A Certain Space — Schilling Beer Company in Littleton, New Hampshire

Of all the beer industry’s marketing speak and trade lingo, of all its buzz phrases and brand jargon, “sense of place” carries the most romanticism. It’s the idea that this can only happen here. And for Schilling Beer Company, it helps that “here” is singular, and spectacular.

In between Mt. Monroe and Mt. Washington, both part of New Hampshire’s Presidential Range, lies a stretch of natural splendor known as the Lakes of the Clouds. Those namesake mountain lakes, or tarns, were formed by glaciers centuries ago. Together, they are the source of the Ammonoosuc River.

A little less than 30 miles due west, the Ammonoosuc passes through Littleton. The village is postcard New England: there’s a covered bridge, old mill buildings, a white church, and a movie theater all outlined against the hemlocks and those mountains in the distance. During my autumn visit, holiday lights line the main drag, lending luster to the newfallen snow. Overlooking this scene from its perch on the northern bank of the river is Schilling. At the brewery’s headquarters, an old grist mill built in 1797, the Ammonoosuc bulges over snow-capped stones before shifting southward to be swallowed by the much larger Connecticut River. 

The brewery is inextricably linked to these surroundings. And they play a direct role in its sensibility, too.

“We wanted to raise our kids doing the things that we enjoy doing, which is being outside, hunting, fishing, hiking, and being able to enjoy four seasons,” says Jeff Cozzens, co-founder and now-former CEO of Schilling. “Even more than that, being able to live in a real community where you could make authentic relationships and, you know, be able to walk down Main Street and see people you knew.”

Jeff pauses to muse on “Gemütlichkeit,” the hard-to-translate German word that rings through Bavaria’s bierhallen. “[I]t’s like this feeling of warm happiness that you get from sitting around Lager beers for a long, long time, hanging out with friends and family that you love. And you remember the environment, you remember the conversation, you add the food, and it’s the sum of the whole experience.”

Simply put, for Schilling, it’s not just about the beer. It’s about crafting classical Lagers, assembling a team of which it can be proud, and inviting drinkers to share a certain space. It’s about evoking that sense of place at every turn.

“You can’t replicate what we have here in this building, in these mountains, on this river,” says Jeff. “It fits our family.” 

THREE MEN AND A BREWERY

If Schilling’s location is undeniably romantic, its origin story is emblematic of the wider craft beer industry. In short: Americans go abroad, have a European beer awakening, and come back home with a hankering to brew themselves.

The three Cozzens brothers—Jeff, Matt, and Stuart—grew up nearly 1,000 miles west of Littleton, in and around Traverse City, Michigan, alongside their family friend John Lenzini. “Jeff’s wife, Jeff, and I all went to high school together,” Lenzini explains. “We played baseball together, played football together. We’re super tight. Aside from my wife, he’s still my closest friend.”

Years of an established Midwestern drinking culture plus time spent in and out of pubs across Europe gave the Cozzens and Lenzini an affinity for low-ABV, well-crafted Lagers. During his senior year at Indiana University, Lenzini traveled abroad to study at the University of Hamburg, and earned degrees in German and chemistry. “As a college kid, beer was more for me than just being enamored with something to help me have a good time,” he says. “Beer was special. [The time in Germany] was really influential to me as a beer drinker.” 

After “chasing his wife” to Purdue University, where she still had a year left of undergrad, Lenzini briefly taught German there before moving back overseas to teach and coach baseball. Meanwhile, after graduating from Wheaton College in Illinois, Jeff spent years working with the Department of Defense in the counterterrorism sector. Stu holds a degree in theology from Hope College, and toyed with the idea of working as a counselor.  

Gradually, the friends and brothers started inching their way towards New England. Jeff had spent his summers with his young family in New Hampshire, which reminded him of Michigan. He could fish and hunt, but importantly could distance himself from the chaos of Washington D.C. In 2006, he made the move permanent. Once settled in Littleton, the eldest Cozzens convinced Stu and Lenzini to join him in New Hampshire’s North Country.

As a new graduate with time on his hands, Stu initially spent his time as an “errand boy” for his brother, who compelled him eastwards on the premise of “an adventure.” “On one of the errands I was on, I picked up a homebrew kit,” says Stu, also a co-founder, and who has recently switched titles to CEO. “I basically spent my time [that summer] fishing and learning how to brew beer.”

