Brewing Up A Winner
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When Kaneohe resident Lili Hess decided to try to win the Samuel Adams Long Shot home brewing competition, she went back to the basics ... of winemaking.
Competing against nearly 300 fellow company employees around the country, she knew she’d need something to make her beer stand out in the crowd. The idea of a grape beer, melding the basics of wine and beer together, came from her fellow home brewer and friend Jonathan Schwalbenitz.
“I went to Jonathan and said, ‘You have great ideas, you know what the customers are drinking, let’s do something together,’” says Hess, who serves as the Samuel Adams International sales manager for Hawaii and the Pacific Rim.
“We knew we were not going to make the best pale ale or stout, so we did something different.”
This melding of grape and grain earned her first prize in the nationwide competition: a trip for two to Oktoberfest in Germany and the privilege of having her recipe brewed by Samuel Adams Brewery in Boston and distributed throughout the country in the Long Shot six-pack.
“So I told Jonathan if we win I’ll take you as my guest (to Oktoberfest) and our spouses can pay their own way,” says Hess with a smile.
The name of the beer is Grape Pale Ale. It’s mildly hopped with Samuel Adams’ signature hops, and Hess describes it as a light, easy-drinking Hawaii beer.
“It is like taking a bite of a grape and then having a sip of a nice pale ale,” says Hess.
When it arrives in the Islands in March it will be emblazoned with Hess’ face on the label and packaged with the winner of the public competition, Rodney Kibzey’s, take on a Weizenbock.
For Schwalbenitz, a bartender at Murphy’s Bar and Grill and a confessed hophead, this is a dream come true.
“It was nice to finally make a beverage from a grape that is drinkable,” says Schwalbenitz with a laugh, as a shot over the bow of his wine geek friends.
“What Lili has accomplished is truly amazing. Think about it. The Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams) will put her beer in a bottle with her picture on it. This is what home brewers dream about. The foam, I mean the cream, does rise to the top.”
The idea of the Long Shot competition came about years ago when Samuel Adams founder Jim Koch was first trying to distribute his beer. While much of the country originally spurned any departure from the Buds and Millers they grew up with, one group welcomed him with open arms: the home brewers.
“Jim Koch always said if he made it big one day he would remember their support and that he would represent and help the home brewers,” says Hess.
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The competition is open to any home brewers - more than 2,000 submitted beers last year alone - and the top two are selected to go in the six-pack along with the employee winner. Unfortunately, because of a shortage of hops this growing season, one of the winners had to defer his beer to next year’s six-pack, so there will only be the Weizenbock and Grape Pale Ale in this year’s package.
While the brewers at Samuel Adams decide on the public winners, the employees selection comes from a much more democratic process. First, the 275 employees each have an entry, which are broken into 25 regional groups with one winner from each region. These get sent on to Boston where three are chosen and advance to the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, where the 50,000 beer afficionados lucky enough to get tickets to the three-day event vote for their favorite entry, allowing the public to decide which will be the final addition to the Long Shot lineup.
In order to get a leg up, Hess used her marketing skills and friends to get the word out. She fashioned leis out of plastic grapes and hops, printed up T-shirts and stickers promoting her Grape Pale Ale, and had Schwalbenitz, her mom and a couple of girlfriends canvassing the crowd.
“People just kept coming up to the booth saying, ‘I guess I need to try your beer,’” says Hess, who found out later that the men’s restroom ended up being covered with her stickers.
The method worked as her kegs were dry halfway through Saturday, and they had to close the voting early with Hess ahead on all ballots.
Samuel Adams is shipping 480 cases of the beer to the Islands in March, and it will be available at Foodland and specialty beer stores such as the Liquor Collection and Tamura’s.
As for home brewers who want a shot at winning the ‘08 competition, Hess has some simple advice.
“Do something unusual, something to make it stand out,” says Hess, who has been a home brewer for more than 15 years.
“But don’t be too hokey. When I made a guava and a lilikoi beer, they were just bad! Beer just shouldn’t have certain things in it.”
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