First Draft Follies: The "Dry" Assault On American Brewers, 1916. Part One

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three

Welcome to First Draft Follies, an ongoing series here at the blog. All of the previous entries are available by clicking on "First Draft Follies" in the index. The material is presented "as is" from the first draft of the manuscript that became the book Ambitious Brew. In a few places I added one or two words in brackets -- [like this] -- for clarification. Whenever the excerpt is long, I've broken it down into several "parts."

This edition concerns the early twentieth century prohibition movement, which eventually produced the 18th Amendment and constitutional Prohibition.

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On January 1, 1916, seven more states went dry, bringing the total to nineteen. Three weeks later, Texas Attorney General B. F. Looney and his staff marched into a Sulphur Springs courtroom. On trial were the seven members of the Texas Brewers’ Association, each charged with violating anti-trust laws and with “attempting to influence, affect and control” the state’s legislature and elections. (*1)

Prosecutors and defendants squeezed past the hulking mass that covered the floor in front of the bench: five hundred pounds of evidence in the form of twenty-five thousand pages of letters and reports. Prohibitionists filled the galley, hoping that the mound of paper would provide “interesting campaign reading and prove spicy for stump purposes.” (*2)

The circus never got off the ground. Looney announced that six of the seven defendants had surrendered their charters; accepted an injunction preventing them from engaging in “the acts complained of”--election fraud and anti-trust activities--; and agreed to pay court costs, the Attorney General’s expenses, and a $276,000 fine ($4.6 million today). (*3)

In short, and in the eyes of the public, a solid “guilty” verdict and therefore more evidence of the brewers’ evil ways. Looney entered all twenty-five thousand pages of evidence into the public record. (A few months later, an anonymous citizen--a member of the Anti-Saloon League (ASL) --footed the bill for printing the entire record: two fat volumes that ran to sixteen hundred pages.)

Things were about to get worse

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Sources:

*1: The Brewers and Texas Politics (San Antonio, TX: Passing Show Print Co., 1916), p. 15.

*2 “Record in Brewers’ Suit Leaves Austin,” Dallas Morning News, January 23, 1916, p. 4.

*3: “Six Breweries Agree to Penalties of $276,000,” Dallas Morning News, January 25, 1916, p. 1.

First Draft Follies: Larry McCavitt And The Committee For Real Ale

Welcome to First Draft Follies, an on-going series here at the blog. The material is presented "as is" from the first draft of the manuscript that became the book Ambitious Brew. In a few places I added one or two words in brackets -- [like this] -- for clarification.

This edition concerns the founding of an American organization called The Committee for Real Ale.

The time is the early 1970s. Philip Morris had recently purchased Miller Brewing and introduced Miller Lite. Schlitz Brewing Company was being investigated for tax fraud, and Miller and Anheuser-Busch were on the verge of the great battle for the title of Biggest Beermaker on the Planet. __________________________________________________________

Schlitz’s law-breaking ways. Miller’s mountain of cash. “Lite" beer. These things, Larry McCavitt believed, were ruining American beer. And, being both a product of the sixties and a “typical New England rebel, he decided to do something about it. (*1)

McCavitt grew up in an Irish, working-class family in Brockton, Massachusetts, just south of Boston, a town where son followed father into the shoe factory or textile mill. Beer was part of that world. McAvitt’s father and grand-father drank beer at neighborhood taverns, or at the Lithuanian Club, where old men set their glasses of draft beer--Schaefer or Narragansett--on "beer warmers," saucers of warm water.

In an earlier era, McCavitt would have stayed in Brockton, worked at a factory, and become an old man sipping beer at one or another of the dimly lit beer joints around town. But he was born in 1943, part of that post-war generation that wandered off their parents’ paths. When McAvitt graduated from high school in 1961, he headed for Boston and college, a “real step up for the son of shoe factory workers, and a door into a different world than his parents had known. (*2)

He dived into the day’s politics. He campaigned for Eugene McCarthy and attended the ‘68 convention as a McCarthy delegate. In 1970, McCavitt and two friends crossed the Atlantic for a three-month tour that took them from England and Ireland to Finland and the Soviet Union.

Like other Americans, they experienced revelation in a beer mug, tasting heretofore unknown ales and porters, stouts and lagers, visiting small and nearly ancient breweries that bore no resemblance to the giant Narragansett brewing factory back home.