When he showed the finished product to Lenzini, the chemist remarked that he could make a better beer than that. Lenzini had homebrewed a bit back at Purdue, “on low-tech equipment with the appropriately mediocre results,” and Stu’s inexperienced fumbling reignited a fire within him.

“I traveled back and forth to Europe,” says Lenzini. “I was spending my time brewing and researching. I sourced German textbooks [on brewing]. So my hobby turned into a passion, and by the time we moved to New England, I had retrofitted a little brewery into my basement.”

By 2012, the group was looking for space to open a brewery. 

On a fishing trip to the Canadian border, armed with fly rods and kegs of homebrew, the three concocted a plan to open Schilling. The name was borrowed from the Cozzens’ maternal grandfather, and while researching their family history, the brothers discovered a fortuitous sign: Their third-great-grandfather Wilhelm Fink had been a brewmaster, at Auerhahn in central Germany. After tying up loose ends, the three men made the leap and purchased their small grist mill on the Ammonoosuc River. 

“We decided to try and make this a reality,” says Jeff. “I wanted a creative foil to the counterterrorism world, but also I wanted something we could develop as a family together. The fact that we found a place we could revitalize and turn into a destination was the cherry on top for us. Stu ran the pizza kitchen, John made the beer, and I ran the bar.” 

A minister slinging pies, a chemist crafting Lagers, and a counterterrorism contractor behind the bar. Action movies have started with less.

TAKING THE SCENIC ROAD

In 2013, New Hampshirites knew more about lakes than classic, continental Lagers—and still probably do. Craft beer took its time to become a community staple in the Granite State, and Schilling was only the 13th New Hampshire craft brewery when it opened (today, there are nearly 100). But success didn’t come overnight. In the brewery’s early days, the “well-meaning people” of Littleton, as Jeff calls them, suggested that it would hardly last six months. 

“There were a lot of nights we’d get home at two or three in the morning and wonder, ‘What are we doing?’” says Jeff. “And you’re watching these people come in and kick your tires, so to speak, and go, ‘Yeah, maybe you’ll make it a year. People up here don’t like craft beer.’”

“Or, ‘Oh, you don’t have an IPA?’” adds Stu.

These were, at the time, fair assessments. In a scene built on hops, extremes, and high ABVs, Schilling’s focus on quieter, lower-alcohol offerings—as exemplified by its flagship Lager, Alexandr—seemed antithetical. 

“There were a lot of nights we’d get home at two or three in the morning and wonder, ‘What are we doing?’ And you’re watching these people come in and kick your tires, so to speak, and go, ‘Yeah, maybe you’ll make it a year. People up here don’t like craft beer.’”

Alexandr, a 5% Czech Pilsner, was born in the basement of Lenzini’s home long before Schilling was founded, and passed through numerous iterations before he was able to source geographically consistent raw materials from the Czech Republic. It’s a full-bodied, bready Lager that “hits all the notes,” Lenzini says.

“Alexandr is easy to drink, but my intention was to make it an interesting beer at such a low ABV,” he says. “The most challenging beers to make are low-ABV Pale Lagers.”

Influenced as he was by his time in Europe, Lenzini also insisted on decocting the beer, something Schilling still does with most of its Lagers. “I have been a huge fan of the nuanced notes that come with decoction,” he says. “It’s the best way of getting some Maillard reactions that are challenging to recreate just via malt selections. Brewing process is so much more efficient, and the end result is something special.”

In hewing to tradition when developing Schilling’s early recipes, Lenzini insisted that the brewery’s varying Lager styles—including Czech Pilsners and Munich Helles—be brewed with the proper ingredients. To wit, a Czech Pilsner would ideally be made with floor-malted Pilsner malt from the Moravian region of the Czech Republic, and a water profile consistent with the area’s. A German Pilsner, if made according to Bavaria’s own ingredients and water sources, would be notably distinct.

“These beers are a product of their regionality, and they exist the way that they do because they used certain hops, because they used water from their region and it had a certain profile that doesn’t happen a couple hundred miles away,” explains Justin Slotnick, Schilling’s production manager. 

