Emily Hays Photos
Alisa Bowens-Mercado (above) at launch of her new beer (below).
Tashawna Peete does not usually drink beer. But as she sat with her wife-to-be, Kim Jenkins, at Te Amo Tequila Bar & Tacos on Temple Street on Saturday, she decided the brand new Rhythm Blue might be her go-to lager.
The occasion was an unveiling party for a new brew from New Haven’s salsa-maven-turned-lager-entrepeneur Alisa Bowens-Mercado. The point was to give it a try.
“I love it because it’s not — what’s that flavor in beers? —malty,” said Peete (at left in above photo with her partner). “It’s really smooth.”
Smooth, easy to love, a novelty in the craft beer industry — those descriptors could also apply to Rhythm Blue’s creator, Alisa Bowens-Mercado.
Bowens-Mercado (pictured) is a famed New Haven salsa instructor, as well as the first African-American brewer in Connecticut. She said that female brewers of color are so rare that when she walks into a restaurant or a bar as the owner of Rhythm Brewing Co, people often assume she is selling wine.
“I’m diversifying the tastes of America,” Bowens-Mercado told the crowd of friends and fans assembled at Te Amo Tequila to celebrate the launch of Rhythm Blue her second, lower calorie beer.
Saturday was her birthday, the same date she launched her first beer, Rhythm Lager, two years ago.
Arts and start-up consultant Elinor Slomba, founder of Verge Arts Group, had arranged a blind taste test of the two varieties with local celebrities. One such celebrity was Glen McDermott, executive director of Connecticut’s Conscious Capitalism chapter, which provides leadership training for entrepreneurs.
McDermott met Bowens-Mercado for the first time Saturday afternoon. He said she runs precisely the kind of business he had been looking to support to see a more equitable distribution of wealth and jobs.
“We’re here to disrupt all the white guys making beer. It’s also up to white guys like me to do something about it,” he said.
The tasters deemed their first cup more citrus‑y. (“There’s a tang to it,” taster Giulia Gouge said.) The second was still full of flavor but smoother. Three out of four tasters guessed correctly that the first was Bowens-Mercado’s flagship lager and the second was the Blue.
Gouge said she likes both beers. Gouge is a social media professional and co-founder of the consulting agency Agents of Branding. She did not go into the taste test quite blind, because she has sipped Rhythm Lager on many occasions.
“I think I would have the original on a hot day and the Blue at night,” she said.
The tester least sure of her beer tastes was New Haven Museum Executive Director Margaret Anne Tockarshewsky (pictured). The museum focuses on innovation in the Elm City.
“Generally I don’t drink, but the opportunity to taste history in the making was a strong pull,” Tockarshewsky said.
Tockarshewsky is also hoping to preserve that history in the museum. After the test, she asked whether Bowens-Mercado would want to contribute some of the artifacts of her launch process to the museum, whether that involves cans, documents or marketing materials.
As soon as the announcements were over, Bowens-Mercado told DJ D Latino to turn up the dance music.
DJ D Latino knows her well. His real name is Danny Velasco, and he spins at Te Amo Tequila on Thursday and Saturday nights. Those Thursday nights, Bowens-Mercado teaches salsa.
“During the day is beer time, and the night is salsa,” Bowens-Mercado said. She keeps both her glitter stilettos for salsa and her Rhythm Brewing Co. T‑shirts and sneakers in her car.
Saturday afternoon was both beer and salsa time. She called the party attendees onto the dance floor for an impromptu salsa class.
“You’ve got a little Rhythm in you now,” she joked.
Bowens-Mercado’s husband John Mercado said that she has this much energy all the time. He said she gets it from her parents, who are small business owners as well.
Eleni and James Piazza danced at the back of the crowd. They have taken Bowens-Mercado’s salsa classes off and on since the summer of 2012.
“I’m shy about dancing,” James Piazza said. “Alisa makes you feel comfortable, like you’ve known her for 20 years.”
Lately, they’ve bonded more over beer than over salsa. The last two years, Bowens-Mercado has been a vendor at the couple’s annual Notre Dame Bacon and BrewFest. This June 13 will be her third year at the festival, which raises money for Notre Dame High School in Fairfield. (The Piazzas are alumni.)
James was drinking the Rhythm Lager; Eleni was drinking the Blue. Eleni said that she likes the smoothness of the Blue better than India Pale Ales. IPAs dominate the craft brewery scene.
“I’m normally a Corona drinker. IPAs are too strong for me,” she said.
One of the five Rhythm Brewing Co. employees, Lisa Whidbee, stepped around the dancers and drinkers to take pictures of the event.
Whidbee first heard about Bowens-Mercado and her foray into the beer industry on TV. Shortly after, Whidbee and her partner Nancy Diaz found themselves talking to a kind gentleman in a bar, who turned out to be Bowens-Mercado’s father, William Bowens.
William Bowens gave Whidbee his daughter’s number. Whidbee was skeptical that anything would come of it — “She doesn’t know me from a can of paint” — but Whidbee eventually won the brewer’s trust enough to handle branding for the burgeoning company.
She is passionate about the Rhythm Brewing project partially because her own mother was the first African-American woman on her hometown’s police force. She came to understand only later what that meant for her mother and why she did not respond to her children’s barrage of “Mom! Mom! Mom!” when she got home.
Whidbee said that her mother needed to detox from what she endured at work, like having the n‑word written on her locker.
“She was taking a good-paying job from a white,” Whidbee explained.
Whidbee (second from left above) saw her mother pave the way for more diversity. She inspired one of Whidbee’s classmates to become a police officer. This classmate had grown up “in the projects”, Whidbee said, and had not realized the police force was a potential place for him.
Bowens-Mercado hopes to pave the way for new faces in her own industry.
When pulled aside for a quick interview, Bowens-Mercado said that she does not have six-month or five-year goals but “now goals.” This includes the need to have more women and people of color in the craft beer scene now, she said.
Another goal is to find a national distributor for her beers, beyond her statewide distributors (and elementary school classmates) Dichello Distributors. The demand is already there, she told the Independent.
“People are calling from all over, from all walks of life. Even diehard beer snobs love the taste,” Bowens-Mercado said.
Fans include the A‑lister Wale, who featured a Rhythm Brewing can in one of his music videos.
Te Amo Tequila restaurant owner Sonia Salazar cast a watchful eye over both the launch party and her other customers as the dinner crowd started to file in. Salazar has known Bowens-Mercado since taking one of her dance classes in 2006.
Salazar confirmed that the Rhythm Lager has been in high demand. Both beers were on tap on Saturday.
“It goes well with our tacos. Everybody asks for it,” she said.