McCavitt returned to Massachusetts and more politics. In the early seventies, he won a seat on the Brockton city council, intent on finding ways to challenge, change, and improve the system. Then in the mid-1970s, a friend attending school at Oxford told McCavitt about [a British organization,] CAMRA, and how it was altering the face of British drink.

Here was something Larry McCavitt understood: organized resistance. In October, 1976, he and two friends filed incorporation papers for the Committee for Real Ale (CRA), a non-profit association organized to "inspire, through constructive leadership and forceful action, the development of the brewing industry" and "to sponsor festivals conferences [sic] and courses for those interested in the brewing and consumption of real ales and beer." (*3)

The Massachusetts Secretary of State approved their papers in January, 1977, and the group celebrated with a launch party at the Black Rose, a Boston tavern "with a reputation for fine Irish stout." (*4) It’s time, McCavitt told a boisterous crowd, "for a beer drinkers [sic] revolt against the insipid beer of America." “‘It is the shame of our nation that in all of these United States a man can hardly find a decent glass of ale, excepting that which has been imported from another coutnry at a premium price." (*5)

Over the next few months, McCavitt and his two co-founders squeezed the beer campaign in amongst their jobs and other political activities. They solicited members (annual dues $5.00) and printed bumper stickers that read “THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DEMAND REAL ALE/ SUPPORT THE COMMITTEE FOR REAL ALE. (*6).

A quarterly newsletter provided information about good local beers and the taverns that carried them, as well as reports about small breweries in other parts of the country; and news from the frontlines of "THE GREAT BEER WAR." "Anheuser-Busch vs Philip Morris-Miller is guaranteed to go 15 rounds with no clear cut winner, least of all the beer drinking public." (*7)

McCavitt’s most important piece of promotion consisted of a letter to the editor of the New York Times, in which he commented on a recent Times article about the Miller v. Bud saga.

"The so-called competition that August A. Busch 3d refers to as the spice of life is ridiculous," wrote McCavitt. "It may be the spice of life to him and the other beer titans, but it is a cruel fraud to perpetrate on the American public. Not only is there not much spice left in the watered down liquid they are trying to pass off as beer, there is hardly any taste or anything else." (*8)

At its peak, the Committee for Real Ale had more than two hundred members, most in the New England area, but some living as far away as California. That was not enough to sustain the group, which fizzled when one of the founders left town to take a new job and the press of other matters left McCavitt with too little time to pursue the crusade.

But like Britain’s Society for Preservation of Beers From the Wood, McAvitt was only slightly ahead of his time. Unbeknownst to him, and even as his own Committee faded into history, another crusader two thousand miles away charged on to the field. (*9)

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SOURCES: *1: Lawrence McCavitt interview with Maureen Ogle, November 11, 2004.

*2. McCavitt interview.

*3: Copy of membership form provided by Lawrence McCavitt.

*4: Press release, The Committee for Real Ale; copy provided by Lawrence McCavitt.)

*5: "Beer Drinkers Now Fancy Themselves ‘Connoisseurs’ of Brew," Taunton Daily Gazette, January 19, 1977, p. 24; copy provided by Lawrence McCavitt.

*6: bumper sticker provided by Lawrence McCavitt.

*7: "The Great Beer War," newsletter, The Committee for Real Ale, volume IV. Copy provided by Lawrence McCavitt.

*8: Lawrence V. McCavitt, "Brewing Battle," New York Times, September 21, 1977, p. 3-3.

*9: See my series about the creation of the American Homebrewers Association. The series link leads to the last part of the series, which contains links to all the previous parts.

First Draft Follies: The Creation Of CAMRA

Welcome to First Draft Follies, an on-going series here at the blog. The material is presented "as is" from the first draft of the manuscript that became the book Ambitious Brew. In a fewplaces I added one or two words in brackets -- [like this] -- for clarification.

This edition concerns the founding of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), the British group devoted to good beer and good pubs.

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The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) was born in 1971, but the discontent that inspired it had been growing for several years. Mergers had been reshaping British brewing for decades, but in the 1960s a spate of pricey and highly publicized buyouts reduced British breweries by half and decimated the ranks of the smallest.

In 1967, alone eleven small brewers lost their independence. By 1970 there were but ninety-nine brewers operating 211 breweries, a far cry from the six thousand in existence in 1900. "Tied" houses were legal in Britain, and those brewers owned a staggering 80% of pubs. Britons had traditionally drunk cask-conditioned ales: beers stored in wooden barrels in a cool cellar and transferred to a mug by the publican pulling at his pump handle up in the pub.