The team at Schilling, according to Lenzini, were “gluttons for punishment,” in those early days, enduring unending inquiries about their commitment to these beers. They held onto the conviction that if they offered authentic, high-quality Lagers and presented them well, things would work out for Schilling.

RESILIENCE BECOMES THE MANTRA

It was an uphill struggle to get many hardened locals to care about their Lagers, but Schilling’s founders took that as a sign to keep moving and growing, even while staying true to the brewery’s founding principles. “Those interactions gave birth to one of our company values, which is resilience,” says Jeff.

Indeed, resilience became enough of an ethos at the company to become a brand in itself. In 2016, Schilling introduced an American Ale series under the name Resilience, which became a way for its brewers to experiment with styles beyond Lagers—and to finally make the IPAs customers kept asking for. The series’ name also makes a nod to the (literal) floods and fires endured by the brewery. (In the summer of 2021, an ember from the wood-fired oven set the brewpub’s roof ablaze. The fire was minor, and put out quickly by local firefighters.)

Today, the Resilience series consists mostly of IPAs, but other releases have included styles like Porters, Coffee Stouts, and even a Pub Ale, the brewery’s nod to the English-style Bitter. The line has grown enough that some customers think of it as an entirely different brewery.

“It’s brewed in the same place by the same people,” says Slotnick, attempting to dispel the confusion. Stu insists that the separation of the two entities hasn’t “hurt” the brand, but admits the overall frustration of an internal misstep. 

“We’ve missed out on some of the opportunities to help those who drink these liquids understand the creative talent of our team to be able to produce quality liquids across the spectrum of styles,” he says. 

But it was all in service of keeping Schilling true to its own ethos. The co-founders wanted the Schilling name to remain attached to the brewery’s Old-World-inspired Lagers. The Resilience beers needed to be separate. “There was a clamoring for New England-style IPAs,” says Slotnick. “And New Hampshire is in New England. On-site people wanted those styles, and the brewers wanted to make them, too.”

Lenzini has since stepped away from daily operations while retaining the title of technical director. Today, the brewing is managed by a team that is led in part by Slotnick and by lead brewer Ryan Murphy. Slotnick does everything from scheduling to large projects (like an upcoming barrel-aging effort) to recipe development. Murphy also has a hand in penning recipes while overseeing the production staff. This shared model, and lack of a traditional hierarchy, has helped foster collaboration and trust, the two say.

“It’s been very beneficial,” Murphy says. “There is a lot of shared creativity and shared responsibilities. It makes communication and teamwork absolutely critical.

Part of that communication and teamwork includes ensuring that the beers continue to evolve. While Lagers remain the stalwart, the Schilling crew has a basement room underneath the restaurant that not only overlooks the river, but which now houses a coolship and multiple foeders containing beer that’ll be available beginning sometime this year. Barrels are filled with a couple seasons’ worth of spontaneous beer and mixed-fermentation Farmhouse Ales. Upstairs, “clean” barrels are currently storing Schilling’s first-ever attempt at a barrel-aged Stout.

These developments are a way, Murphy says, to “showcase” Schilling’s take on those styles, as well as cater to a new set of beer drinkers—even if the smaller volumes mean most of these beers won’t be distributed. “It’s not adding a new style to the market, but it lets us play around a little bit and serve those beers to the people who come here,” he says.

THE LOW-ABV REVIVAL

The grist mill that houses Schilling was built in 1797, and is the oldest commercial building north of Concord, the New Hampshire state capital. In the aftermath of an early December dusting of snow, birch wood crackles in the fire pits, giving off a warming glow outside the brewery’s entrance. 

The interior design feels less like a tasting room than a cozy ski lodge, imbued with soft lighting and dark wood. The 17-strong draft menu is dominated by Lagers in the 4-6% ABV range, but I’ve also got my eye on Resilience’s Galaxy-hopped flagship, Combover.  

One building to the east, there is a sleeker structure that houses both the tasting room and the brewhouse. The ceilings are high, the walls white, and the taplist smaller, but you can still grab a side-pour of Alexandr and nestle up by a fire in the winter. In the warmer months, and at both spots, there’s a deck overlooking the river, where fishermen in waders cast their lines for rainbow trout.

