Cambridge's RaR names beer after famous Ripken card
Whatever legacy Billy Ripken had as a baseball player, most of it has lived on in one profane baseball card.
If you’re an Orioles fan, or a collector, you know this card: No. 616 in the 1989 Fleer series.
In the photo on the card is the lesser-known Ripken, who had a 12-year career in the major league’s, finished with a career batting average of .247 and hit 20 home runs in 2729 at-bats. Ripken, who spent most of his time playing second base with the Orioles from 1987 to 1992, is pictured on the card holding a bat.
Written on the nob of the bat is an expletive, followed by the word “FACE.”
Go ahead. Google it.
But in 2016, that card provided inspiration to a couple of guys from Cambridge who love beer.
On Saturday, June 18, RaR in Cambridge released its newest brew and threw their hat into the sour craft beer ring with “Puck Face” — a dry-hopped Berliner Weisse which measures out to be 3.6 percent alcohol.
Chris Brohawn, the co-owner of the Cambridge-based brewery, had been considering doing a sour beer for a while. Finally, he gave the green light and RaR’s brewmaster Randy Mills went to work to create a lemony, tangy, sweet and refreshing brew.
“Randy and I had kind of been putting off making a sour for a while, because we were scared to bring bacteria into the brewery. If you turn your back while making a sour, the bacteria could effect the rest of your beers. Fortunately for me, Randy is a clean freak. I mean, you can eat off those floors at any time.”
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Mills went to work on a Friday and the beverage soured over the weekend under his careful watch.
The beer just needed a name.
Two weeks before that, Brohawn was having a few beers with RaR’s brewpub’s manager, B.J. Wheatley. A couple of drinks in, the historic 1989 Ripken card became the topic of conversation.
The Tuesday after they began brewing the sour, Brohawn and Wheatley were chatting again while canning RaR’s staple, Nanticoke Nectar, an American-style IPA. While working, Brohawn and Wheatley started brainstorming names: lemonhead, sour lemon, mother-pucker.
Wheatley even threw out “Meet the Puckers.”
“It was all kind of corny,” Wheatley said.
Nothing sounded right. Then a light bulb went off in Brohawn’s head. He thought back to their conversation about the card.
“What about ‘Puck Face’?” he said to Wheatley.
Wheatley looked back and said, “We got it.”
“I already had the gears turning on a design for it,” Wheatley said.
The two laughed for an hour. Brohawn initially thought the name would be too out of style with the themes RaR had previously gone with when naming its beers. Then Brohawn sort of shrugged, turned to Wheatley and said, “Draw it up, man. Let me see what it looks like.”
Three days later, Wheatley returned to Brohawn with a design that looked like it could pass as “Garbage Pail Kids” card. It’s a yellow man with a lemon for a head, lips puckered and sweating. He’s wearing a black, orange and white uniform, sporting the number seven – like Ripken – and holding a bat that says “PUCK FACE” on the knob.
Both beer-lovers are proud owners of the indecent Ripken card. Brohawn said he got his not too long after it made its debut to the public. His dad picked him up one at a card show in Cambridge when Brohawn was a kid.
Since beginning in 2013, Brohawn’s and fellow co-owner J.T. Merryweather’s once small operation has grown and gained popularity in the past few years for brewing beers that are delicious and different.
Perhaps you have heard of their Grapefruit or Habanero Nectar. Puck Face is the latest example of RaR keeping its beers weird, original and tasty.
“We don’t stay into a style or guidelines,” Brohawn said. “We try to push the line a little bit. We’re more about flavor. We don’t really care about the guidelines. We make beers for us and stuff that we like. That’s why we don’t really enter our stuff in any beer contests because it probably wouldn’t fly.”
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In the past year, the big time brewery with a small town charm launched a canning line. The operations for that are housed in a building in Cambridge’s downtown that was a Dodge showroom before the windows were destroyed during a riot in 1963.
RaR distributes Nanticoke Nectar and Groove City - a German-style hefeweizen – all over the Eastern Shore in packs containing 12-ounce cans. 16-ounce cans of other RaR beers are available for purchase at the brew pub.
On Saturday, Cambridge allowed Brohawn to close down Poplar Street to host the “Backyard RAR-BQ.” The impromptu barbeque included live music, food and a release-party for cans of Puck Face, Orange Pulp - a pale ale with layers of orange sherbet, lemon-lime and citrus hard candy that is made without any juice – and Hyde, a double-dry hopped IPA that includes copious amounts of Mosaic and Citra hops.
Being a new beer, Puck Face is only available at RaR’s brewpub in Cambridge, for now.
Brohawn said they sold out of cans at the release party, but anyone seeking the Billy Ripken-inspired beer just needs to pull off of Route 50 and head down Poplar Street for a cold pungent pint.
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