But in the sixties, the Behemoth Brewers introduced "keg" beer--huge metal tanks of pasteurized, carbonated beer, which was, brewers argued, more consistent, fresher, and longer-lived than cask ale.

Nonsense, snorted an unconvinced public. Keg beers, sneered one man, "taste of nothing at all" and "are fit only as companions" to caged, factory-farm chickens and "frozen vegetables." (*1)

Many Britons retaliated by turning to homebrewing, which Parliament legalized in 1963. But homebrew, no matter how tasty, could never compare with a pint shared in company at the local. Organized revolt began in 1970 with the creation of the Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood (SPBW), whose chairman urged his countrymen to resist the brewer's efforts to foist a "dull and gassy conformity" upon an unwilling public. (*2)

It's not clear just who or what the SPBW was or did, but its members are likely responsible for the spate of anti-big-beer letters that appeared in the London Times throughout 1970.

"The present trend is worrying," wrote one person. "The national brands all taste alike without any character whatever." (*3) "If big business finally takes away one more of the pleasures of life, and one more symbol of individuality," argued another man, "beer lovers will have themselves to blame if these enforced changes are accepted without protest." (*4)

Protest? Or action? Both, decided four friends on holiday in early spring, 1971. The men, all in their early twenties, had set off on a "boozing holiday" through Ireland. One bad ale led to another, and, in a tipsy but disgusted mood, one of the four proposed a campaign to improve the nation's beer. At Patrick O'Neill's, a pub on the far western Irish coast, they elected officers and settled on a name: Campaign for the Revitalization of Ale. [Early in its history, organizers changed the name to Campaign for Real Ale.]

The grand project, like so many hatched over glasses of beer, faded with the sober light of day; the friends returned to England, home, and work.

But one of the travelers, Graham Lees, could not let go. He discussed the idea with friends, sent out Christmas cards touting the idea, and even printed membership cards. But he knew that this was not enough, and nearly a year after the idea's birth, Lees told Michael Hardman that it was time to launch a "proper consumer campaign" instead of just buggering about singing "We're Only Here for the Ale." (*5)

Three of the four founders were journalists and so in a position to transform idea into impact and thus into action. In March, 1972, they held CAMRA's first official meeting. The campaign to save British beer was on. That summer, the CAMRA group joined forces with SPBW and demanded a meeting with officials from the Department of Agriculture in order to register an official complaint against "phoney" beers. (*6)

The campaign accelerated in the fall after the SPBW requested permission to set up an information booth at Britain's first beer festival, an event organized by the Trade Aids Group and designed to "celebrate" the nation's breweries, or what was left of them. The five largest brewers threatened to pull out if SPBW showed up.

Trade Aids, fearful of being left holding an empty bag, agreed to deny SPWA entrance to the event. The SPBW retaliated by picketing the week-long event.

Two months later, in November, 1973, CAMRA, which had absorbed SPBW and now had five thousand members, hosted its first official protest: a march and demonstration at the Joules brewery in Stone, Staffordshire. Bass Charrington had bought the tiny outfit several years earlier and now planned to close it. A Bass spokesman dismissed the demonstration and CAMRA as "romantic hogwash," an attitude that fueled the crusaders' fire and added names to the membership list.(*7)

Six hundred people converged on Stone for an event captured by film crews and print journalists. By late 1974, CAMRA boasted 18,000 members, had published its first Guide to good beer and ale, and launched its most ambitious attack: the creation and funding of CAMRA Investments Ltd., which purchased and threatened pubs and transformed them into repositories of real ale.

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SOURCES:

*1: Llew Gardner, "British Drink," London Times, August 6, 1965, p. 11.

*2: E. B. Lee, "From the Wood," London Times, March 21, 1970, p. 9.

*3: R. E. Freeman, "Beer Choice," London Times, July 6, 1970, p. 20.

*4: Kevin Bailey, "Small Beer?" London Times, June 16, 1970, p. 24.

*5: Michael Hardman, "Founding Fathers," in Roger Protz and Tony Millns, eds., Called To The Bar: An Account of the First 21 Years of the Campaign for Real Ale (St. Albans, England: CAMRA Ltd., 1992), 34.

*6: "Brewhaha," London Times, July 20, 1972, 16.

*7: Ibid.

First Draft Follies: The Founding Of The American Homebrewers Association, Part 6 of 6

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five --- Part Six Welcome to First Draft Follies, an ongoing series here at the blog. This edition concerns the creation of the American Homebrewers Association. The AHA celebrated its thirtieth anniversary on December 7, 2008.

