Doctor Puts Down Stethoscope, Brews Award-Winning Beers

Craft brew enthusiasts person abandoned each kinds of professions to unfastened their ain breweries. Rarely, though, does a expert time off a aesculapian believe and commencement brewing beer.

Colorado’s Javier Pérez was a physican moving astatine Denver’s VA Hospital until his ain wellness caused him to move careers. He and his woman Jennifer, a schoolhouse counselor, launched Cheluna Brewing successful suburban Aurora successful 2016 and person since been racking up medals for award-winning beers. They won a bronze badge astatine nan Great American Beer Festival successful 2018 and golden and metallic medals astatine nan show 2 months ago.

Pérez worked for much than 2 decades successful emergency medicine but near nan occupation because of deteriorating imagination caused by a illness called Stargardt’s Macular Degeneration.

“My ocular acuity is presently 20/800,” Pérez says. “I americium legally blind. I person nary cardinal vision, and neither curen nor correction is available.”

Pérez grew up successful Los Angeles and fell successful emotion pinch trade brew successful assemblage successful nan mid-1980s.

“I suffered nan low-cost, mass-produced beers that prevailed astatine nan time,” he recalls. “One fateful nighttime aft my rowing squad believe successful Marina del Rey, I ventured into a mini barroom successful Santa Monica pinch my teammates. On draft, location were 2 beers I had ne'er heard of: Anchor Brewing’s Steam Beer and Sierra Nevada’s Pale Ale. That was it — I was ruined for life.”

Another momentous trade brew infinitesimal happened erstwhile Pérez lived successful Berkeley, California, successful 1989. He walked location aft buying groceries astatine a nutrient co-0p and noticed a location brewing proviso shop.

“On that day, I purchased everything required to make Anchor Brewing’s Steam Beer successful my mini apartment,” he says. “My first brewing endeavor resulted successful respective cases of what could only beryllium described arsenic fermented and effervescent yak vomit. It was awful.”

Pérez says, however, he was “undaunted and afloat committed.” He aimed to maestro nan creation of homebrewing, and, “after 28 years of relentless believe and learning, I succeeded.”

Cheluna Brewing’s medals astatine nan Great American Beer Festival attest to that success. During this year’s competition, nan brewery’s Orizaba Cold IPA won a metallic badge successful nan India Pale Lager aliases Cold India Pale Ale category, and Cheluna and Denver’s Prost Brewing jointly won a golden badge for their Luna Nueva Mexican Export Lager successful nan Collab Competition category. At nan 2018 festival, Cheluna’s La Bomba Belgian Blonde won a bronze badge successful nan Pro-Am category.

Pérez is pleased that some of this year’s winning beers are lagers.

“Since our instauration successful 2015, I person been intent connected producing crisp, clean, high-quality German style lagers,” he says. “One logic is my fondness for nan mini German ancestry I possess. My maternal ancestors emigrated from Germany to Mexico successful nan 1800s. A 2nd logic is that Mexico owes its awesome lager contented to nan European influences introduced by Austrian, French and Spanish colonizers.”