Seeing the Light.

What it takes to start a brand-new brewery in craft-beer-crazy Pennsylvania.

Photos by Mark Stehle

The seed that sprouted Prism Brewing Co. was planted at a party. Asked to contribute a batch of his home-brewed beer to friend Tim Bitto's bon voyage, Robert DeMaria spiked a honey malt-heavy grainbill with actual clover honey to produce a unique IPA. "People came up to me all night long to ask where they could buy it," recalls DeMaria. "I made it in honor of my friend, so I named it Bitto Honey."

The 6.6 percent ABV ale is now Prism's staple product, brewed out of Montgomery County's General Lafayette Inn in one or two seven-barrel batches per month. And though his first inspiration came from friends' feedback, DeMaria is relying more on business acumen than crowd-pleasing home-brew recipes to establish a beer company of his own.

As director of enterprise learning strategies and innovation for Merck and a recent recipient of an MBA from University of Phoenix, DeMaria has plenty of experience managing assets and supervising employees. "The difference in your own small business is that you are responsible for every aspect," he says. "But my background and knowledge of this growing market, combined with a leap of faith, made me realize what was possible."

Wholesale accounts like South Philly beer bar Devil's Den heard about Prism through distributor Bella Vista Beverage, and the rate of Prism's keg-only sales has been brisk enough for DeMaria to start growing out of the General Lafayette. (Prism has also been poured at Prohibition Taproom, McGillin's and Grey Lodge.) He recently signed a lease for a wooden-floored, early-20th-century industrial building at 810 Dickerson Road in North Wales, where he plans to install a 20-barrel Diversified Metal Engineering brewhouse (one barrel equals 21 U.S. gallons). "It's a cool building," said DeMaria. "It's where they built the transcontinental cable [phone lines] in the '40s and '50s."

Savvy as he is, you have to wonder if DeMaria is confusing our current economic climate with those post-war boom years. "It's interesting to do this [brewery] during a recession," he said. "The recession hasn't helped big domestic or import macro brewers, but micro is still growing — and typically, micros are more expensive." He's right — according to the national Brewers Association organization, sales of craft beer made by small operations (fewer than 2 million barrels produced per year) increased 10.3 percent in 2009, a year when overall U.S. beer sales fell from 210.4 million barrels to 205.8 million.

Philadelphia's self-proclaimed status as the best beer-drinking city in America both helps and hinders a relative unknown like DeMaria's foray into a demanding market. "We have a huge market of people who enjoy craft beer, and they are well-educated in it," he says. "It's a curse, because you are going up against the best beer in the country. Your brand has to stand up to the best there is. It's an interesting balance."

Prism's mission is twofold: to cultivate the craft market as well as supply it. "You have to find a recipe that can be enjoyed by novice beer drinkers as well as hardcore beer geeks," says DeMaria. "I want to grow the craft market to include people new to craft beer."

Appealing to non-craft drinkers as well as satisfying the brewerati means DeMaria will avoid mimicking beers already on the market. "You won't see me brewing classic styles," he says. "I want to create things you haven't tasted before." Bitto Sweet IPA and Bitto Hop IPA, taste-specific variations on Bitto Honey, are already in research and development. DeMaria says he will employ this technique with his other brands. "Once a recipe is really solid, I'll do offshoots to target specific audiences."

With the limited volume of the General Lafayette brewhouse, new varieties from Prism should be available once the North Wales production brewery is up and running in late summer or early fall of this year. Currently under federal label review is Tea Party Pale Ale, a 5.5 percent ABV beer brewed with 1 pound of English breakfast tea per keg and bittered with rare Sirachi Ace, a super-lemony hop varietal from Japan.

DeMaria the brewer has been likened to a mad scientist in his lab more than once. He's added chives to Belgian-style white beer and nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and maple syrup to a twisted take on an Irish red ale, Red October, which was his first-ever commercial brew. Prism brands to look out for include Insana bacon-chocolate stout, a lightly smoky, cocoa-edged style that DeMaria says has been a huge hit among testers, and Death March porter, an anise-spiced brew commemorating the many births and deaths DeMaria has experienced during that spring month. "The label will read 'death' right-side up," he says. "When you turn the beer over to pour it, it will read 'life.'"

Life, specifically the huge diversity of it that surrounds us, is DeMaria's inspiration for launching Prism, which will require him to manage the demands of a small business while keeping his job at Merck. "I really love the diversity of life and people, as silly as that sounds," he says. "I worked in TV for years, in the studio and as a photojournalist, so I'm a light guy, and I'm a huge Pink Floyd fan. ... The spectrum logo of Prism is representative of all these things."

Visualizing a time, as early as the end of this summer, when Prism Brewing Co. will be a physical reality, DeMaria adds, "We'll play only Pink Floyd every brew day."

(felicia.dambrosio@citypaper.net)

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