The material is presented "as is" from the first draft of the manuscript that became the book Ambitious Brew. In a few places I added one or two words in brackets -- [like this] -- for clarification. The excerpt is long, so I've broken it into manageable bits and am posting those bits as a series.

Note: For more on the creation of Zymurgy, see this essay by Stan Hieronymus. Also see Stan's essay on early connections between homebrewing and craft brewing.

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To an outside observer, the entire venture showed all the earmarks of one doomed for failure, and sooner rather than later. That observer had not counted on the passion, the persistence, or the patience of Charlie Papazian.

Matzen enjoyed creating the magazine. But Papazian could see something else. Out there, he sensed rather than knew, were beer lovers like himself. Men and women who enjoyed not just the flavor of homebrew, but the pleasure and fellowship it inspired. Out there lay both potential and opportunity for someone to have and to hold in homebrew-legal America. It might as well be him.

That, more than anything else, kept Zymurgy alive: Papazian's ambition and intuition, his gut instinct, that success and, yes, perhaps an income, lay just around some bend in the road ahead.

Ever so gradually, response trickled in. Enthusiasts submitted thirty-four brews to that first competition, and two hundred merrymakers showed up for the ball, where they ate eggplant caviar and humus and danced to [local band] Jazz Explosion.

And against all odds, the group thrived. Each issue of Zymurgy was fatter than the last, in part thanks to an array of advertisements, mostly for homebrew supply shops, but also for magazines like Home Fermenter's Digest and All About Beer, and instruction manuals, like Patrick Baker's New Brewer's Handbook, which he published in 1979. The magazine also carried ads for Papazian's how-to book, which the author had revised, doubling the number of pages (and the price). News about homebrewing clubs devoured several pages of each issue. Paul Freedman, a reporter for the Washington Post, contributed articles, most notably a report about [the British group, the Campaign for Real Ale.]

In early 1980, Papazian incorporated the AHA as a tax-exempt, non-profit association devoted to "literary and educational purposes," and created a board of directors that consisted of himself, Matzen, and several homebrewer friends. A year later, Freedman and Fred Eckhardt joined the Zymurgy staff as "advising editors."

By that time, the staff list numbered nineteen, all of them unpaid (including even Papazian, who would not leave his teaching job until the end of the 1981 school year). Papazian knew that in order to stay alive, the AHA needed to extend its reach. He relied on the owners of brewing supply stores to distribute Zymurgy, so it behooved him to cultivate friends and acquaintances in the group.

In April, 1980, Papazian and Matzen traveled to Minneapolis for the annual meeting of the Home Wine and Beer Trade Association, which represented the interests of shop owners like Byron Burch and Patrick Baker and their suppliers. Joe Goodwin, chairman of CAMRA, and two British homebrewing experts were scheduled to speak, and the event featured the first International Beer Competition, so-called because the HWBTA's membership included Canadians.

Papazian won Best of Show and first prize for his Pale Ale, wins that likely surprised the Californians in attendance. Whenever an issue of Zymurgy arrived at Byron Burch's Great Fermentations, he, wife Nancy Vineyard, and the rest of the staff would "shake [their] heads" over the brewing information that was, by the Californians' standards, stone age in its technical competence. (*21)

Nearly every issue repeated the admonition to "Relax. Have a homebrew." When one reader wrote a letter sharing a particular technique he used during brewing, Papazian responded with a detailed and complicated scientific correction of the man's idea, but then negated his own advice by dismissing the need for science or complexity. "Let's try to keep our homebrewing simple but knowledgeable, concerned yet not worried and above all relaxed. Have a homebrew!" (*22)

Nor were Burch and Vineyard impressed with Papazian's Joy of Brewing, which also focused on fun; never mind that its pages were riddled with inconsistencies and errors, including one procedure which, if followed, would cause the carboy used in the task to explode. Even the Boulder brewing competitions were "primitive" affairs compared to the far more sophisticated events organized by California homebrewers. (*23)

But there was method to Papazian's seeming madness; it was part of the philosophy cultivated back in Boulder. "A much larger market exists" for shop owners, Papazian argued in another issue, "if the average person can be convinced that he/she can make a consistently better, less expensive beer" than those sold commercially, and that homebrewing is not a "mystique" meant only for "eccentrics." (*24)

Have fun. Keep it simple. Relax. Have a homebrew. Given Papazian's relative lack of knowledge in a hobby that was becoming more sophisticated by the month, it's not clear how long the AHA might have carried on. Like [Larry] McAvitt's [Committee for Real Ale,] it needed some other engine to propel its flight. (*25) Unlike McAvitt, Papazian found one -- [in the form of another brewing-related development: the emergence of the craft brewing movment.]

