Article and photography by Kimberly Berkey
Who brew the Chosen Beer? HE’BREW. The Great American Beer Festival boasts brews of character. Only one, however, dares to tell the tale of how it took 13 years to reach beer brewing maturity and international success. Be it pass out or Passover, one can say that Jeremy Cowan’s choice to bottle his dream is certainly half full.
Cowan, creator of Shmaltz Brewing Company, made a special appearance at Falling Rock Tap House Wednesday, to promote his new book, Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah, a memoir which details the rise of his not so micro brews. Before getting to the good stuff, sometimes one has to put up with a little beer head before getting ahead. During his book reading and tasting, he shared that in the early days, everything was self brewed and hand bottled by yours truly. In some cases, it was even personally delivered by Cowan.
While it takes many stories to make several million beers, it is important to remember the ones that count, and perhaps refill or recycle when the time is right. The initial transition from writing beer labels to a beer book of manhood served as a bit shock for this Stanford English major. Cowan did not imagine the verbal crafting of his craft would be nearly as hard as he originally thought; he joked that it took him 20 years to use his degree to account for 13 years of HE’BREW history. However, despite a wavering start, his brew of thoughts and combination of the correct literary ingredients–with blood, sweat and beers–seems to have turned out just fine in its bottled and capped form, that’s now all the buzz.
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