Meet Mark Bowers - Brewmaster at Aeronaut Brewing Co.
Full Name?
Mark Bowers
Your title?
Brewmaster
Brewery Name?
Aeronaut Brewing Company
Brewery Location?
14 Tyler St, Somerville, MA 02143
#1) What made you decide to get into the craft brewing industry?
Since an early age (16 or so!) I've been fascinated by beer and brewing it. Although I did not start my career in professional brewing, after a long stint in R&D in chemistry & medical devices, I changed careers and went into craft brewing, a great love of mine.
#2) Which of your beers do your customers enjoy the most and why?
Hop Hop & Away. Labeled as a session IPA, this beer that has a wonderful hoppy flavor but lower bitterness. It also fits nicely between a traditional American pale ale and the newer NEIPAs (New England IPAs). It's very approachable by beer neophytes but also appeals to typical beer consumers.
#3) What's your favorite thing about your brewery?
I really like the way our brewery (in Somerville) is almost part of the taproom. Most breweries rarely, if ever, have the actual brewery area where beer is made in the same room as the taproom.
Having the brewhouse and fermenters right up front and close appeals to the beer nerd and gear head in me. I also like to think that this fosters the feeling that we at Aeronaut want to be up front in showing, explaining, and telling people about our beers.
#4) Besides your own, what Massachusetts craft beers or breweries impress you the most and why?
Jack's Abby make wonderful lagers and show the US that craft brewers can specialize in lagers and make a go of it. Also, Notch Brewing; not only do they also make wonderful lagers but most of their beers are lower in alcohol and still full of flavor.
#5) What’s a little known fact about you or your brewery that you think customers would get a kick out of? Something unique, funny or unusual?
Although we've occasionally explained the origin of the name of one of our flagship or core beers, A Year with Dr. Nandu, it likely remains unknown to the majority of our customers. Here is what one of our founders, Ronn Friedlander has to say about it:
“Dr. Hari Nandu, is a radiologist that makes vulgar jokes. [Our first beer] was named after we sat around with Dr. Nandu for a few hours trying to come up with a name for the brewery. He kept coming up with really funny, but inappropriate names. So we came up with the name A Session with Dr. Nandu to commemorate those naming sessions with a session IPA. On our first year anniversary we brewed A Year with Dr. Nandu, a retrospective on our first year as a brewery to reflect the things we’ve learned over the past year as a re-imagining of the Session.”
#6) If you could only drink one beer for the rest of your life what would it be? (Doesn’t have to be your own!)
That would be Schönramer Pils. The first beer I fell in love with was a German pale lager beer, Lowenbrau Export, that my great uncle introduced me to. And although I've enjoyed and still enjoy a lot of different kinds of beers, I always greatly prefer a well-made lager, and the pilsner from Private Landbrauerei Schönram is simply superb. This beer is being brewed by a transplanted American brewer, Eric Toft, who is considered by many well-known, accomplished brewers to be on the short list of best brewers in the world. His pils is not only great tasting, but it's so easy to keep drinking it...and ordering another and another!