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Sources:

*21: Nancy Vineyard interview with Maureen Ogle, June 6, 2005.

*22: Professor Surfeit, Zymurgy 3, no. 4 (Winter 1980): 22. *23: Byron Burch interview with Maureen Ogle, June 16, 2005.

*24: "Sharing Information is Good for the Homebrewer . . . And Good Business," Zymurgy 3, no. 3 (Fall 1980): 4

. *25: Larry McAvitt, a Massachusetts man, founded the Committee for Real Ale in the mid-1970s; he modeled the short-lived organization after the British Campaign for Real Ale. For McAvitt, see here. For CAMRA, see here.

First Draft Follies: The Founding Of The American Homebrewers Association, Part 5

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five --- Part Six

Welcome to First Draft Follies, an ongoing series here at the blog. This edition concerns the creation of the American Homebrewers Association. The AHA celebrated its thirtieth anniversary on December 7, 2008.

The material is presented "as is" from the first draft of the manuscript that became the book Ambitious Brew. In a few places I added one or two words in brackets -- [like this] -- for clarification. The excerpt is long, so I've broken it into manageable bits and am posting those bits as a series.

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Summer ended. [Matzen and Papzian] returned to Colorado, still discussing the notion [of beer as a business venture]. Then two omens set their ship on course. I

n January, 1978, Papazian read Michael Jackson's World Guide to Beer. In the space of a few hours, his knowledge about brewing and beer and their possibilities "expanded by leaps and bounds." (*16) Jackson's book empowered Papazian to perceive "community" as a larger, more complex entity than he had found in his homebrewing classes at the Free School. Then there was Jackson himself: an otherwise ordinary guy making a career out of beer.

Omen two presented itself in October 1978, when President Jimmy Carter signed legislation that legalized homebrewing.

Matzen and Papazian began writing the text for and assembling issue number one of Zymurgy, the official mouthpiece of their new organization, the American Homebrewers' Association.

In those pre-computer days, that task entailed hours of work with scissors and gluepot. One friend proofread and edited the twelve-page creation; another contributed the artwork. Papazian and Matzen spent days in the library, combing phone book yellow pages and compiling a list of brewing supply shops around the country. For hours they pasted address labels, about a thousand all told: shops, breweries, and hundreds of names from the Beer and Steer guest list.

The first issue consisted of one part information and three parts chutzpah, all of it doused in humor. In an article about the legalization of homebrewing, a "high-ranking representative of the A.H.A" applauded the senators who sponsored the bill. "With unity, the A. H. A. may become a powerful political force that Washington will have to reckon with. Think Homebrew Power." (*17)

One page contained an announcement of "The First Annual National Homebrew Competition," to be held in Boulder the following May.

Matzen contributed a story about what transpired when a carboy of Black Lava Ale exploded in his apartment in Hawaii, spewing drops of brew and bits of glass over walls, carpets, curtain, and clothes.

There was a recipe for "Stuffed Whole Lobster A-la-mazing"

and one for "Vagabond Black "gingered Ale," as well as a much-repeated admonition to "relax and have a homebrew." The founders included a vague statement of intent: The magazine would "deal with anything (and we mean anything) that has to do with the processes, enjoyment, and indulgement of beers, ales, and meads. Zymurgy will refine the science of brewing to an art."

Subscribers, the editors announced, would receive "fantabulous, great, tremendous discounts and benefits," and a "special price" on Papazian's "internationally renowned" book, Joy of Brewing. (*18) Off the newsletter went, all thousand or so copies.

The two power brewers sat back and waited for "the money to roll in." And waited. And waited some more. "We hoped we would get subscribers, form a base to pay for it," Matzen said later. (*19) What they got was a few takers, although not nearly enough to pay for a second issue; a bit of "who are these weirdo hippie people putting out this newsletter"; and not much else. (*20)

That did not stop the new Barons of Brew, whose enthusiasm outweighed their bank account.

Next: Papazian, Matzen, and the AHA defy the odds.

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Sources: *16: Charlie Papazian interview with Maureen Ogle, April 27, 2005.

*17: "Congress Passes Homebrew," Zymurgy 1, no. 1 (December 1978): 12.

