Marketing for a New Generation
Jewish cultural revival breeds Jewish-style beer
by Abigail Pickus
staff writer, JufNews
Jeremy Cowan can't believe his mazel.
Since turning an inside joke into an entrepreneurial venture at Chanukah of 1996, the 29-year-old San Franciscan has successfully broken into the highly competitive microbrewery market with his Jewish-style "Shmaltz Brewing Company," and its certified kosher line of "HE'BREW - The Chosen Beer."
HE'BREW's first creation, "Genesis Ale" is long on shtick: "Don't Pass Out, Pass Over." And, "Why is this beer different from all other beers?"
The answer is that HE'BREW is a "microbrew to complement the Jewish-American experience," made with a "smidgen Middle East, dash of American West, with no gefilte fish (or preservatives) added."
The piece de resistance is HE'BREW's Chagallesque label, painted by Cowan's girlfriend, Tracy Ginsberg, depicting a Chasid, bottles of beer in hand, looming over what looks like a dreamy merger of San Francisco and the Old City of Jerusalem.
So far, HE'BREW has created quite a media blitz - one small mention in Cowan's local Jewish paper landed him some key space in Newsweek, followed by articles in newspapers across the country. His answering machine (HE'BREW's label gives his home phone and a Web site) has been brimming with enthusiastic messages from consumers fired up over the new product.
And humble beginnings notwithstanding - Cowan delivered his first shipment of beer in the Bay Area in his grandmother's Volvo, stopping along the way to buy an invoice book - HE'BREW now has 350 retail accounts in Northern California alone, and Cowan is currently on a cross-country tour, tapping into key markets from Chicago to New York.
Yet, in the face of such unforeseen popularity, Cowan is a bit incredulous.
"I was thinking that absolutely no one is going to show up," he told over 100 young Jews who did, indeed, come to hear him speak at a Jewish Federation Young Leadership (YLD) event in early May at Joe's Bar in Chicago.
For despite Cowan's apprehension, it looks like HE'BREW beer is going to bring him more than his 15 minutes of fame.
"I said to Jeremy, 'You have a great thing here!' They're going to fall in love!" said Dylan Geller from Chicago, who attended the YLD event. "All he needs is some more networking, and to get his beer into the bars--he needs something really big like that to spark it, and from there it will really explode!"
Jewish Cultural Revival
HE'BREW's success speaks to something bigger than beer: it attests to a revival in cultural Judaism in the most unexpected of places. From TV sitcoms to consumer goods, the merging of the Jewish American experience with American sensibilities is what people like Cowan are proving speaks most viscerally to a postmodern generation.
"The emergence of cultural Judaism among Jews coincides with a general concern with identities and ethnicity among Americans," said Bernard Beck, associate professor of sociology at Northwestern University.
And the concept of a Jewish beer is a good case in point.
"'Jewish beer' seems to be reconciling two opposing stereotypes. Beer is often associated with the gentile American working class and the jock. And the current stereotype of Jews is that of the people of the book," Beck said.
But the pairing of the two is what Beck sees as "an affirmation of Jewish identity while assimilating to the general American culture."
Cowan seems to relish such an incongruity.
"The fact that you're drinking it is proof that Jews do drink a little bit," he kidded the YLD crowd. In fact, he deliberately worked with his microbrewery, Anderson Valley Brewing Company out of California, to come up with a light brown ale that would appeal to the occasional drinker.
Because what Cowan found is that more than alcohol, what Jewish consumers crave is a taste of cultural Judaism.
"Part of my goal is to tap into this incredible resurgence of Jewish identity in America," he said, adding that for the first time in American history, Jews are succeeding in every facet of society. "Despite all kinds of fears people have, I think that more Jewish groups are examining what it means to be Jewish in different ways, and that's exactly what I'm trying to reflect, hopefully with some fun mixed in," he said.
But the concept of Cowan's creation is serious. He modeled the three pillars of Shmaltz Brewing Company: quality, shtick, and community, on Judaism's guiding principles: Torah, people, land.
And assuming Cowan's endeavor will indeed take off, look out for his upcoming creation: "Messiah Stout: the beer you've been waiting for."