Every Day is Yum Tov
To: Jeremy Cowan
This article appeared in the February issue of "KOL" the monthly bulletin of Temple Beth El. a 900 member Conservative Temple in Rochester NY.
The column, "Every Day is YUM TOV" is about Jewish food, its history and symbolism. No recipes and this is the first time in three years of writing these columns that I have mentioned a brand name. I tell everyone who asks that HeBrew is available at Beers of the World in a nearby plaza.
After spending 57 years in advertising, I can only hope this created a surge in sales. My old clients will tell you that was not always the case. I tried using shtick once... an ad for a new stool for ophthamologists. The headline: Up and down, to and fro, move your ass up and down. Bausch and Lomb did not fire us.
I would also try to sneak in a reference to Beers of the World. It has an incredible stock of beers. He'Brew is on the top shelf at the beginning of the US Beer section.
Being in there made me wish that five out ten prescriptions I take warn not to drink alcohol, At age 84+ and after 2 by-pass operations that are no longer under warranty, I drink only na beer. Thank you again for your kind words. Don't hesitate to call if there is anything I can do the help your enterprise.
Your shtick is funny and proper. Congratulations!
Lee D. Alderman
by Lee D. Alderman
KOL, Rochester, NY
February, 2006
It is a hot, humid summer day...
Of course you are thirsty. You want something to drink, something refreshing Water? Plain or fancy? Maybe. Or something tastier? But what?
If this question were asked 70 years ago (when this writer was still a youngster) the answer would probably be Dr. Brown's Cream Soda. First served in 1869, it is still available, still kosher. Please do not mention their Celery Tonic.
Seventy years ago is within memory for some of us. What was the drink of choice in biblical times?
Beer! Because boiling was part of the brewing process, beer was healthier to drink than the available water. It also tasted better. Yet, beer gets hardly a mention in the Torah. Beer was considered to be chamar medinah Ð not worthy to have a place in religious ceremony because so many people drank beer to relieve thirst. It was not special, so the rabbis said.
Judaism celebrated our belief and thanks to God with wine, not beer. Other ancient societies gave beer its due.
"Beer is the custom of the land," is a line in the Epic of Gilgamesh, reputed to be the oldest written story on Earth. It was found in what was Ancient Sumaria and has been dated around the 3rd millennium BCE.
Hammurabi, one of Babylon's good kings, decreed that two units of beer be considered the minimum wage for a full day's work. Also, the punishment for serving low quality beer was drowning. In beer?
The rationing of space in Kol's new format looms. We will have to skip the interesting facts and stories about beer in the Middle Ages, about Prohibition, the bootlegging of Israeli beer to Iraq. Kosher beer in the 21st century takes precedence.
Yes, there is a kosher beer. It started with banter between a group of teenagers in San Francisco in the late 1980's. For Jeremy Cowan the banter became a dream. Ten years later he formed the Shmaltz Brewing Company and found a microbrewery that could be certified kosher. For his product name, he chose "HE'BREW, the Chosen Beer."
In 1996, Genesis Ale hit the marketplace. It was followed by Messiah Stout, the beer you have been waiting for. Acceptance (and sales) have been building ever since; beer connoisseurs, Jewish or not, like it. Whether the same can be said about the one-liners, the humorous shtick that Cowan adds to the labels and ads depends on your sense of humor.
Yes, He'Brew is available in Rochester. In fact, there's a bottle in my 'fridge and there's a brisket in the oven. This is certainly going to be a yum tov!