*18: Zymurgy 1, no. 1 (December 1978): 2.

*19: Charlie Matzen interview with Maureen Ogle, June 8, 2005.

*20: Papazian interview.

First Draft Follies: The Founding Of The American Homebrewers Association, Part 4

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five --- Part Six

Welcome to First Draft Follies, an ongoing series here at the blog. This edition concerns the creation of the American Homebrewers Association. The AHA celebrated its thirtieth anniversary on December 7, 2008.

The material is presented "as is" from the first draft of the manuscript that became the book Ambitious Brew. In a few places I added one or two words in brackets -- [like this] -- for clarification. The excerpt is long, so I've broken it into manageable bits and am posting those bits as a series.

___________________________

[Homebrewing] proved a valuable currency when [Papazian] graduated from UVA in the spring of 1972 and headed to Boulder, Colorado, a city about which he knew nothing but where his roommate's brother lived.

An interesting choice for a young man just starting out. In the early seventies, Boulder radiated "sunshine, hope, and love. It was a college town with something more, some magical quality . . . ." The town's cafes and bars teemed with students and hippies; "[e]xuberant mystics," "bemused academics, dope dealers, writers, artists, [and] musicians." (*10)

A bit too much humanity. Jobs proved hard to find, so Papazian "hung out," hoarded his pennies, made friends, and, in the spring of 1973, began brewing for them. By the fall, he'd developed a minor reputation around town as a guy who served up good times and good beer, and the staff at the Community Free School, one of thousands of experiments in alternative education (expressions, thus, of personal ecology), asked him to share his skill one night a week. Papazian jumped at the chance. He loved to teach. He relished the fellowship and sense of community that homebrew inspired. The law be damned.

In the fall of 1974, an otherwise dismal moment of record inflation and heartbreaking unemployment, he and his friend Charlie Matzen hosted Beer and Steer, or, as some called it, "Beerstock," a celebration of the camaraderie forged by the making and drinking of homebrew.

Five hundred people converged on a meadow campsite in the foothills outside town, where they danced, sang, ate, played volleyball, and drank four hundred quarts of homebrew. What better way to respond to a world gone berserk than with laughter, music, and homemade beer. Take that Gussie Busch! Take that Treasury Department!

The American Homebrewers's Association was born on a Hawaiian beach. In the summer of 1977, Matzen and Papazian met up at Maui, where Papazian engaged in a bit of organized loafing and Matzen supplemented his teacher's salary doing carpentry, painting, and other odd jobs for condominium owners.

As the the two lounged one day at Kaihalulu, the "red sand beach" near Hana, they "started talking seriously about beer and making a living at it." (*11) Papazian had written and self-published a homebrewing pamphlet, a short breezy affair that was low on accuracy and high on touting homebrewing as an easy, fun-filled venture. He sold copies to students enrolled in his brewing classes, but he wanted to find a larger audience for it and fashion a career out of his passion for homebrewing.

How about a magazine about beer?, he suggested. Matzen was a "little skeptical." (*12) The project sounded ambitious and a bit far-fetched.

On the other hand, it could be "interesting" and fun in the same way as Beer and Steer had been over the past few years.(*13) "Beerstock" was hard work but the gathering and preparation of the food (Matzen's domain) and beer (Papazian's arena) and marshalling dozens of volunteers offered an outlet for their "creative urge." (*14) A beer magazine would provide another one, and, who knew? Maybe there was a career in it.

Besides, Papazian and Matzen lived in Boulder, a city that oozed entrepreneurial passion, and not just from hip stores selling Earth Shoes or batik bedspreads. Mo Siegel had created a profitable empire out of herbal teas: $9 million dollars in sales by the late seventies. Green Mountain Grainery, which sold "health" foods like granola and trail mix, operated in a smaller local market, but each year it pulled in well over a million dollars. The Naropa Institute sold ideas and religion and owned entire blocks of Boulder real estate.

Creating odd businesses was itself a kind of religion in Boulder, a town where "everybody," mused one observer who visited in the late seventies, "believes like crazy in something or somebody." (*15)

Next: Papazian, Matzen, and the American Homebrewers Association

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SOURCES:

*10: Raymond Mungo, Cosmic Profit: How To Make Money Without Doing Time (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980), 89.)

*11: Charlie Matzen interview with Maureen Ogle, June 8, 2005.

*12: Matzen interview.

*13: Matzen interview.

*14: Matzen interview.

*15: Raymond Mungo, Cosmic Profit, 90.