Microbrewed Adventures - Charles Papazian [22]
People had come from miles around for the pleasure of each other’s company and the fine beers brewed right there on the premises. Behind the bar, a glass wall separated the “New England Deco” pub from the small, beautifully lit 800-square-foot brewery.
Peter Egelston, 1987
A table awaited us with glasses of beer (pitchers had recently and ridiculously been outlawed in Massachusetts; certainly the founding fathers were turning over in their graves). Gold, amber and bock beers complemented the warm ambience, quiet conversation and excellent food. We spoke with the four owners; Peter Egelston brewed the beer while the other three managed the restaurant and bar. (Peter later moved on to establish New Hampshire brewpub Portsmouth Brewery and microbrewery Smuttynose Brewing Company.)
The passion for homebrewing and good beer got the better of the four founders of the Northampton Brewery, and now there they were, operating a brewery and restaurant/bar filled with enthusiastic customers in a small town in western Massachusetts. In 1987 they were among only 21 brewpubs in the entire United States. Only a few years earlier, in 1982, brewpubs were illegal in most of the country. There were none. As brewpub laws were enacted, permitting breweries to serve fresh beer at their own pubs, the numbers have grown.
Russ Scherer, co-founding brewmaster at the Wynkoop Brewery, 1988
In my home state of Colorado, brewpub legislation was slow to be enacted. Pioneer John Hickenlooper was instrumental in helping enact brewpub laws in late 1987. It was in 1988 that he and partner-brewer Russ Scherer founded Denver’s first brewpub, the Wynkoop Brewery. Having been homebrewers inspired both of them. Russ had won the American Homebrewers Association’s top honors as Homebrewer of the Year in 1985. He was certainly one of the most creative homebrewers and microbrewers up until his death in the 1990s. Although homebrewers were experimenting years earlier, Russ can certainly be credited with having brewed one of the first microbrewed chili beers in the country at the Wynkoop Brewery. In 2003, John Hickenlooper was elected mayor of Denver.
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MILE-HIGH GREEN CHILI ALE
The British would never dream of doing this to their pale ale, but Russ Scherer’s pioneering roasted chili pale ale provides both a spicy and an exotic flavor to an otherwise smooth, purely drinkable English-style pale ale. It has to be brewed to believe. If you love the flavor of green chili, you will adore this beer. The recipe can be found in About the Recipes.
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There are now more than 1,000 brewpubs throughout the United States. Each has its own fascinating story. The invariable common thread is that they were all born of the passion for homebrewing and microbrewing. You will almost always find a founder, brewer or investor with roots in homebrewing and a passion for beer. Certainly the most successful brewpubs in America embrace the passion that is the very definition of the joy of microbrewing.
Beware the Puritanical State
DID YOU KNOW that you are in a puritanical state?” a member of the audience asked me during a speech I was giving on a 1991 book-signing tour in Philadelphia. Suddenly you could hear a feather float. Silent was the room as I hesitated in panicked thought. I had just taken a sip of water to clear my voice. Had they thought I had forsaken them? Everyone’s face seemed to have a shocked expression, staring straight at my hand as if thinking, “Look. He’s drinking water.”
I scratched my head in confusion and asked, “What’d I do?” I had never been accused of being puritanical, and now my mind began to race, “Oh my God. This is not good. I certainly don’t want to project that kind of image. Quick. Someone get me a beer.”
On the verge of panic, my questioner began to see the beads of sweat on my forehead and came to the rescue. “No, no, no. I mean you are