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Joseph Owades
Best known as the creator of Gablinger's, an early light beer, using amyloglucosidase. brewed by his then-employer, Rheingold Breweries, Inc. of Brooklyn, NY. Rheingold had hired Owades while he was working for Schwarz Laboratories (1953-1960) where he had done research for Stroh Brewery's diacetyl problem. At Rheingold he would routinely examine the other local brands and established a relationship with Anheuser-Busch when he found some of their Newark-brewed Budweiser suffered from diacetyl, traced to the malt coming from Rahr, a maltster Anheuser-Busch had recently purchased.
After leaving Rheingold he would work for the Greek brewer, Fix, Anheuser-Busch and Carling Brewing Co., in the US. At Carling he would help create the American version of Carlsberg's Tuburg Beer. After the sale of Carling to Heileman, Owades set up his own consulting company, The Center for Brewing Studies, in Boston.
While there, he was hired by Matthew Reich, who was in the process of starting his Old New York Brewing Co., which initially would have their New Amsterdam Amber Beer contract-brewed by the West End Brewing Co., of Utica, NY (now F. X. Matt).
Owades and Reich worked for nearly a year, tasting sample brews until deciding on a final recipe for New Amsterdam, which would be released in New York City in November, 1982.
In 1986, when Reich opened his short-lived brewery in the city on Eleventh Avenue he listed Owades as his brewmaster.
In 1983, Owades move his Center for Brewing Studies to San Francisco, where he had previously held seminars called "All About Beer" at the local Anchor Brewing Co., which would continue to be offered after the move, as well as in NYC.
While in San Francisco Owades was contacted by Jim Koch, about to begin his contract-brewery, the Boston Beer Co., and his Samuel Adams Boston Lager.
For Koch, Owades took the family recipe that dated to the 19th century, found a substitute for the obsolete "Atlas" barley malt and the changed the hops, and added krausening and dry-hopping to the process. Owades had the beer brewed at Pittsburgh Brewing Co. (best known for its flagship Iron City Beer). According to Koch:
"I went to a few breweries in the northeast. I had this old recipe [from his grandfather] with a few intricacies in it - krausening, decoction mash-so you needed a certain brewery configuration. Not every brewery could make it, but there were a few who could. I settled on Pittsburgh Brewing.
" I needed the best brewing mind that I could get, which was Joe Owades.
"At Pittsburgh Brewing, it was very valuable to go with Joe. Four or five years earlier, he'd basically saved that brewery by developing IC Light. They thought he was a god. So if I would ask them to do something, they would question it. Then Joe would say 'He's right,' and they'd do it."
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