Local Brewers — And Authors — Capture

The Recipes And Attention Of Beer Hobbyists

By Shannon Hicks

MONROE — Tess Szamatulski has always had an interesting talent. A former full-time caterer, Tess is able to go into a restaurant, enjoy something off the menu, and then go home and re-create what she just enjoyed while dining out.

Three years ago Tess and her husband, Mark, published their first book. Clonebrews: Homebrew Recipes for 150 Commercial Beers (Storey Books, 176 pgs, October 1998, $14.95 paperback) offered recipes for popular store-bought beers that had been duplicated — or cloned — by the Szamatulskis. The couple spent time re-creating beer the same way Tess was able to re-create favorite food dishes: By tasting a beer, creating their own recipes, and then tasting and tweaking again and again, until their home recipe was as close to the original brewer’s recipe as possible. When they had a collection of these recipes, what they called “cloned beer” recipes, the Szamatulskis published them as Clonebrews.

The book was not only a perfect tie-in to the couple’s long-held hobby of brewing beer, it was also a perfect offering at Maltose Express, which could very well be Connecticut’s largest homebrew and winemaking supplies store. The Szamatulskis have been operating their specialty business in Monroe for over a decade.

Almost as soon as Clonebrews was released — and welcomed by the homebrewing community — the couple began working on a follow-up. The result of two years’ work is now available in a larger, more detailed book called Beer Captured.

To celebrate the release of the book and the growing popularity of homebrewing, Tess and Mark Szamatulski will host a book signing party at Maltose Express on Sunday, February 25. The couple will be signing copes of Beer Captured (Maltose Press LLC, 202 pgs, January 2001, $16.95 paper), answering questions, and serving homebrewed beer and food from 1 to 4 pm. The store is at 391 Main Street/Route 25.

“We started these projects because our customers came in asking us how to make specific beers,” Mark said. The books contain American beers, but the majority are international favorites.

Some of the names are common — Anchor Porter by San Francisco-based Anchor Brewing Company, or Hammer & Nail Scotch Classic Style Ale from the Watertown-based Hammer & Nail Brewers of Connecticut. Others are unknown or hard-to-find such as a Russian porter called Baltika, making the recipes that much more appealing.

Beer Captured, say its authors, is an expansion on the premise of Clonebrews. The new collection of 150 recipes is more technical in its presentation than the couple’s first release, and therefore required more research on behalf of the Szamatulskis.

“We’re giving the brewer a lot more information this time,” Mr Szamatulski said recently. Mark developed a computer program that allowed him to input specific tastes resulting from ingredients he and his wife had mixed while searching for each new recipe. Mark’s program allowed the couple to plug information in — tastes, nuances, color, etc — and the computer would continue the Szamatulskis’ work in figuring out what ingredients were still needed or what needed to be cut back on.

One of the biggest selling points of Beer Captured (along with its predecessor) is the fact every one of the recipes is presented in three different, but equally important, forms. Homebrewers can brew using extracts, which is for those who are just beginning or want a less time-consuming form of brewing their own beer; mini-mash, which allows brewers to convert some of their grain while also relying on extracts; or all-grain, which is similar to baking a cake from scratch in that the brewer only uses grains. There are no shortcuts at the all-grain level, while mini-mashing, according to the Szamatulskis, is “a great way to fine-tune your recipes and is a stepping stone to all-grain brewing.”

The book is a good tool. Beer Captured will not become outdated as a homebrewer develops his or her brewing skills, which is another strong point for this book’s setup.

“It is not necessary to mash in order to make a great beer,” the authors wrote in their Introduction for Beer Captured. “Many award-winning homebrews have been brewed and will continue to be brewed by extract brewers.”

“I think extract beers can still come out just as good [as all-grain beers] sometimes,” Tess reiterated recently. As the book points out, brewers should become masters at the basic principles of homebrewing, working at the extract level, before trying to step up to mini-mashing or all-grain attempts. The Szamatulskis’ work allows homebrewers to work at their own pace, with step-by-step help at every turn.

The section of recipes (Part 3) is sandwiched between (Part 2) a section called “The Magic of Brewing,” which discusses grains, colors, hops, yeasts, preparation, and fermentation among its subjects, and Part 4, an appendix of tables, charts, guidelines, and other important information any homebrewer will find as important as the ingredients themselves.

Every recipe in Part 3 is given at least one full page. At the top of each page is the name of the recipe and the brewing company that developed the original. Below that is a brief history of the beer including where it came from, and in some cases information about the brewery itself. The main portion of each page, though, is what took the Szamatulskis two years of blood, sweat and beer-tasting: the beloved recipes.

“A few times, breweries gave us their recipes, but we had to convert what they gave us when they were brewing in big barrels into what we were doing, one small batch at a time,” Mark said. Other breweries were willing to give the Szamatulskis just the stats of their recipes, while some were completely secretive, forcing Tess and Mark to start from scratch.

Either way, every recipe in Beer Captured has been brewed and tested by Mark and Tess or some of their customers. The primary recipe is presented in its extract form, with its mini-mash and all-grain counterparts included to the right of each main portion.

Also along the right-hand border of each recipe is more information. Helpful hints offer such clues as certain flavorings that can be added to help a beer keep or achieve its color, or how long a beer can be stored and at what temperature. It also suggests when a beer should be consumed, whether immediately after brewing such as Burning River Pale Ale, or after an amount of time stored, such as Hanssens Kriek, which peaks between six and 12 months.

The sidebar also offers serving suggestions, right down to what type of glass to serve the beer in and with which foods.

This small section of help corresponds directly with a later chapter, “The Marriage of Food and Beer.” Again, thanks to Tess’ skills as a caterer, she went back to the kitchen and came up with some of her recipes, which were created the same way she and Mark had come up with their winning beer recipes: Trial with ingredients, taste testing, and tweaking.

The chapter offers 13 recipes ranging from entrees (pepper encrusted filet mignon with stout gravy) to basics (beer batter), salads (white beer and saffron-mango lobster salad) and sides (garlic mashed potatoes) to soups (Belgian beer soup) and even desserts (chocolate stout cake).

“We’ve had a great response already,” Tess said recently. The book is available at Maltose Express, of course, and also on Amazon.com. The Szamatulskis admit they need to work on the distribution end of things and are hoping to get their book into a number of smaller stores as well as some major chains.

“We wanted this book to be something a variety of people can enjoy,” Tess said. “This is for people who brew beer, or who want to start brewing, as well as people who enjoy cooking with beer as much as I always have.”

This weekend, Mark and Tess Szamatulski will be hosting a book signing event where they will be greeting familiar faces and hoping to see a few new ones to celebrate the publication of Beer Captured. The public is welcome to visit the store between 1 and 3 pm on Sunday, February 23.

There will be four or five homebrewed beers on tap, including one keg coming up from New England Brewing Company in South Norwalk. The restaurant has been serving Mark and Tess’ award-winning cloned recipe for Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen, a world-class German beer based on the Marzen/Oktoberfest style, since it won the restaurant’s Brewer’s Cup last May.

In following the layout of the recipe section of Beer Captured, there will also be food to complement the beer choices Sunday afternoon.

Maltose Express is at 391 Main Street/Route 25 in Monroe. Call 452-7332 for additional information.