bought out the entire first order in days.
Cowan is looking forward to developing a brew pub or piggybacking with a deli. As Cowan says, "The schtickateria is everywhere."
For more information, call (415) 648-HEBREW or visit www.shmaltz.com.