Enthusiast Hopes Historic Beer Recipe Will Lead to Career Change | Tonic

Ever wished you could turn your passion for drinking into a career? To make the shift from “hobby” to “business” all you have to do is generate an income doing what you love. And that’s exactly what 43-year-old financial planner turned home brewer Christopher Bowen plans to do this summer, though not necessarily in the way you might imagine.

This July, Bowen will make a 4,000-mile trek on his BMW motorcycle from his home in Bethlehem, Pa. to the Hudson Bay in the Canadian Arctic to brew 100 gallons of beer using a 158-year-old rare recipe, reports Forbes magazine. Bowen has no intention of selling his beer, but he is shopping a documentary on the process to various cable companies, including the History Channel and A&E.

The idea dates back to 2007 when Bowen watched a bottle of Allsopp’s Arctic Ale from 1852 sell for $500,000 on Ebay, triggering in the beer enthusiast a desire to know more. Turned out the beer was commissioned by Queen Victoria for Sir Edward Belcher’s Arctic expedition of that same year. The beer has a 12 percent alcohol content to resist freezing and is packed with 700 calories to nourish sailors. But when Belcher’s expedition was abandoned after his five ships were stymied by ice, hundreds of bottles of beer were abandoned along with the ships.

According to the American Homebrewers Association, more than 500,000 Americans brew their own beer, reports Forbes. Most aren’t going nearly as far as Bowen to brew their own, and they’re spending a fraction of what he will pay. A basic brew kit with plastic fermenting buckets, an air lock, a bottle capper, yeast and flavoring costs around $75.

Bowen, who is co-owner of Mind’s Eye Resource Management, an asset management firm specializing in the food industry, gets up at 4 a.m. to brew beer before putting in a full day at the office. He’s won more than 50 beer awards, including the ProAm gold medal at the 2007 Great American Beer Festival. He bought a small cottage near his home and transformed it into a private brewery and bar.

Being the self-starter that he is, Bowen also plans to teach himself film production so that he can make a 60-minute documentary about England’s search for a Northwest passage to the Pacific using Allsopp’s Arctic Ale to tell the story. Bowen’s own Arctic journey will be accompanied by two filmmakers and a photographer. The film’s overall budget is $64,000 of which Bowen has pitched in half. He’s hoping donations, T-shirt sales and sponsorships will cover the rest. As a home brewer, he can’t legally sell his beer, but he’ll hand out bottled Allsop’s to help promote the film.

So far, Bowen has met with producers from the History Channel and A&E about his documentary and is discussing a series that would follow him as he hunts down and brews old recipes in historic locations.

“It’s all pie-in-the-sky stuff, but I have some hopes this could be a career change for me,” he tells Forbes.

Sounds like the makings of a reality series to us.

Photo by iLoveButter via Flickr.