By CONSTANCE GARCIA-BARRIO

Correspondent

Laura Holbert, a member of the Cliveden Brewers, empties a mash tun in the brewing area at Earth Bread and Brewery, 7136 Germantown Avenue.

She and other Cliveden Brewers have been busy brewing up a special beer that will be introduced on January 13 – and that will support the community engagement programs at Cliveden of the National trust.

Photo courtesy David Muff.

“In my opinion, most great men of the past were there only for the beer,” an Englishman once said.  One could have fun speculating on how beer may have shaped the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and key moments in our country’s past.

The Cliveden Brewers Guild has created “Cuvée de Cliveden,” a dark delicious beer to be featured at Earth Bread and Brewery, 7136 Germantown Avenue, to help provide a more inclusive view of that past.  “Cuvée de Cliveden is a unique collaboration between the Brewers Guild and the restaurant,” said Phillip R. Seitz, Cliveden’s curator of history and fermentation.  “Each glass purchased helps to support new programs addressing history and racial equality at Cliveden.”

The guild and Earth, Bread and Brewery invite the public to Cuvée de Cliveden’s January 13 launching party.  Doors will open at 4:30 p.m.

“Cliveden is excited to team up with an innovative Mt. Airy business like Earth, Bread and Brewery, and the Brewers Guild, one of Cliveden’s affinity groups,” said David Young, executive director of the historic site.  “It’s a terrific way to build visibility for Cliveden’s programs.”

Much discussion went into brewing the new beer.  “There are four things in beer: water, malt, hops and yeast,” Seitz said.  “Each ingredient contributes to the beer’s flavor, and each presents a spectrum of possibilities.  For example, water can have little taste.  Then again, it could have a mineral tang. 

“Or take malt.  There are 70 different kinds of malt, and hundreds of varieties of hops.  Each one gives the beer a distinctive taste.  Sometimes it takes you a couple of tries to get the taste you want,” said Seitz, a veteran home brewer who lives in Mt. Airy with his wife Debby, marketing manager for WXPN, and son Lyle, 10.

The Cliveden Brewers Guild, whose 20 or so members includes men and women, met last October to discuss how Cuvée de Cliveden should taste.  “We kept talking about it until we were exhausted,” Seitz said.  “We used a beer calculator, which does the mathematics of beer color and strength that active beer drinkers sometimes can’t do.” The guild, open to the public, meets every second Wednesday from 7:00 p.m. to 9 p.m. in Cliveden’s carriage house.

The project intrigued Tom Baker, the brewer at Earth Bread and Brewery.  “Guild members decided on the beer’s flavor,” said Baker, who owned Heavyweight, a brewery in New Jersey.   He and his wife now live in Germantown.  “I enjoy working with them,” Baker said.  “You get used to doing things a certain way, but guild members brought a fresh perspective, new ideas.  We’ve included some unusual ingredients in Cuvée de Cliveden. 

“Cuvée means blend,” he adds.  “For instance, it has candy sugar, raisins and a yeast that’s used with Belgian ale.”

The Belgian ingredient comes as no surprise, given Seitz’s brewing background.  Seitz and a Belgian student, JeanPaul Cassart, became acquainted in Washington, D.C., Seitz’s hometown.  “I had just finished a master’s degree in American Studies at George Washington University,” said Seitz, 51.  “I was working on the history of medicine at the Smithsonian, including a lot of biology.”

Seitz and Cassart had many a beer together during the Belgian’s stay.  When Seitz traveled to Belgium, Cassart introduced him to the country’s beers.  As fate would have it, soon after Seitz returned from that 1985 trip, an advertisement for a home- brewing kit arrived in the mail.  Seitz seized his chance.

Over the years, Seitz made many trips to Belgium, including visits to the Trappist monasteries of Rochefort and Orval, famous for their beers, and countless Belgian guests have stayed at his home.  Friendships and beer intertwined for Seitz, and still do.  “I’ve set up my current home brewing operation so that I can’t do it alone,” he said.  “A friend has to help me.”

Seitz and other guild members hope for the same camaraderie with Cuvée de Cliveden.  “Beer makes for conviviality,” he said.  He hopes that Cuvée de Cliveden brings beer connoisseurs to Earth, Bread and Brewery on January 13.  “With a hint of raisins, coffee and plums, it’s a delicious beer,” he said.  “Restaurant patrons can pay a few extra bucks and keep a special with the guild’s logo.  Tom Baker and Peggy Zwerver of earth Bread and Brewery are donating the proceeds of patrons’ first glass to Cliveden.  Maybe they’ll make new friends, and certainly do a good deed, by supporting Cliveden’s programs on racial equality.”

Those who wish to taste Cuveé de Cliveden shouldn’t wait.  “Tom Baker has made just over seven barrels of the beer, and he never brews the same beer twice,” Seitz said.  “Once Cuveée de Cliveden is gone, it’s gone.”

For more information call Earth, Bread and Brewery at 215-242-6666 or Cliveden at 215-848-1777. You can speak with Phillip Seitz, curator of history and fermentation, at extension 230.