Help Wanted

So a priest, a minister and a rabbi walk into a bar….

It’s the start of many jokes and for the last three years has also been the title of our informal symposium on beer and faith.  We had every intention of bringing it back to Philly Beer Week this year but then we found  out that our compatriot and the minister in the equation, Bryan Berghoef, will be away on a pilgrimage to Iona.

Once Rabbi Eli Freedman and I got done calling him names behind his back, we set our minds to trying to find another person to take his place.  For a while it looked like we had someone lined up but unfortunately they will be away for Beer Week.

And so we turn to you, our friends and kindred spirits.  We’d love for one of you to join us this year at Fergie’s Pub as we wax poetic about beer, God and faith and the ways in which they all tie together.

Of course we have some standards.

To make sure we don’t wind up like the Mystery Men, here is what we are looking for.

The ideal candidate will:

#1 Be a person of faith

#2 Have extensive knowledge about their faith and its history

#3 Be comfortable talking to a crowd and taking questions

#4 Have a sense of humor

#5 Live in the Philly Metro area

#6 Be free on the afternoon of Sunday, June 5^th

#7 Love beer (duh)

In order to broaden our perspectives special consideration will be shown to those outside the Judeo-Christian tradition and to women.

If you’re interested in exploring this further please contact me through the blog or Facebook.  We hope to hear from you!

 

The Biblical Brew Off is Back!

Team Moses and Team Jesus are back and facing off once again to see which congregation’s beer reigns supreme.  But this year they also have to reckon with the women of the newly formed Team Eve. As before, each entry will be blindly evaluated by qualified judges according to BJCP standards. The team with the highest average score will be declared the winner.  There will also be a people’s choice- each person in attendance will get to vote for their one favorite beer.

But this is not just about bragging rights.  Each team will be competing for a charity.  Representing my parish of St. Tim’s, Team Jesus will be competing for North Light Community Center.  Team Moses from Rodeph Shalom will be competing for HAIS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society). And Team Eve, made up of women from both congregations, will be competing for the Philadelphia Interfaith Hospitality Network.  The purse will be split with 50% going to the winner’s charity and 30% to second place and the remaining 20% to third.  That way none of these worthy causes will walk away empty handed.

It all takes place this coming Saturday, May 7^th at Rodeph Shalom (615 North Broad Street).  Doors open at 7 pm.  Advance tickets are only $25 and can be purchased here. That gets you unlimited samples of the different beers, BBQ from Deke’s and a commemorative pint glass. We’ll also have custom growlers, t-shirts for each team and amazing baskets filled with beer and other goodies to bid on in a silent auction.

The only way to win this basket filled with rare beers from Vermont is to come to the Brew Off!

We hope you will join us for what is sure to be memorable evening of friendly competition, food, fellowship and of course beer.  Best of all, every penny we net goes to benefit those who are homeless, hungry and who have had to flee from war and persecution.

Thanks to Brian Biggs (who draws the logos) and Home Sweet Homebrew for all their support!

So this Priest Walks into a Sukkah

As I referenced last week, our parish beer club has been working on expanding our interfaith horizons by brewing with the beer club from Congregation Rodeph Shalom.

 

 

Our brewing efforts resulted in a beer we dubbed, “Ecclesiastes 3:1- To Everything There’s a Saison.”  We debut it earlier this week as part of Rodeph Shalom’s Sukkot celebrations.

Sukkot is the Jewish harvest festival and closes out the High Holy Days.  The holiday, also known as the Festival of Booths, has its origins in Israel’s agricultural past.  At harvest time people would have to leave their cities and live in the fields in order to bring in the crop.   This experience is recreated through creating a sukkah (a tent/booth) outside the synagogue.

Anyway, about ten people from our parish/beer club, headed over to RS’s parking lot where we joined about 30 folks from the congregation for a festive dinner and of course, our beer.

Before we sat down to eat Rabbi Eli Freedman and president of the synagogue invited me to join them at the front of the sukkah as they explained the history and importance of the holiday and lead us all in prayers of thanksgiving and a blessing over the beer.

By nature I love learning about other people and their traditions.  As a Christian I find it doubly meaningful to learn about the faith and practices that inspired Jesus.

It was a great pleasure to share these traditions as well as some excellent food and fellowship.  It all made for a night that I will not soon forget.  And to think that it all began over a brew kettle.

Our sincere thanks to Rabbi Eli, Matthew, Lee and the rest of Congregation Rodeph Shalom for their hospitality!

Interfaith Brewing

Brewing, like most creative acts, can be an enormously satisfying experience.  Moreover, brewing, like playing music, gets a lot more fun when you are not doing it alone.  Many times I have whiled away an afternoon hanging out with friends from our parish beer club, shooting the breeze, catching up on news, listening to the game on the radio and reveling in the wonderful aroma of malt tea and hops.

Then in August we decided to deepen this already meaningful experience when we did a collaboration brew with our friends from Congregation Rodeph Shalom Synagogue.  Rabbi Eli Freedman and I have known each other for about a year and a half and have been working together since we started doing our “A Rabbi, a Priest and a Minister Walk Into a Bar” events.

We were first brought together by Nancy and George Hummel of Homesweet Homebrew who knew that we both had beer clubs at our congregations.  Getting our respective clubs together was a logical next step.  And so with a little planning a nice respective cross section of each of our groups gathered in my church basement where we have a big industrial kitchen.

We left the actual work of brewing and monitoring temperature and time to our more experienced lead brewers.  In the meantime we spent our time mingling with the people (we are clergy after all) and getting to know the members of the other group.

To me the highlight of the day was taking the members from Rodeph Shalom on a tour of our church.  It is always a unique and enjoyable experience to explain symbolism and structure to folks from another faith.  It was even better when Eli and his people were able to seize onto common symbols and explain how they had their origins in Judaism.

By the time we wrapped up the tour the brew crew in the kitchen was already chilling the wort.  As to the beer itself, we brewed a Saison (Belgian farmhouse) style beer.  The day wrapped up with us collectively trying to figure out a name that would have some significance for both of our faiths.  We settled on “Ecclesiastes 3:1 (To everything there’s a Saison).”  This is of course terrible pun but we couldn’t help ourselves.

We look forward to serving the beer for the first time at one of Rodeph Shalom’s Sukkot celebrations at a festival dinner for both of our clubs out under their big sukkah (tent).  FYI, Sukkot is the Jewish harvest festival and to honor its agricultural origins, traditionally takes place out under a big tent.

So while making this beer was a lot of fun, its real value will not be in drinking it, but in the bonds it help to forge between a group of people from different faiths.  In the end we discovered we have much more in common than just the love of great beer and that is something always worthy of celebration.

I look forward to sharing details and pictures from the event with you soon.