God And Beer

A fun article in the Chicago Tribune about the religious names at the Great American Beer Festival.

Jeremy Cowan, the marketing mind behind He'Brew (the chosen beer), was absent from his company's booth on the festival's first day; it was Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement.

Established in 1996 (or 5757), Cowan's Schmaltz Brewing Co. uses Jewish humor, scripture and imagery in packaging its beers, all of them kosher. There's Genesis Ale ("our first creation") Messiah Bold ("the one you've been waiting for") and Jewbelation ("L'Chaim!").

"I am passionately Jewish," Cowan said. "I don't get as caught up in the legal minutiae. I'm more fascinated in the project of Judaism as a civilization. This is the way I participate."