Today, Alexandr is the beer most likely to appear on shelves in any of the eight states—New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Virginia, and Michigan (plus Washington DC)—where Schilling is distributed. And while its Resilience IPAs still sell well, there’s an irony in the fact that, nine years after Schilling was told it couldn’t survive on continental Lagers, craft beer drinkers seem increasingly interested in rediscovering them. 

“It’s cool to see the palate of craft beer drinkers moving back. Yes, you can sit there and intensely analyze beers, but then the beer tends to meld into the background and it’s social time.”

“It’s funny because it’s been a long time coming, but [Lagers are] the most popular beer style in the world,” says Slotnick. “So many people look at it as going backwards, but it’s like, no, the craft beer movement is just getting to our full potential. This is an amazing style of beer that should be enjoyed.”

Drinkers, long of the complaint that “all Lagers taste the same,” now seem more attuned to differences between German and Czech Pilsners, and are more likely to have a preference between styles like Helles and Dunkels. Breweries like Schilling are part of the reason “Lager” no longer denotes a simple palate-cleanser in between rounds of IPAs for many drinkers.  

“It’s cool to see the palate of craft beer drinkers moving back,” adds Lenzini. “Yes, you can sit there and intensely analyze beers, but then the beer tends to meld into the background and it’s social time.” That’s perhaps the greatest strength of Schilling’s Lagers: They’re well suited to longer drinking sessions, ideal for forging relationships over.

Duluth, Georgia’s Good Word Brewing linked up with Schilling at the 2019 Little Beer Fest, an annual beer festival that celebrates, well, little beers. Good Word’s owner and brewer Todd DiMatteo challenged participating breweries to bring two beers: one Pale Lager and another beer which had to be under 5% ABV. In turn Jeff, who’d made the trek from New Hampshire to Georgia, made an indirect challenge to DiMatteo: give decoction a try.

“Sometimes the very hard things do make the beer better,” DiMatteo says. “[Jeff] inspired us to do any little thing we can do to make our beer that much better.”

The embedded lesson is that while many collaborations feel marketing-driven, some are born out of a shared mindset of mutual admiration and interests. Schilling has found collaboration partners in breweries the likes of New York’s Other Half Brewing Company and Threes Brewing, Oxbow Brewing Company in Maine, and Good Word.

“The people are always truly important [to these collaborations],” says DiMatteo. “At Schilling, the people are great. If you’re in that area, go. They’re making world-class small beer … For a while they weren’t getting the attention outside their small area, but the word has gotten out. And they deserve all the love.”

Small beers as the future of craft beer seems antithetical to everything the extreme era of craft beer evangelized. But as Schilling looks to its future—a new site for events, more tanks, more wood, and an expanding profile—there’s a seismic shift happening above.

POLITICS AS USUAL

Jeff Cozzens recently stepped down as CEO of Schilling Beer Company. In October 2021, he declared his candidacy for New Hampshire’s 2nd District U.S. House seat. He is running as a Republican against five-term incumbent Democrat Annie Kuster.

In our initial conversations, the topic of the Congressional run came up, but Jeff declined to discuss it in detail. Later, I asked for more information about how he’s juggling his newfound entry into politics with his role at the brewery. His campaign literature mentions Schilling many times, which suggests the brewery is as much a part of his personal journey as he is a part of Schilling’s story.

According to the campaign website, his chief concerns are with Washington D.C.’s disconnect with the residents of New Hampshire, and dissatisfaction with the current administration. In our initial interaction, he cited his interest in running for office as reflecting his “perspective both as a national security professional, as well as an entrepreneur.” 

Jeff previously served as the president of the New Hampshire Brewers Association, and I wondered what role he would play, if elected, in pushing for legislation that would benefit craft breweries. What had his role as a small business owner taught him? In a follow-up, Jeff wrote, “We need to get a handle on supply chain issues that hold back planning and production across the board; reign [SIC] in inflation that impacts all levels of brewery operations and growth; and streamline obsolete federal requirements that the industry has put up with for far too long.”

I also asked what role he would play in writing legislation that could benefit his family business. It’s far from unprecedented that a small business owner enter politics to improve the conditions for their respective industry—politicians do this all the time. He did not address this inquiry. 

His campaign comes at a charged, and polarizing, moment. More than ever, consumers say they care about the politics of the businesses they patronize. A recent study in the Harvard Business Review of 168 managers across multiple industries found that respondents tended to view “conservative” activities from businesses, like supporting gun rights (which Jeff references on his website), as a reason to not only stop buying their products (25.9%) but to begin buying competitors’ products (25.3%). 

