Sixpack Sez

Oct. 26 , 2007 | Sam Adams gives nod (& label) to wannabes

FORGET IT, says Jim Koch, the ebullient president of Boston Beer Co.

Homebrewers can try all they want. They can steal the recipe, use the same ingredients, even put their homemade beer in the same bottle as his. They will never replicate his company's biggest pride, Samuel Adams Boston Lager.

"They can copy it," he said. "But even having the recipe doesn't tell you the secrets of the beer. The flavor is the result of so many decisions. I couldn't even make Boston Lager as a homebrewer."

Enter Mike McDole and Rodney Kibzey, a pair of amateur do-it-yourselfers who, next February, will have the distinct honor of escorting their buddies to their local distributor, noting a stack of sixpacks in the corner and saying, "Hey, that's my face on the label."

The two homebrewers submitted the winning consumer recipes in the 2007 Samuel Adams American Homebrew Contest. Their beers will be packaged, along with a third from a to-be-announced Boston Beer employee, in Samuel Adams LongShot variety sixpacks.

No, neither of the winners is a Boston Lager clone. But after tasting each a couple weeks ago, I can assure you they stand on par with anything else with a Sam Adams label.

McDole, 59, a computer consultant from the San Francisco Bay area, turned out a typically hoppy, West Coast-influenced Double IPA. Kibzey, 38, from outside Chicago, won with a German weizenbock. Both beers are so good, you can't help but feel that Koch is playing with fire.

I mean, name another company the size of Boston Beer (America's fifth-largest brewer) that willingly opens the doors to outsiders, invites them to make their own version of its product and then markets it to the rest of the world.

It's as if Campbell's Soup told its customers, "C'mon, make a better tomato soup than us, and we'll sell it for ya!"

Maybe Sam Adams doesn't have to worry about someone making a better Boston Lager, but why take the chance?

Koch said it's a way to honor the roots of craft brewing.

His first version of Boston Lager was a homebrew. And when the big-beer industry laughed him off for trying to start a nationwide craft brewery in 1984, "The American Homebrewers Association treated us as rock stars . . . I always promised myself that I would give back something to those who welcomed us when nobody else did."

To this day, his company still provides hands-on advice to brewer wannabes, even occasionally sharing ingredients. It encourages all its employees - not just the brewers, but salespeople and office workers - to brew at home. And up in its hometown, homebrewers are competing in a Sam Adams contest in which the winning recipe will be served at New England Patriots home games.

The irony is that Boston Beer's success - and that of the rest of the craft-beer segment - ought to be a threat to the homebrewing hobby. After all, why go through hours of boiling wort, racking beer and cleaning bottles when you can just run down to the store and buy 100 different excellent ales and lagers?

"That's just it," said Koch. "When I started homebrewing, it was because you couldn't buy any good beer. You had to make it yourself. Today, the new wave of homebrewers have already developed an appreciation of good beer. They're in it to get back to their roots; they don't just want to buy their favorite beer, they want to make it themselves."

Indeed, Kibzey, who learned how to brew from an old girlfriend, said he modeled his beer after the world's classic dark wheat beer, Schneider Aventinus. And McDole's Double IPA is aimed at Russian River's Pliny the Elder.

"According to Vinnie [Cilurzo, Russian River's owner], I nailed it," McDole said.

Neither is looking to brew professionally.

"To me," said McDole, "the essence of brewing is to spark up the flame and stir the spoon in a big pot of boiling wort. It's where man meets beer."

Some day, maybe, it's where man will meet an even better Boston Lager.

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Speaking of amateurs competing with the pros, there's a local homebrewer who deserves some recognition: Christopher Bowen of Bethlehem.

Earlier this year, he teamed with brewmaster Beau Baden of Bethlehem Brew Works to make an English-style India pale ale for the Great American Beer Festival's pro-am competition.

The beer beat out 47 other entries and won gold.

Astonishingly, Bowen has been brewing only one year. He credits Keystone Homebrew Supply with helping him gear up for his hobby.

"It's was pretty exciting," Bowen said of the medal.

"I'm a five- and 10-gallon batch brewer, and all of a sudden I was making 500 gallons. Working with Beau was great. He gave me the full hands-on. I was involved in every process. I think I spent 10 hours shoveling grain."

Bowen, 40, doubts he'll give up his job as a financial planner.

"But I did get a couple of offers when I was out in Denver for the festival," he said.