According to the study, “Participants who were told the company had conservative values viewed it in a significantly worse light. Their opinion … dropped 33%. The company was not only seen as less committed to social responsibility and its community, but also as less profitable.”

That tension is particularly relevant in craft beer, which has historically talked about itself in progressive terms. Even a map of craft consumer geography heavily correlates with areas that typically vote blue in elections. In Graton County, where Schilling is situated, voters went for President Joe Biden by a significant margin (61.5% to 36.9%). Kuster’s 2nd District win was just slightly smaller (53.9% to 43.7%). Is Jeff, I wondered, concerned about the possibility of alienating a significant percentage of his customers? 

Again, this was a question the co-founder and former CEO did not answer. Stu, Schilling’s new CEO, did reply on his brother’s behalf. He noted that Schilling “has a history of hosting events for both parties,” and referenced visits by 2020 presidential candidates Andrew Yang, Amy Klobuchar, and Cory Booker.

“Schilling isn’t about politics and none of its leaders are interested in supporting a political party or candidate on behalf of Schilling,” he continued. “The Schilling family (our owners, management and staff) comprises people from many different religious and socio-political beliefs, united by the desire to produce and deliver world-class beer. This quest to make world-class beer is what binds us together, and always will.” 

In many ways, this tension is emblematic of New Hampshire as a whole. Amidst the growing polarization of a red-blue binary, the state is as purple as purple can be. While its four electoral votes have gone blue in the last four presidential elections, it’s generally been by the thinnest of margins (the last three cycles have been decided by an average of 4.4 percentage points). New Hampshire’s governor is a Republican, but both its Senators and its Representatives are Democrats. Republicans hold the majority in the state’s Senate, House of Representatives, and Executive Council.

Jeff is now the former CEO at Schilling, but he’s still the co-founder. He and the company seem conflicted on how much of a line to draw between his politics and the company—at times intentionally distancing the two and at other times making explicit connections. On Super Bowl Sunday, Jeff appeared on the Instagram feed of Republican Governor Chris Sununu, smiling on the campaign trail, fishing rod in his right hand and a can of Schilling—label facing the camera—in his left. 

SENTIMENTALITY TRUMPS SPECIFICS

One of the elements of our culture that has been most impacted by the pandemic is the very banal experience of having a beer with other people. I don’t mean “banal” in a pejorative sense, or that we do it solely as part of the social contract we sign when we are of legal drinking age.

But there is a friendly banality in drinking with friends or strangers. A pint at a pub leads to the group camaraderie of rooting for a favorite team, empathy cast upon a shared sorrow, or a simple retreat from the obligations of reality. These were stripped from us by the pandemic, and still don’t feel the same. 

“It’s the memories that we serve, because people are coming here on their vacations and they just got done, like, conquering that last mountain on their list. And they’re coming here as the pinnacle of their experience. And so there’s a deeper meaning than just having a great beer and a, you know, a pizza pie or something.”

Those present-tense considerations feel like an animating force at Schilling. “It’s the memories that we serve, because people are coming here on their vacations and they just got done, like, conquering that last mountain on their list,” says Stu. “And they’re coming here as the pinnacle of their experience. And so there’s a deeper meaning than just having a great beer and a, you know, a pizza pie or something.”

In other words, sentimentality often trumps specifics. We may not remember the climb, but we remember the view at the summit. We may not recall the name of the Czech Dark Lager, but we remember how it made us feel. We don’t remember the joke, but we remember the laughter of the people at the table. 

“It’s great that Lagers have begun to take off, but there’s also part of me that doesn’t care,” says Stu. “This is what we have done for the past eight years. There’s a reason these kinds of styles have been around for centuries … It has something to do with a little bit of that community, that experience of having a few liters underneath that chestnut tree in Bavaria, or being able to have more than just one without falling off of your stool.”

There’s a shared experience inherent to a drinking session, particularly with a pint of a Pilsner or other low-ABV Lager. These beers enhance an experience by easily intermingling with both what’s on the table and who is sitting around it.

“They pair with food so well, but they pair with people even better,” says Jeff.

Words by Matt Osgood
Photos by Mike Lianza